The U.S. Navy commissioned on Saturday a new warship named for Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who was severely injured in a 2011 shooting.

In a commissioning ceremony in Galveston, Texas, a roster of high-profile politicians, including Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonFox News poll: Biden ahead of Trump in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Ohio Trump, Biden court Black business owners in final election sprint The power of incumbency: How Trump is using the Oval Office to win reelection MORE and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), offered high praise for Giffords, saying that the ship's resilience would mirror that of the former representative.

"Let us never forget it is that spirit and our values that keep us going year after year, and that's why it is so fitting that this new, dynamic, extraordinary ship be named – named for the former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords," Clinton said.

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Giffords took the stage alongside her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, who was in the Navy himself. The former Arizona representative told the ship's crew that she thought of service members when she was recovering from her injuries.

"This is an incredible honor. The U.S.S. Gabrielle Giffords is strong and tough, just like her crew," Giffords said at the ceremony. "I thought of you in my darkest days – the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of the United States of America."

"We ask so much of you. Despite danger, you say yes. You make me proud, you make America proud," she added.

The U.S.S. Gabrielle Giffords is an independence-class littoral combat ship first launched in 2015. It will be based in San Diego.