Giffords to attend Pentagon ship-naming ceremony Friday

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and the mother of the 9-year-old girl who was killed at last year’s Tucson, Ariz., shooting will attend a ship-naming ceremony Friday.

Former Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), who was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee from 2007 to 2011, will also be in attendance.

Giffords will also be going to the White House on Friday, when President Obama will sign the last piece of legislation she proposed into law.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus will host the ship-naming ceremony at the Pentagon.

Giffords will be joined at the ceremony by Roxanna Green, the mother of Christina Taylor-Green, who was shot and killed in the shooting rampage at a Tucson constituent event held by Giffords in January 2011.

Giffords is still recovering from being shot in the head in the shooting. She announced last month she was resigning from Congress, and one of her aides who was injured in the shooting is now running to take her place.

The Navy has not announced what the ship, its newest littoral combat ship (LCS), will be called. A Navy spokeswoman said she could not elaborate about whether Giffords’s and Green’s attendance was tied to the ship’s name.

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