USS Ashland (LSD-48) bears the name of the Kentucky hometown of Henry Clay — "The Great Compromiser" — one of America's most consequential statesmen. A Whidbey Island-class landing ship dock commissioned March 9, 1991, Ashland has spent much of her career homeported in Sasebo, Japan as a forward-deployed member of the 7th Fleet. From her massive well deck, she launches landing craft and amphibious assault vehicles to put Marines on contested shores across the Pacific and Indian Ocean theaters. Through exercises with allies from South Korea to Australia, through crisis response and humanitarian missions from the Philippines to the Persian Gulf, USS Ashland has been America's enduring forward commitment to the Indo-Pacific. Her crew carries the ship and the name with the same determination that made Henry Clay one of the most respected figures in American public life.