Big Horn, the twelfth ship of the Henry J. Kaiser class, was laid down at Avondale Shipyard, Inc., at New Orleans, Louisiana, on 9 October 1989 and launched on 2 February 1991.

During Operation Unified Response, Big Horn transferred 618 pallets of cargo and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief supplies and over 2,000,000 US gal (7,600,000 L) of fuel.

Big Horn got underway from Naval Station Norfolk the day after the earthquake struck, arrived on scene in Haiti on 17 January and worked until being relieved by USNS Leroy Grumman on 11 February.

The incident strained American logistics within the fleet amid rising tensions due to Israeli–Hezbollah conflict as she was the only oiler in the region.

She was quickly brought into a local port, and no casualties or oil spills were reported; images showing flooding were released.