[20] Lewis B. Puller and Hershel "Woody" Williams serve as expeditionary mobile bases to support low-intensity missions.

This allows more expensive, high-value amphibious warfare ships and surface combatant warships to be re-tasked for more demanding operational missions for the U.S.

[12] Lewis B. Puller was initially operated by the Military Sealift Command with the prefix "USNS" and a crew of Department of the Navy civilian mariners.

[21][22][23] Lewis B. Puller is the first non-combatant ship equipped with the Navy's N-30 class passive fire protection system.

The F-35B STOVL strike fighter does not fly from ESBs because its exhaust heat might damage the deck, Captain Henry Stevens, the head of NAVSEA's Strategic and Theater Sealift program, said on 16 January 2014.

[3] The keel-laying ceremony for Lewis B. Puller took place at the General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, California, on 5 November 2013.

[1][12][27] Mrs. Glueck welded her initials onto a steel plate that will be permanently affixed to the ship, remaining a part of Lewis B. Puller throughout her service life.

[9][28] Lewis B. Puller set sail from San Diego to Norfolk via Cape Horn, arriving 13 October 2015 to begin her testing and evaluation phase.

[29] On 14 January 2016, the Secretary of the Navy announced that Lewis B. Puller's sister-ship would be named Hershel "Woody" Williams during a ceremony in Charleston, West Virginia.

The change was required by the Law of Armed Conflict, which says that only a warship may do certain activities, such as mine-countermeasures and special operations staging.

[10] Lewis B. Puller trained with the America amphibious ready group (ARG), during the military exercise Alligator Dagger 2017 to explore the potential of the ESB platform to support such operations.

[33] In March 2020, U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters conducted deck landing qualifications with Lewis B. Puller.