First lady Melania Trump thanks Marines, military at Camp Lejeune, New River

Josh Shaffer, The News & Observer (Raleigh) on Nov 19, 2025

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RALEIGH, N.C. — First lady Melania Trump thanked roughly 1,500 Marines, sailors and airmen for their service Wednesday as Thanksgiving approaches, a greeting she offered after a visit to an on-base kindergarten, where the children wore ribbons for parents deployed overseas.

Trump spoke inside a hangar at Marine Corps Air Station New River, where the crowd of mostly Marines cheered when she and second lady Usha Vance saluted their sacrifice.

“To every service member, thank you for your steady watch,” Trump said. “As we celebrate Thanksgiving, let us remember the things that bring us together: a shared loved of country, our faith in one another.”

As they rode around Jacksonville in a long motorcade, Trump and Vance passed cotton fields, chicken houses and military surplus stores. Outside all of them, people stopped to wave at the row of black Chevy Suburbans.

Shortly before her speech at the hangar, Trump and Vance toured a pair of on-base schools, starting with an advanced-placement class at Lejeune High School and finishing at DeLalio Elementary at New River, where the first lady squatted down to help a kindergartner cut a piece of construction paper.

Crouched to the ground, Trump hugged a kindergartner who confessed being shy.

“Don’t be shy ... ” she said, smiling.

When they finished hugging, a second kindergartner told the First Lady she greatly feared snakes.

“Snakes can be dangerous,” Trump agreed.

Later, in the DeLalio auditorium, Trump and Vance watched the third- to fifth-graders make turkeys from feathers and glue. Roughly two at every table wore a tri-colored ribbon pinned to their shirts or the sleeves of their hoodies, meaning at least one parent is deployed for the holiday.

‘These moments matter’

As he introduced FLOTUS and SLOTUS in the hangar, Brig. Gen. Ralph Rizzo said 34% of Marines are now deployed in “harm’s way,” and he thanked the Lejeune students for preparing 2,000 care packages.

“These moments matter,” Rizzo said, “because they show our families that their services and sacrifices are seen.”

In the Lejeune gym, with the boxes of snacks on display, Trump posed for pictures with the entire student body, three rows them dressed in J-ROTC fatigues.

“Your military families are handling our nation’s defense,” she said. “My husband, the president, is sending best regards. We are both thinking of you. You are in our thoughts and prayers every day, but especially the holidays.”

In the AP class, Trump and Vance took seats among students involved in the Presidential AI Challenge, which aims to spark interest and proficiency in artificial intelligence among youth.

Later, in the hangar, she told service members that autonomous helicopters and swarming drones have already arrived in modern warfare, and that fighter-less jets and autonomous bombers are close behind.

“Technology is changing the art of war,” she said, adding, “We are moving from human operators to human overseers.”

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