OAN Staff Katherine Mosack and Brooke Mallory
3:01 PM – Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Vice President JD Vance, Second Lady Usha Vance, and their three children visited Fort Campbell, a large Army base straddling the Kentucky-Tennessee border, on Wednesday — serving an early Thanksgiving feast to service members and their families.
At the Warrior Restaurant dining facility on post, the meal included traditional Thanksgiving dishes like turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, and a turkey-shaped cake.
Vance, a Marine Corps veteran, could be seen greeting soldiers, thanking them for their service, posing for photos, and delivering remarks afterward — boosting morale among troops from units like the 101st Airborne Division and 5th Special Forces Group.
Meanwhile, the Wednesday occasion aligns with broader Trump administration efforts to further support U.S. military families and service members, following a recent joint visit by First Lady Melania Trump and Second Lady Usha Vance to bases in North Carolina.
Long before the motorcade rolled onto Fort Campbell, soldiers were already crowding the Warrior Restaurant, buzzing with anticipation. The dining hall had been transformed into an autumn tableau –tables draped in orange and brown linens, paper leaves strung from the rafters, miniature pumpkins and cheerful scarecrow centerpieces at every station.
When the “Second Family” finally stepped through the doors in crisp civilian clothes and rolled-up sleeves, the room erupted in warm applause. The family moved down the serving line with smiles, piling turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce onto trays while trading jokes and handshakes with the troops.
JD lingered at each station to thank soldiers by name and ask about their units, and Usha and the kids kept the line moving efficiently, with daughter Mirabel and son Vivek proudly handing out dinner rolls.
For the Air Assault Soldiers of the 101st Airborne and the Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group, it wasn’t just a free early Thanksgiving dinner — it was a special moment of appreciation from the nation’s second-highest office, served up with second helpings and family-style warmth.
Vance delivered remarks to service members in the early afternoon, around 2 p.m. local time, after the Thanksgiving feast.
Speaking to troops, Vance also struck a tone of profound gratitude, telling the men and women that they are the sword and shield of the United States — his voice carrying through the packed auditorium as soldiers sat rapt in rows of folding chairs.
Drawing on his own experience as a Marine combat veteran in Iraq, he shared a personal anecdote about the quiet professionalism that binds warriors across generations, pausing to acknowledge a young paratrooper’s recent deployment to Eastern Europe. The speech, which ran about 15 minutes, also touched on a breaking news story-turned national tragedy — a shooting that occured in Washington, D.C., that morning — framing it as a “somber reminder” of the sacrifices made far from home, without delving into politics.
Additionally, during a meeting with Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, Vance’s office confirmed a private sit-down during the visit, away from the public eye and the cameras. The two Yale Law School classmates and longtime friends — Driscoll, 38, served as a senior adviser on Vance’s 2024 campaign — huddled for roughly 45 minutes in a secure conference room on base, sources close to the vice president’s team said.
While details remain under wraps, the timing couldn’t be more crucial. Driscoll, fresh off a whirlwind diplomatic sprint, had just wrapped preliminary talks in the UAE with Russian envoys on Monday and Tuesday, building on his high-stakes Kyiv trip earlier in November where he presented President Trump’s cease-fire blueprint directly to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
After everything was done, Vance stuck around for a while, shaking hands and taking more pictures with the soldiers.
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