Hegseth reveals covert visit to troops fighting in Operation Epic Fury

War Secretary Pete Hegseth opened a Pentagon news conference Tuesday detailing a covert visit to troops fighting in Operation Epic Fury, noting America's service men and women are ramping up "wartime speed" and the only thing they need to see from U.S. leadership is "more bombs."

"To a man and to a woman on the ground, in the air, on the flight line, and in the TOC [technical operations center] I heard, ‘We want everything faster, higher up-tempo, wartime, speed,’" Hegseth said, detailing how the U.S. leadership "walked up at sunset with the chill in the air on the flight line."

Hegseth recounted his "firsthand" visits with American troops in live action "theater" at CENTCOM in the Middle East, hailing the "American warrior unleashed" behind President Donald Trump's objective to ensure Iran "will never have a nuclear weapon."

"I spoke to all ranks and all services, none of whom knew we were coming," he said. "It was not rehearsed or scripted. Sometimes we just wandered. What I witnessed was motivation. It was sheer mission focus. It was the American warrior unleashed."

Hegseth ticked off more observations of "urgency" – both "to finish the job" and "to achieve mission success."

"I witnessed lethality," he added. "I met a junior airman, as the sun was going down and a chill was setting on the tarmac, who, when asked what they needed, she simply looked up at me with a sly smile on her face and said, ‘more bombs, sir, and bigger bombs.’

"We will happily oblige her."

The speed left Hegseth marveling, but the resolve left him proud, he said.

"'Please thank the president from us': I heard that time and time again," Hegseth said. "I asked each young American, ‘What do you need?’ And nobody said better equipment. Nobody said more comfortable living conditions. Nobody said, ‘Send me home.’"

"Well, of course, eventually we want all those things; they do too," Hegseth acknowledged. "But what those Americans said to me, young and old, officer and NCO, male and female, Black and White, was: 'Let's finish the mission. Get us even more bombs. Bigger bombs, more targets. Let us finish this.'"

Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine spoke to just that, hailing the speed of "these great Americans" feeding the "national industrial base."

"Today, I want to recognize a group of Americans who live at the beginning of our nation's combat power, the Americans who actually make our weapons both inside our defense industrial base, but even more broadly inside our national industrial base," Caine said in his opening remarks at the news conference. 

"In every military option, we could not and cannot do our jobs without the men and women across our country who show up every day around the clock to a factory floor, a workshop, a laboratory, who build the weapons and capabilities we need to project American combat power at the time and place of our choosing," he said.

Ultimately, Hegseth said, the American military will is setting the pace and fate in the Middle East.

"As President Trump has said time and time again for years, and in this administration, Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, and they won't," Hegseth said. "These troops, they want to finish this fight for their kids and their grandkids. This is about history. This is about legacy. Success matters. And because of this president and these Americans, we're closer than ever before to winning.

"President Trump is doing what no other president had the guts to do. Previous presidents were all talk. He's all action on the battlefield because of the latitude the president has given us. American firepower is only increasing. Iran's decreasing. We have more and more options, and they have less. Just one month, in only one month, we set the terms."

The latest deadline for Iran to come to Trump's terms for peace is halfway to the 10-day pause on strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure, and Hegseth pushed the peace through strength mantra, urging Iran to come to heel.

"If Iran is wise, they will cut a deal," Hegseth said. "President Trump doesn't bluff and he does not back down. You can ask Khamenei about that. The new Iranian regime should know that by now. This new regime, because regime change has occurred, should be wiser than the last. 

"President Trump will make a deal. He is willing, and the terms of the deal are known to them.

"If Iran is not willing, then the United States War Department will continue with even more intensity."

Hegseth, under scrutiny by critical media for bringing God and prayer to war messaging, finished with more praise for the "American warriors" and God.

"Standing here this morning in this briefing room, in my mind's eye, I'm actually looking out at the groups I met this weekend: The pilots, the logistics options, the intel analysts, the fighters, the sustainers, the flight crews, the air defenders, the base security, those maintainers," he said. 

"May God watch over all of them each day and each night. May his almighty and eternal arms of providence stretch over them and protect them, and bring them peace in the name of Jesus Christ and Amen."