First lady Melania Trump used a military visit to North Carolina to deliver a rambling message linking love letters to patriotism.
At Fort Bragg and Pope Army Airfield on Friday, Melania addressed troops and their families, telling them she had a holiday greeting for service members around the globe.
“To our great armed forces of the United States stationed all over the world, I have a nostalgia-filled message: Happy Valentine’s Day,” she said.
President Donald Trump and wife Melania visit the Fort Bragg U.S. Army base on Feb. 13, 2026. Nathan Howard/Getty Images
The choice of “nostalgia”—a word that implies wistful longing for something lost—made the greeting sound less like a celebration of love and more like a tribute to a bygone era.
Rather than invoking romance, she framed the holiday as a reflection on centuries of wartime correspondence.
“Love letters have symbolized the union of patriotism and family devotion among our soldiers for 250 years,” she said.
“The harmony of love of country and love of family is what makes us uniquely American.”
At a ceremony honoring a recent special forces raid, the first lady turned Valentine’s Day into a 250-year civics lesson—an odd pivot for a holiday usually associated with flowers and romance, not founding-era nostalgia.
The sentimental framing came during a visit the day before Valentine’s Day, but was not centered on the holiday at all.
She and President Donald Trump were there to honor members of the United States Army Special Forces who took part in the January operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the United States to face drug-smuggling and related charges.
President Donald Trump dances alongside First Lady Melania Trump after delivering remarks to members of the military and their families at Fort Bragg on Feb. 13, 2026. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
After concluding her Valentine-themed introduction, Melania handed the stage to her husband.
During his remarks, Trump praised the troops involved in the raid, telling soldiers and their families that the operation showed “the full military might” of the United States.
“We have the best warriors in the world,” Trump said, assuring service members that “your commander in chief supports you totally.”
But the speech quickly shifted into campaign-style territory. Sharing the stage with Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley, Trump urged those in uniform to back the GOP in the midterms.
“You have to vote for us,” Trump told the crowd, citing his decision to restore the Fort Bragg name after Congress had ordered bases honoring Confederate officers to be renamed.
“If we don’t win the midterms, they’ll take it off again. They’ll take it off again. You can’t let that happen.”
An evening that began with a civics-style meditation on wartime romance ended in similarly surreal fashion—with speakers blaring the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A” and the president and first lady lingering on stage as attendees danced, transforming a ceremony honoring a high-risk military operation into something closer to a Trump rally with a Valentine’s twist.
