(U.S. Department of War Transcript, March 19, 2026)
SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: Good morning. Yesterday at Dover Air Force Base, President Trump, the chairman and I stood in solemn silence as heroes came home. Flag-draped caskets, we honored them. We grieved with their families and we listened. What I heard through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve was the same from family after family.
They said, finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done. My response, along with that of the president, was simple, of course we will finish this. We will honor their sacrifice. Their sacrifice only steels [ph] our commitment. I wear this bracelet, Staff Sergeant Jorge Oliveira.
He was one of my sergeants — or one of my specialists in Guantanamo Bay. He deployed later to Afghanistan, where he was killed on 19th October, 2011, killed 10 years after 9/11 15 years ago. He was one of the one percent, the best of America, not just a guardsman, but a law enforcement officer back home and a family man.
I remember him every day, just like so many other men and women of our generation and previous generations who wear bracelets like this. Just as we will always remember those lost in this conflict. Their names are now – are now etched into our mission and into the soul of a grateful nation. I stand here today speaking to you, the American people, not through filters, not through reporters, not through cable news spin.
A dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing, we know this at this point, to downplay progress, amplify every cost and call into question every step. Sadly, TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail, but you, the American people, know better.
Yes, there are reporters in front of me, but they are not our audience today. It’s you, the good, decent, patriotic American people; you, the hardworking, tax paying, God-fearing American patriots. The media here, not all of it, but much of it wants you to think just 19 days into this conflict that we’re somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or a quagmire.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Hear it from me, one of hundreds of thousands who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, who watched previous foolish politicians like Bush, Obama and Biden, squander American credibility. This is not those wars. President Trump knows better. Epic Fury is different. It’s laser-focused.
It’s decisive. Our objectives, given directly from our America first president remain exactly what they were on day one. These are not the media’s objectives, not Iran’s objectives, not new objectives, our objectives, unchanged, on target and on plan, destroy missiles, launchers and Iran’s defense industrial base so they cannot rebuild, destroy their navy and Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, our objectives from day one.
To the patriotic members of the press, nobody can deliver perfection in wartime. This building knows that more than anyone, but report the reality. We’re winning decisively and on our terms. Iran is a vast country. And just like Hamas and their tunnels, they’ve poured any aid, any economic development, humanitarian aid into tunnels and rockets.
That’s what they did with Hamas. Iran has funneled decades of state resources not to their people but into missiles and drones and proxies and buried facilities. But we are hunting them down methodically, ruthlessly and overwhelmingly, like no other military in the world can do, and the results speak for themselves.
To date, we’ve struck over 7,000 targets across Iran and its military infrastructure. That is not incremental, that is overwhelming force applied with precision. And again, today, will be the largest strike package yet, just like yesterday was. As I’ve said from day one, our capabilities continue to build, Iran’s continue to degrade.
We’re hunting and striking death and destruction from above. Iran’s air defenses, flattened. Iran’s defense industrial base, the factories, the production lines that feed their missile and drone programs, being overwhelmingly destroyed. We’ve hit hundreds of their defense industrial bases directly.
Their ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles has probably taken the hardest hit of all. Ballistic missile attacks against our forces, down 90 percent since the start of the conflict, same with one way attack UAVs, think kamikaze drones, down 90 percent. Now the Iranians will still shoot, we know that, but they would shoot a lot more if they could, but they can’t.
The last job anyone in the world wants right now, senior leader for the IRGC, or basij, temp jobs, all of them. And to borrow a page from Admiral Ernest King in World War II, we’ve decided to share the ocean with Iran. We’ve given them the bottom half; we’ve damaged or sunk over 120 of their Navy ships with battle damage assessments pending for many more.
You see, oftentimes, we have to wait a few days on battle damage assessment to get the real number. Their surface fleet is no longer a factor. Their submarines, they once had 11, are gone. Their military ports are crippled. Iran has terrorized the United States and our interests for 47 years. Their core industries, not steel or agriculture, tourism, their core industries are state-sponsored terrorism, proxy militias, underground networks, ballistic missiles and a violent messianic Islamist ideology chasing some sort of apocalyptic endgame.
A regime like that, refusing to abandon its nuclear ambitions, is not just a regional problem. It’s a direct threat to America, to freedom and to civilization. The world, the Middle East, our ungrateful allies in Europe, even segments of our own press should be saying one thing to President Trump, thank you. Thank you for the courage to stop this terrorist state from holding the world hostage with missiles while building or attempting to build a nuclear bomb. Thank you for doing the work of the free world.
Yesterday’s ceremony reminded us why we fight, not for nation building or democracy promotion, but to crush direct threats to America, Americans and our interests. We fight to win and we are winning on our terms, following our objectives. My 13 year old son popped into my office last night while I was editing these remarks. He asked about the war and the families I met at Dover. And I looked at him and I said, they died for you, son, so that your generation doesn’t have to deal with a nuclear Iran.
It’s the truth, and they did. So to the families who said, finish this, we will. And I say the same to every American who wants peace through strength. May almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight. And again to the American people, please pray for them every day on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ. To the troops, keep going and Godspeed. Over to you Mr. Chairman.
GENERAL DAN CAINE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and thank you all for being here. I also had the honor yesterday, as the secretary said, of traveling up to Dover with the president to welcome home our six fallen. It was an honor and a privilege for me to be there and to say thank you to their families.
And I want to mention their names this morning. From the sixth Aerial Refueling Wing out of MacDill Air Force Base Florida, but stationed as part of an active associate unit at Birmingham, Alabama, Major John Alex Klinner, Major Ariana Savino, she was posthumously promoted from captain to major; and Technical Sergeant Ashley Pruitt, the boom operator on that crew; from the 121st Air Refueling Wing, Ohio Air National Guard out of Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, Ohio, Captain Seth Koval, Captain Curtis Angst, and now Master Sergeant Tyler Simmons, who was also promoted and the boom operator on that crew.
To a person and every family member I spoke with yesterday, they all shared that their family members loved serving. They loved being part of a great team and a crew, and they loved airplanes and aviation. Our nation’s tanker crews really are unsung heroes, incredible warriors who put their lives on the line so we can continue to take the fight to an enemy.
I’ve personally witnessed their courage and tenacity many times. From the morning of September 11th where they answered my call for some help to the skies over foreign countries where they’ve come forward out of their safe tanker track to give me gas when I simply could not leave a ground force that was engaged in a firefight, they’ve answered the call and come forward time and time and time again.
I’m filled with incredible pride and gratitude for all that the tanker crews do, our pilots, our boom operators and the maintainers. And to the families of our six fallen, know that we share your grief. Our nation will never forget their sacrifice, and we will never forget their names. Our entire joint force mourns with you today and will continue to remember their incredible gift of a great example for all of us.
Now let me turn to an operations update. U.S. Central Command remains on plan to achieve our military objectives and remain unrelenting in our pursuit of Iranian missile capabilities, UAV capabilities and their navy, and as the secretary said, their industrial base. Each day we continue to attack deeper into Iranian territory.
As reported by U.S. CENTCOM yesterday, the US military dropped 5,000 pound Penetrator weapons into underground storage facilities storing coastal defense cruise missiles and other support equipment. These weapons are bespokely designed to get through concrete and/or rocks and function after penetrating those – those barriers.
We continue to hunt and kill mine storage facilities and naval ammunition depots. We continue to hunt and kill afloat assets, including more than 120 vessels and 44 mine layers, and the pressure will continue. We’re flying further to the east now and penetrating deeper into Iranian airspace to hunt and kill one way attack garrisons, destroying Iran’s ability to project power outside of its borders.
The A-10 Warthog is now in the fight across the southern flank and is hunting and killing fast attack watercraft in the Straits of Hormuz. In addition, AH-64 Apaches have joined the fight on the southern flank, and they continue to work on the southern side. And that includes some of our allies who are using Apaches to handle one way attack drones.
In Iraq, AH-64s have been striking against Iranian aligned militia groups to make sure that we suppress any threat in Iraq against U.S. forces or U.S. interests. And we remain focused on pursuit of any platform that Iran could field to harm Americans or our partners.
Last Friday, Admiral Cooper and CENTCOM team conducted precision strikes against more than 90 targets on Kharg Island, which included all of their military-only infrastructure, which included air defenses, naval base mine storage and deployment facilities. And as the secretary mentioned, we continue to strike against Iran’s defense industrial base and will continue to do so.
Today, I want to continue my theme of talking about members of our incredible joint force.
Today, I want to talk about some exceptional airmen who are engaged in the fight daily: United States Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard crews within our bomber force, the B-1s, B-2s and B-52s and the airmen on the ground who maintain and load these weapon systems. They are the backbone of America’s long range strike capability, and their contributions to Epic Fury have been decisive.
Assigned to STRATCOM under Admiral Rich Correll and supported by TRANSCOM, the tanker force that we’ve talked about, under the command of General Randall Reed, every mission is designed to achieve overwhelming outcomes on behalf of the United States and our allies. Last weekend I had the chance to go out and see some of our deployed bomber forces, the B-1 and B-52 crews, and I had a chance to sit down with some young aviators and maintainers and ask them, “How do you feel, tell me about your typical day.”
And these are crews comprised of between two and five airmen, two on the – on the B-2s, five on the – on the B-52s and four in the B-1s out there. Some of these Americans are in their early or mid 20s, and we give them the gift of this incredible responsibility, hundreds of thousands of pounds of aircraft, and they take off and go do our work as required.
Their mission actually begins the day prior when they’re given a target or a bunch of targets. And they begin to study those targets, look at what are the effects required, what are the weapons required to get there? How will we program these weapons? What is the weather? What is the tanker flow? It’s an incredibly complex problem that we give each and every one of these crews, and they work it over the period of 24 hours prior, get some rest and then step out the door to go fly.
The last thing they do is they check all of their equipment, their oxygen masks, survival gear, load pistols and get ready to go. They crank the jets about an hour prior to takeoff and then launch into the daylight, doing their preflight checks and, as the kids say, lock-in and prepare to go to war, sometimes on a long and stressful journey.
During the flight, they’re surrounded by technology and capabilities, and they’ll do multiple aerial refueling efforts across tankers on the way to the AOR, area of responsibility, either coming from the states or coming from a forward deployed basing.
And I will tell you as a fighter pilot, getting gas is a lot easier in an F-16 than it is in a B-1, B-2 or a B-52, where you are – you are handling this airplane. It is a physical thing, unlike a fighter that’s a lot easier.
And they stay on that boom for sometimes up to 30 minutes taking hundreds of thousands of pounds of gas. It is a physical, demanding thing to take gas, and they do it multiple times on the way there and they do it multiple times on the way home.
As they enter the operating area, they bring the entirety of America’s joint force together to go do the things that we’ve tasked them to do, to put bombs on time, on target with the proper effects. And I know they’re feeling a range of emotions, but the thing the American people should take away from it is they’re filled with a focus that is incredibly impressive.
And they have fear, of course, but their bigger fear is dear God, please don’t let me screw this up, the warrior’s prayer that we all have in our souls. In the days of Epic Fury, they were shooting, as we’ve talked about in this room, a lot of standoff weapons. Now we’ve switched and rolled, as I mentioned last week, to stand in weapons.
And behind each and every one of them are incredible maintainers and weapons builders who go out there and make sure these aircraft and their weapon systems are ready to go. These airplanes are so big that they’re not in hangars. They’re out in the cold, out in the snow, out in the rain. The bombs are being built outside for protection and to make sure that it’s safe. And they do it 24/7, 365.
It’s not comfortable work. But when you go spend just a minute with these incredibly young Americans who are so motivated, you cannot come away from that exchange not being hopeful for America’s future. It is simply awesome. And we hand these Americans, young Americans, incredible and weighty responsibility, and they deliver every single time quietly, with professionalism and humility, doing the things that we ask them to do.
In conclusion, we will continue major combat operations. As the secretary said, we continue to get busier. I know the secretary and I share that we’re incredibly proud of 2.8 million members of our joint force. I am personally and we are personally grateful for the tenacity and professionalism of the brave men and women who serve inside STRATCOM, CENTCOM, SPACECOM, CYBERCOM, TRANSCOM and the rest of the Joint Force.
And I’ll close where I started. I ask today that we remember those six fallen that came home. They represent the best of our nation. For those families that are feeling the pain, know that we are with you and will remain with you. May we always prove worthy of their sacrifice.
