"US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth served a Thanksgiving meal to soldiers from the Southern Command's Area of Responsibility as he paid a visit to the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford. Footage released on Thursday shows the secretary, accompanied by his wife, donning an apron and scooping 'generous portions' of food onto the plates, before handing them out to sailors at the carrier's mess deck. "Thanksgiving meals here. And it's mandatory turkey. Mandatory. To all the moms and dads out there, your kids get turkey whether they want it or not. [...] Giving out generous portions. Oh, yeah. I give out too much candy at Halloween and too much turkey on Thanksgiving," he said. Hegseth also toured the Navy's guided-missile destroyer USS Winston S Churchill on the same day, according to the Pentagon. The forces on these ships are part of Operation Southern Spear, targeting drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean. The exact location of the released footage cannot be independently verified."