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  • 2018-12-28 (xsd:date)
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  • Was Melania Trump the First First Lady to Visit a War Zone? (en)
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  • On 26 December 2018, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump made a surprise visit to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq for a Christmastime meeting with military members who were stationed in the war zone there. Shortly thereafter, a claim began circulating on social media that Melania Trump was the first First Lady to undertake such a trip: The definition of what constitutes a 'war zone' or a 'combat zone' is somewhat subjective and therefore variable. Although these terms may invoke images of areas under immediate threat of military attack, we found no record of any first lady's traveling to or remaining in an area where armed hostilities were actively taking place. These terms are often used to refer to the general areas in which a war is being fought and do not necessarily have strict or well-defined boundaries, as encapsulated in the IRS' definition of such: That said, by the standards of contemporaneous reporting, Melania Trump was not the first First Lady to make such a trip. Although our list may not be comprehensive, we found that first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Pat Nixon, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush were all reported during their tenures as having ventured into war zones and other potentially dangerous territories as they visited troops stationed overseas. Eleanor Roosevelt, for example, made several trips to war zones during World War II in the 1940s: First Lady Pat Nixon was also described as having taken part in a dangerous visit to an active combat zone in Vietnam in 1969: Since 1969, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush have all traveled to military bases overseas to meet with U.S. troops. First Lady Barbara Bush visited Saudi Arabia over Thanksgiving in 1990, in the midst of Operation Desert Shield (the build-up of troops and the defenses of Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the Gulf War): While Hillary Clinton was First Lady, she traveled to Bosnia in 1996. Although active hostilities in Bosnia had ended a few months prior to her visit, officials still considered the area a potential combat zone: Although Clinton's trip to Bosnia may have scored her political points during her time as First Lady, that visit would later become a subject of controversy and criticism. During the 2008 presidential campaign Clinton was accused of exaggerating the dangers of her Bosnia visit for saying she had been under sniper fire when she landed at the Tuzla Air Base. (It should be noted that when Hillary Clinton's trip to Bosnia in 1996 was touted as the first time since Roosevelt that a first lady has voyaged to a potential combat zone, that claim was similarly debunked.) Laura Bush also visited troops overseas during her time as first lady, paying a brief visit to Afghanistan in 2005: (en)
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