TAMPA, Fla. — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will visit MacDill Air Force base in Tampa on Thursday.
Hegseth will visit headquarters of U.S. Central Command, which is overseeing military operations in Iran.
Hegesth will meet with Centcom commander Adm. Brad Cooper for an update on Operation Epic Fury, which started a week ago.
Hegseth’s visit comes just a day after a U.S. submarine took out an Iranian warship. It was the first time a U.S. sub torpedoed an enemy ship since World War II.
The U.S.-Israeli blitz is continuing in Iran Thursday — an operation President Donald Trump said could be ongoing for weeks.
So far, government officials say the operation has killed as many as 40 top military and political leaders in Iran, and hit more than 2,000 targets on the ground.
U.S. officials said the mission has been a success so far, but it hasn’t come without a cost. Earlier this week, six American troops were killed during an Iranian drone strike on a command center in Kuwait, and one was identified as Winter Haven resident Capt. Cody Khork.
Bay News 9 spoke remotely with Army Sgt. 1st Class Brian Kockendorfer in Tennessee, who served with Khork in the 810th Military Police Company.
“Knowing somebody personally, you’ve gotten to work with them, that’s when it hits,” Kochendorfer said. “It hits home very directly. Look, I’m going to start tearing up, that’s how close you get to people you work with, particularly Cody.”
As the military strikes move forward in Iran, Trump has said that American troops will not have to be deployed on the ground. Trump said that while the end goal of the operation isn’t regime change, he is encouraging Iranians to take back their government.