First Lady Michelle Obama will visit U.S. troops near Venice, Italy on Friday to thank them for their efforts last year, when they were the first deployed to West Africa during the Ebola epidemic.
As part of a White House initiative to support troops, veterans and their families, Obama will meet with Army personnel and their families stationed at the Army post in Vicenza, Italy, home to the Army’s Africa headquarters. It also houses parts of the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, which responded to the Ebola outbreak. Elements of that team are currently assigned to Ukraine to help train their forces.
Obama is scheduled to attend a USO barbeque and deliver remarks while daughters Sasha and Malia and her mother, Marian Robinson, serve the troops lunch.
The Obama girls and their mother will also read to 300 schoolchildren with military connections at the Villagio Youth and Teen Center. Obama is set to read “Don’t Play with Your Food,” while Sasha and Malia will read from “Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great.” Sets of books donated through the Books on Bases program will be distributed at the end.
Obama also plans to host a roundtable focused on the challenge of raising children overseas with expecting moms at the Villagio Youth and Teen Center.
The first family, minus President Obama, has been in Europe since Monday as part of the first lady’s Let Girls Learn initiative.