President Donald Trump, accompanied by his daughter Ivanka, waves as they walk to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) 
 
 DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. (AP) — Assuming the somber duties of commander in chief, President Donald Trump made an unannounced trip Wednesday to honor the returning remains of a U.S. Navy SEAL killed in a weekend raid in Yemen. 
 
 Chief Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens, a 36-year-old from Peoria, Illinois, was the first known U.S. combat casualty since Trump took office less than two weeks ago. More than half a dozen militant suspects were also killed in the raid on an al-Qaida compound and three other U.S. service members were wounded. 
 
 More than a dozen civilians were also killed in the operation, including the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric and U.S. citizen who was targeted and killed by a drone strike in 2011. 
 
 Trump's trip to Delaware's Dover Air Base was shrouded in secrecy. The president and his daughter, Ivanka, departed the White House in the presidential helicopter with their destination unannounced. A small group of journalists traveled with Trump on the condition that the visit was not reported until his arrival. 
 
 After returning to the White House, Trump commented on the trip at the swearing-in of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. 
 
 "I just returned from an amazing visit with a great, great family at Dover," Trump said. "It is something very sad, very beautiful. Ryan, a great man." 
 
 Marine One landed at Dover shortly before a C-17 believed to be carrying Owens' remains touched down. The president met with Owens' family during a two-hour visit to the base. The sailor's family had requested that Trump's visit and the return of Owens' remains be private. 
 
 Former President Barack Obama lifted a ban on media coverage of the casualty returns, though families may still request privacy. A spokeswoman at Dover said about half of families choose to allow media coverage. 
 
 Owens joined the Navy in 1998 and was the recipient of two Bronze stars, a Joint Service Commendation and an Afghanistan Campaign Medal, among other honors. In a statement following his death, the Navy Special Command called Owens a "devoted father, a true professional and a wonderful husband." 
 
 His death underscores the human costs of the military campaigns Trump now oversees. Far fewer troops are serving in combat now than in the wars Trump's predecessors led in Afghanistan and Iraq, but thousands of Americans remain in hotspots around the world. 
 
 In Afghanistan, where America's longest war continues, about 8,400 U.S. troops are training and advising local forces. More than U.S. 5,100 troops in Iraq and about 500 in Syria are involved in the campaign against the Islamic State group. The U.S. also engages in counterterrorism operations — mainly drone strikes — in Yemen, where Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has exploited the chaos of the country's civil war. 
 
 Sunday's pre-dawn raid — which a defense official said was planned by the Obama administration but authorized by Trump — could signal a new escalation against extremist groups in Yemen. 
 
 As a candidate, Trump said he would be willing to "take out" the families of terrorists in order to root out extremism. On Tuesday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said no Americans "will ever be targeted" in raids against terror suspects. 
 
 The president's trip to Dover comes as he begins weighing whether to reshape U.S. military activities around the world. As a candidate, he vowed to be tougher on the Islamic State and at one point said he would be willing to send up to 30,000 U.S. troops to fight the extremist group in Iraq and Syria. Last week, Trump gave the Pentagon and other agencies 30 days to submit a plan for defeating the Islamic State. 
 
 Trump has said little about his approach to Afghanistan. Obama had pledged to end the war there on his watch, but continuing security concerns prompted him to extend the U.S. military campaign, handing the war off to a third American president. 
 
 Trump, who never served in the armed forces and received student and medical deferments during the Vietnam War, had an uneven relationship with the military community during the presidential campaign. 
 
 About 60 percent of voters who served in the military supported Trump in the presidential election, compared with 34 percent who voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton, according to exit polls. But Trump was also criticized by military groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, for his feud with the Khan family, whose Muslim-American son was killed while serving in Iraq. 
 
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 Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor and AP Polling Director Emily Swanson contributed to this report. 
 
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 Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC ||||| Since Donald Trump's inauguration, Melania (R) has not been seen at official events and is not living in the White House, raising questions on what kind of first lady the former model will be (AFP Photo/Nicholas Kamm ) 
 
 New York (AFP) - Two weeks after her husband's inauguration, questions are mounting about what kind of first lady Melania Trump will be. 
 
 The 46-year-old former model wowed the crowds at his swearing-in ceremony and inaugural balls dressed in Ralph Lauren powder blue and a vanilla crepe, ticking fashion boxes and suggesting that the mother of one was anxious to step up to her new role. 
 
 Since then, however, she has not been seen at official events, is not living in the White House and is still putting together her staff. 
 
 She was last spotted by the president's side at an inter-faith church service on January 21 before making the reported 90-minute commute home to New York by helicopter, plane and motorcade the following day. With no imminent plans to move to Washington, she's said to want the couple's 10-year-old son Barron to stay at his school at least until the end of the academic year. 
 
 On Tuesday, she was conspicuously absent when Trump announced his Supreme Court pick. Vice President Mike Pence and Neil Gorsuch brought their wives. Even Trump's sons Donald Jr. and Eric made the journey from New York. 
 
 On Wednesday, the president's daughter Ivanka accompanied him to Delaware to honor a fallen Navy SEAL. Unlike her stepmother, Ivanka has already moved from New York with her husband, White House advisor Jared Kushner. 
 
 Asked in December if he would be lonely rattling around the White House on his own, then president-elect Donald Trump told Fox News: "No, I'll be working." 
 
 Never in modern times -- when Americans are accustomed to having visible and active first ladies -- has a president's wife not moved straight to Washington. 
 
 "Certainly in that time we haven't seen a phenomenon such as this where the first lady delays for at least several months moving into the White House," said Katherine Jellison, history professor at Ohio University. 
 
 For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. 
 
 - Quiet start common - 
 
 Melania's absence has prompted speculation in the media, which Trump's senior advisor Stephen Bannon has likened to "the opposition" for its tough, critical coverage of the president's campaign and his first two weeks in office. 
 
 "Whither Melania Trump?" 12 days without a public sighting," CNN said. "Where is Melania?" asked The Washington Post. "Separate Lives," ran a headline in celebrity magazine US Weekly. 
 
 The White House announced Wednesday that the first lady had appointed a chief of staff -- Lindsay Reynolds, who previously served there under George W. Bush. 
 
 "I am putting together a professional and highly experienced team which will take time to do properly," the first lady said in the statement. 
 
 Still, first ladies tend to maintain low profiles at the start. Hillary Clinton and Rosalynn Carter proved exceptions to the rule. 
 
 "The first lady often sets out her policy agenda in March or April, complementing and reinforcing the 100-days agenda of the president," said Connecticut College government professor MaryAnn Borrelli. 
 
 But beyond admiring Michelle Obama and Jacqueline Kennedy and mentioning a potential campaign against cyber bullying, Melania has given little indication so far of what kind of first lady she wants to be. 
 
 - Reframing the job? - 
 
 Since Trump assumed office, her official Facebook and Twitter accounts have issued just one update -- on January 21 -- proclaiming her "deeply honored" to serve. 
 
 Just one appointment to her staff has been revealed besides Reynolds: longtime friend and New York event planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff as senior adviser. Other positions such as press and social secretaries have yet to be filled. 
 
 The absence is not helping her lackluster approval ratings, partly a by-product of her husband's deep unpopularity among half the electorate. She was also mocked during the campaign for a major speech that plagiarized Michelle Obama. 
 
 But Borelli believes her unpopularity is not entirely unusual. 
 
 "I think that first ladies often enter the White House with a mix of support and suspicion and then the job is -- because they do public outreach -- how to capitalize on the support and manage suspicion," she said. 
 
 Michelle Obama, the first African-American first lady, and Clinton and Eleanor Roosevelt, who both defied the meek housewife stereotype, also came in for heavy criticism particularly at the start. 
 
 Others say it is time for an independent first lady who reflects reality in the 21st century, when few American women are defined by their husbands. 
 
 Should Melania continue to keep a low profile, future generations may credit her as a modernizer who broke free from the confines of her position. 
 
 "It may lower expectations for the next woman," Jellison said. "She won't feel that she has to be the perfect American wife and mother role model." ||||| An aide to Melania Trump on Wednesday confirmed that the First Lady will move to the White House starting at the beginning of the summer. 
 
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 "Mrs. Trump will be moving to D.C. and settling into the White House at the end of the school year, splitting her time between New York and D.C. in the meantime," Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, senior adviser to the First Lady told ABC News. "Mrs. Trump is honored to serve this country and is taking the role and responsibilities of the First Lady very seriously." 
 
 The confirmation comes after a rumor sparked by tabloids early Wednesday morning that the First Lady and her 10-year-old son Barron Trump were not considering a move to Washington, D.C. from New York City. 
 
 Later on Wednesday, the White House also announced that Lindsay Reynolds would be joining the First Lady’s team as her Chief of Staff. 
 
 "I am putting together a professional and highly-experienced team which will take time to do properly,” the First Lady said in a White House press release. 
 
 Apart from being the First Lady’s Chief of Staff, Reynolds is also an assistant to the President. But in her capacity as Chief of Staff, Reynolds will be in charge of "managing the agenda and day to day operations" of the First Lady’s office. 
 
 "It has been an honor to take on the responsibility of the position of First Lady, with its long history as an important representative of the President, our family, and the traditions of our nation around the world," the First Lady said in the statement. ||||| Melania Trump has hired a chief of staff, a move that puts her first official mark on the White House, but the first lady’s office is likely to be pretty lonely for the foreseeable future. 
 
 Trump herself hasn’t been in Washington since her husband’s inauguration weekend, and it’s not clear when she will return. She has said she plans to continue living in Trump Tower in Manhattan while son Barron finishes out the school year. 
 
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 And even though Lindsay Reynolds, a private fundraising planner and former official in President George W. Bush’s visitors office, will be joining the second floor of the East Wing, there’s little insight on when she’ll get co-workers. 
 
 Key roles still open in the first lady’s office include the press operation, scheduling, correspondence and the social office. 
 
 The relatively empty first lady’s office is a break from Melania Trump’s predecessors. Laura Bush and Michelle Obama each assumed the role with a chief of staff and a social secretary at the ready. 
 
 But some say it’s not surprising that Melania Trump hasn’t staked her claim on the office of the first lady, since she has yet to settle into the White House. The first lady’s role comes with a budget and a staff that technically reports to the office of the president, but there’s no statutory authority and its contours have been shaped by tradition. 
 
 “We have become accustomed with the activism of the first lady, but there’s nothing that is required and there really is no specific job description for the first lady,” said Anita McBride, former chief of staff to Laura Bush and an executive in residence at American University. “Each occupant gets to rewrite how they want to handle it.” 
 
 Reynolds was involved in planning the inauguration under former Vogue events planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who is acting as a consultant to the first lady. Key roles still open in the first lady’s office include the press operation, scheduling, correspondence and the social secretary’s office, which plans state dinners and other formal events. 
 
 Residence staff had to step in and organize the swearing-in ceremony for White House appointees and the lunch with British Prime Minister Theresa May last week. “The most important person in the first lady’s office is the social secretary,” said McBride. She cautioned that working without a social secretary is not a “long-term solution.” 
 
 “Clearly you’re going to have a lot of social events that will require the expertise of a social secretary,” she said. 
 
 Ebs Burnough, former deputy social secretary to Michelle Obama, said it’s not necessary to have an active first lady’s office as long as the social secretary has access to the Oval Office. “The social secretary can conceivably not see the first lady and just deal directly with the president,” he said. 
 
 Transition officials sought guidance from staffers who worked for Obama and for Laura Bush, according to sources, which is customary. Since the transition, Jessica Boulanger, a Washington-based communications executive and the founder of a line of maternity wear, has been helping the first lady field press requests pro bono, she said. 
 
 Obama’s East Wing was largely staffed by Inauguration Day, and even staff attracted an unusual degree of attention — including social secretary Desiree Rogers, who scored a spread in Vogue. Obama used her role to promote exercise and healthy eating, a campaign that required a staff to manage and execute. 
 
 Melania Trump said during the campaign that she would fight online bullying. 
 
 Melania Trump’s stepdaughter Ivanka joined her father on his trip to Dover Air Force Base, where they were present as the remains of a Navy SEAL killed in a weekend raid in Yemen were returned to the U.S. It was the first time Ivanka Trump, who’s moved with her family to Washington and whose husband, Jared Kushner, is a senior White House adviser, had taken on any of the symbolic duties usually reserved for a president’s spouse. 
 
 Ivanka Trump was a vocal presence on the campaign trail and was in the West Wing last weekend as her father made calls. A source close to her says she doesn’t have a desk in the East Wing “for now.” 
 
 White House aides have said Melania Trump will move to Washington in the summer, once Barron, the president’s youngest child, finishes the school year in New York. 
 
 People in Melania Trump’s Upper East Side set haven’t been surprised to see her take a low-key approach to her new role. “She's sort of like Rapunzel in the tower,” said one New York City socialite who knows Trump from her infrequent appearances on the New York social and charity scene. 
 
 Annie Karni contributed to this report. 
 

– Melania Trump is holed up in New York City until at least the end of son Barron's school year, already redefining the role of first lady. The New York Times reports on that upended role, and whether Melania will even play much of one at all, noting it was Trump's daughter Ivanka, not his wife, who accompanied him to Dover Air Force Base to honor a US Navy SEAL killed during last weekend's Yemen raid. A first-lady historian tells the Times that Melania is "far behind the curve" in terms of conventional duties, including organizing the tour requests that are already stacking up. People said to be close to Mrs. Trump, though, say she'll eventually increase her presence but is in no rush to do so. Other ruminations about the first lady from around the web: AFP expands on the "low-profile" first lady, with a Connecticut College professor observing that the first lady's agenda has traditionally emerged in March or April of inauguration years. Melania has made one major move: She hired Lindsay Reynolds, a private fundraising organizer, as her chief of staff, per Politico, which calls the first lady's office the "loneliest place in the White House." Despite an Us Weekly report earlier this week that Melania and 10-year-old Barron may never leave New York, an aide to the first lady tells ABC News that Melania (and presumably Barron) will indeed relocate to DC at the beginning of the summer. The rep adds Mrs. Trump takes "the role and responsibilities of the First Lady very seriously." Melania's defamation lawsuit against the Daily Mail was tossed by a Maryland judge because the state court did not have jurisdiction to take on a foreign entity, BuzzFeed reports. Her suit against a blogger continues.