Nine U.S. service members wounded in the Iranian drone strike on Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, told The Associated Press that they faced delayed diagnoses, botched paperwork and a medical system that left them to fend for themselves. Speaking publicly is uncommon for troops still serving in the Army.
The March 1, 2026, strike killed six U.S. soldiers and injured dozens. It was the deadliest known attack on American troops since Operation Epic Fury began on Feb. 28, 2026, and came on the second day of the U.S. war with Iran. The soldiers had been providing logistical support for critical supplies. The Pentagon has released few details about what happened.
Who Was Hurt, and How
Army Lt. Col. Arturo Lincón stood about 7 feet (2.1 meters) from the blast. Shrapnel lodged in his jaw, cut through a salivary gland, severed an artery and embedded in a vertebra. Damage to his left vertebral artery, which supplies blood to the brain, put him at risk of a stroke. The Army didn't consider his injuries serious enough for admission to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, though Lincón said a nurse there marveled that he was alive. Instead, officials sent him to nearby barracks and told him to arrange outpatient appointments. “I was just kind of on my own, at least it felt like that,” he said.
Lincón went days without pain medication and carried a CD of his Kuwait medical records to the Landstuhl emergency-room doctor, who worried that a trauma team hadn't evaluated him. Shrapnel remains in his back because removing it risks paralysis. Dizziness still disrupts his life. He said officials denied his claim for Traumatic Injury benefits under the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance because it didn't meet the hearing-loss threshold, without addressing his other injuries.
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Rodney Bearman had shrapnel embedded from his face to his legs. Iranian missiles and drones made evacuation flights risky, so officials sent him and other soldiers to the homes of U.S. government employees. About 10 days after the attack, they flew out on a cargo plane, sitting on the floor with straps. In Germany, Bearman said, they learned that records didn't list them as wounded in combat and that Landstuhl wouldn't admit them. He blamed a coding error. “Some sacred trust that I thought would never be broken was broken,” he said.
Delays in Care
Maj. Stephen Ramsbottom had shrapnel removed from his head, then waited more than four months for MRI results. “I've had to build my own case for everything,” he told the AP. Medical records he and another officer shared showed neither received a traumatic brain injury diagnosis until Fort Hood. The unnamed officer, who was blown off his chair, said he received no care for weeks after diagnosis and had to find specialists himself. Maj. Billy Key didn't receive specialized care until mid-April. “It took too long,” he said.
Dr. James Kelly of the Invisible Wounds Foundation said delays in diagnosing traumatic brain injuries remain common and can affect both when treatment starts and the odds of a good outcome. “It's disappointing but not surprising,” he said. Kelly added that a medically trained person should conduct the first thorough exam, not another soldier, and that records too often mention only a concussion, which can be overlooked.
Official Response and Readiness Questions
The Pentagon said the medical care was appropriate and that physicians make admission decisions based on injury severity and “healthcare-industry practices.” A Pentagon official said Landstuhl's mission during battlefield-casualty situations is to stabilize patients for transfer, not admit them. The Army declined to comment, saying officials hadn't yet briefed families of those killed on the investigation's outcome.
Years of disinvestment and drawdowns by administrations and political leaders seeking to end U.S. involvement in the Middle East had thinned out the medical system those soldiers relied on. Major U.S.-run medical facilities in the region had closed. For example, the Air Force handed over its Theater Hospital at Joint Base Balad in Iraq to the Iraqi government in 2011.
Maj. Ramsbottom and three other people familiar with high-level briefings told the AP that generals focused more on defending against missiles and were unprepared for drone warfare. They requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Separately, President Donald Trump said Monday the United States had moved all its long-range bombers out of the United Kingdom in response to “a threat.” Asked who made it, he replied, “They would be linked to Iran.” The AP reported Sunday that the Air Force withdrew all B-1 bombers from an air base in southern England after an investigation uncovered a planned terror attack. The aircraft returned to their U.S. home bases and had been used in strikes on Iran.
The war is now in its eighth month. Its economic effects remain a major concern for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections, the AP reported. High costs and gas prices are weighing on rural voters while Trump continues dismissing those concerns on the campaign trail.
Why This Matters:
The soldiers' accounts raise a basic question about accountability: what does the country owe the people it sends to war? Troops who survived a deadly strike say they waited months for diagnoses, were miscoded as not wounded in combat and had to navigate benefits denials on their own. Their experiences show what can happen when military medical capacity is hollowed out over years and injured people must coordinate their own care. Brain injuries that go undiagnosed can shape recovery for life. The Pentagon says care was appropriate. The soldiers say it wasn't. Families of the six killed still haven't been briefed on the investigation's outcome, and only independent oversight can test the claim that commanders were unprepared for drones.