{ "archive_path": "archive/1789591508.625548", "base_url": "www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases", "basename": "military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-16 20:45", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.ms.now", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases.html" }, "domain": "www.ms.now", "extension": "", "hash": "V8EKMVVFC0SNWSJT1E7N", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.ms.now" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T22:06:44.910323+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789591508.625548", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T22:06:44.232791+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T22:06:45.517127+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789591508.625548", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T22:06:44.920138+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T22:07:18.566084+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789591508.625548", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T22:07:13.785345+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpassmk8gc", "https://www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T22:07:13.770003+00:00", "index_texts": [ "Johnny Odom\u2019s 22-year-old son has been deployed in Jordan with the Air Force since March. The very first day his son arrived, his base was hit by Iranian missiles. He and his unit were forced to run into a ditch to hide.\n\n\n\nSix months later, Odom\u2019s son remains in Jordan. What was supposed to be a routine tour of duty far from the front lines has become a much more dangerous mission.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVideo from Odom\u2019s son showing his base under aerial attack. Courtesy Johnny Odom\n\n\n\n\u201cMy son already has nightmares,\u201d said Odom, a retired disabled Army combat veteran. \u201cHe\u2019s already suffering from all these things, these traumas from this war. He's not even home yet.\u201d\n\n\n\nWhile 50,000 American service members have been deployed to fight the war with Iran, another roughly 40,000 troops, like Odom\u2019s son, are stationed on bases in the Middle East as part of the United States\u2019 normal military posture.\n\n\n\nThose troops \u2014 on duty within striking distance of Iranian missiles \u2014 have been pulled into the conflict by geography. \n\n\n\nTheir bases have become easy targets. And as the public struggles to get information from the U.S. military about the costs of the Iran war, including the number of troops who have been injured and how much has been spent on munitions, families of U.S. service members stationed across the Middle East told MS NOW that their loved ones have been subjected to a barrage of missile attacks that the Pentagon isn't disclosing.\n\n\n\nU.S. Central Command has not publicly shared information about most missile and drone attacks, saying such information could jeopardize operational security and provide Iran with intelligence about U.S. vulnerabilities and potential targets.\n\n\n\n\n\nBut the families say the public isn't remotely aware of the danger of the ongoing hostilities with Iran \u2014 or the damage bases are taking from missile and drone attacks.\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n Source: AEI; Map: Carson Elm-Picard / MS NOW\n\n\n\n\n\u201cThese attacks come whenever they come. Most of them come in the middle of the night,\u201d Odom said, adding that his son had sent him videos of the rocket barrages coming at the base. \u201cRight before they explode,\u201d he said, the troops \u201cjump in the bunker and they shut the doors for protection.\u201d\n\n\n\nBut Odom said that the missile attacks are rocking the bunkers, sometimes moving the entire structures 10 inches.\n\n\n\n\u201cJust the little bit of information that he gives me, I can tell that the damage that this war has caused emotionally and mentally for him is going to be something that affects him for the rest of his life,\u201d he said.\n\n\n\nSince the U.S. began airstrikes against Iran\u2019s nuclear and military facilities on Feb. 28, Iran has retaliated by launching hundreds of attacks on military bases in the region.\n\n\n\n\n\nSo far, 18 Americans have been killed as a result of the Iran war and another 750 have been wounded, according to Department of Defense data.\n\n\n\nIranian strikes \u201cdamaged and destroyed\u201d hundreds of buildings and structures on U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan between the beginning of April and the end of June, according to a new Pentagon inspector general report to Congress.\n\n\n\nMore than 1,250 military family members were evacuated from the U.S. Navy\u2019s 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain at the beginning of the war, said a U.S. official who was granted anonymity to describe sensitive military actions. The Navy\u2019s top uniformed officer said they won\u2019t be able to go back to Bahrain \u201canytime soon.\u201d\n\n\n\nKaren Marks\u2019 sister deployed to the Middle East with the Air National Guard in February. Marks declined to specify exactly where she is stationed for security reasons, but says the military orders her sister received were supposed to be for a routine six-week deployment.\n\n\n\nKaren Marks during a Zoom interview.MS NOW\n\n\n\nInstead, Marks said, her sister\u2019s orders have been extended repeatedly because of the Iran war and they have no idea when she is going to come home.\n\n\n\n\n\n\u201cShe had a very scary night recently, very recently, and nobody got hurt, but it was very close and I think what she's observed and the little bit she shared is how mentally taxing it is on all of them being there so long,\u201d Marks said.\n\n\n\nAnother father whose son is deployed with the Air National Guard said his son\u2019s barracks were completely destroyed in an Iranian missile attack.\n\n\n\nHe went from sharing a room with three other service members to living in a climate-controlled tent with 30 troops and eating out of boxes of prepackaged military rations, or MREs, because the dining facility had to be closed temporarily, the father said. He said his son also knew of one of the Americans who was killed in strikes over the summer.\n\n\n\n\u201cI worry about his mental well-being when he comes home,\u201d said the father, who requested anonymity for privacy reasons. He added that his son has been \u201cdown in the dumps\u201d because of all of the deployment extensions.\n\n\n\n\nMany of the host country bases in the Middle East where U.S. service members live and work have been used as logistics hubs in the region for decades.\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen the war with Iran began, these bases and troops were called on to support the operations in the region related to the war, even though that wasn\u2019t part of their initial deployment.\n\n\n\nKela Johnson\u2019s oldest daughter has been deployed as a medic to Jordan with the National Guard since May. \u201cShe has anxiety, of course, because when the missiles or the alarms go off, like the sirens, it\u2019s chaos and she\u2019s not used to that,\u201d Johnson said.\n\n\n\nKela Johnson and her daughter are seen in an undated photo.Courtesy Kela Johnson\n\n\n\n\u201cI know as a mother, she\u2019s feeling everything that I feel,\u201d she said, adding that her fears heightened after three American soldiers were killed in Jordan in July, including a 19-year-old private from Texas, Isabella Gonzales. \u201cI\u2019m blessed and I\u2019m thankful that my daughter has survived, but at the same time that could have been me, and it just made me so emotional every time I saw her picture, I literally cried.\u201d\n\n\n\nSome family members also expressed concern about how the war is being managed.\n\n\n\n\u201cMy bigger concern really lands with our military decisions being made by people with enough experience and institutional knowledge and respect for our troops. Every time I read about a general leaving, it worries me,\u201d Marks said, adding that reading about the depletion of American stockpiles of weapons, munitions and interceptors is adding to her fear about whether the U.S. is capable of defending troops like her sister who are in harm\u2019s way.\n\n\n\n\n\n\u201cI do feel like our troops are sitting ducks in the sense that everyone knows where the bases are,\u201d she said. \u201cTheir location is generally known, and there's equipment that \u2014 and bombs that can get to them. Yeah, they're without enough interceptors. They are sitting ducks.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe CENTCOM commander and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have said that U.S. stockpiles of interceptors are adequate to protect the bases.\n\n\n\nJohn Johnson Jr., a retired Army veteran whose 22-year-old granddaughter is deployed to the Middle East with the 82nd Airborne Division, agrees. The division\u2019s deployment was recently extended to a full year, and he says his daughter has been moving between Kuwait, other countries in the Middle East and Fort Bragg in North Carolina.\n\n\n\nJohnson believes the officers on the ground with his granddaughter are making the best decisions they can to keep the soldiers safe. But he has concerns about President Donald Trump\u2019s decisions.\n\n\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s handling it correctly,\u2019 Johnson said. \u201cI don\u2019t think he has the war experience. I don\u2019t think he has the military experience and I don\u2019t think he\u2019s listening to his military advisers.\u201d \n\n\n\n\n\nAll five family members who spoke with MS NOW said they live in constant fear, scanning the headlines, waiting for responses to their text messages, but they are also trying to be strong for their loved ones so that they don\u2019t add to their fear while they are deployed. Some said they are struggling with their own anxiety, insomnia and loss of appetite because they feel mentally preoccupied worrying about their loved one.\n\n\n\nOdom said he has been disgusted by the way the administration has characterized this war, and thinks Trump has been disrespectful to the service members who are now in danger because of his decisions.\n\n\n\nJohnny Odom is seen in an undated photo from his military service.Courtesy Johnny Odom\n\n\n\nOdom was dismayed to hear the president\u2019s recent comments that the war is \u201csmall potatoes\u201d and \u201cnot a big thing.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cThe president said \u2018this is small potatoes\u2019. Well, I have a small potato over in Jordan that I care a lot about, he\u2019s everything to me, he\u2019s my youngest son, he\u2019s my baby,\u201d Odom said. \u201cI go to sleep every night praying about him. I wake up every morning thinking about him and my worry is, what if he gets hurt down there?\u201d\n\n\n\nSelena Kuznikov contributed to this report." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789591508.625548", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T22:07:10.689420+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T22:07:10.680518+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "\u2018Sitting ducks\u2019: Military families live in fear as U.S. troops face undisclosed missile attacks", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789591508.625548", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T22:07:10.610151+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T22:07:10.600318+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789591508.625548", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T22:06:45.527460+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "\u2018Sitting ducks\u2019: Military families live in fear as U.S. troops face undisclosed missile attacks", "warc": null, "wget": "www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1789591508.625548", "newest_archive_date": "2026-09-16T22:07:13.785345+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-09-16T22:06:44.232791+00:00", "path": "/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "543c1c6f-e502-4295-814b-62a59f10c2db", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1789591508-import.txt" ], "tags": ",war-wiki,drudge,pool", "tags_str": "war-wiki,drudge,pool", "timestamp": "1789591508.625548", "title": "\u2018Sitting ducks\u2019: Military families live in fear as U.S. troops face undisclosed missile attacks", "updated": "2026-09-16T22:06:44.232412+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-09-16 22:06", "url": "https://www.ms.now/news/military-families-iran-missile-attacks-middle-east-bases" }