Johnny Odom’s 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.
Six months later, Odom’s 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.
“My son already has nightmares,” said Odom, a retired disabled Army combat veteran. “He’s already suffering from all these things, these traumas from this war. He's not even home yet.”
While 50,000 American service members have been deployed to fight the war with Iran, another roughly 40,000 troops, like Odom’s son, are stationed on bases in the Middle East as part of the United States’ normal military posture.
Those troops — on duty within striking distance of Iranian missiles — have been pulled into the conflict by geography.
Their 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.
U.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.
But the families say the public isn't remotely aware of the danger of the ongoing hostilities with Iran — or the damage bases are taking from missile and drone attacks.
Source: AEI; Map: Carson Elm-Picard / MS NOW
“These attacks come whenever they come. Most of them come in the middle of the night,” Odom said, adding that his son had sent him videos of the rocket barrages coming at the base. “Right before they explode,” he said, the troops “jump in the bunker and they shut the doors for protection.”
But Odom said that the missile attacks are rocking the bunkers, sometimes moving the entire structures 10 inches.
“Just 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,” he said.
Since the U.S. began airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear and military facilities on Feb. 28, Iran has retaliated by launching hundreds of attacks on military bases in the region.
So 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.
Iranian strikes “damaged and destroyed” 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.
More than 1,250 military family members were evacuated from the U.S. Navy’s 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’s top uniformed officer said they won’t be able to go back to Bahrain “anytime soon.”
Karen Marks’ 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.
Instead, Marks said, her sister’s orders have been extended repeatedly because of the Iran war and they have no idea when she is going to come home.
“She 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,” Marks said.
Another father whose son is deployed with the Air National Guard said his son’s barracks were completely destroyed in an Iranian missile attack.
He 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.
“I worry about his mental well-being when he comes home,” said the father, who requested anonymity for privacy reasons. He added that his son has been “down in the dumps” because of all of the deployment extensions.
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Many 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.
When 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’t part of their initial deployment.
Kela Johnson’s oldest daughter has been deployed as a medic to Jordan with the National Guard since May. “She has anxiety, of course, because when the missiles or the alarms go off, like the sirens, it’s chaos and she’s not used to that,” Johnson said.
“I know as a mother, she’s feeling everything that I feel,” 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. “I’m blessed and I’m 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.”
Some family members also expressed concern about how the war is being managed.
“My 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,” 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’s way.
“I do feel like our troops are sitting ducks in the sense that everyone knows where the bases are,” she said. “Their location is generally known, and there's equipment that — and bombs that can get to them. Yeah, they're without enough interceptors. They are sitting ducks.”
The CENTCOM commander and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have said that U.S. stockpiles of interceptors are adequate to protect the bases.
John 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’s 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.
Johnson 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’s decisions.
“I don’t think he’s handling it correctly,’ Johnson said. “I don’t think he has the war experience. I don’t think he has the military experience and I don’t think he’s listening to his military advisers.”
All 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’t 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.
Odom 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.
Odom was dismayed to hear the president’s recent comments that the war is “small potatoes” and “not a big thing.”
“The president said ‘this is small potatoes’. Well, I have a small potato over in Jordan that I care a lot about, he’s everything to me, he’s my youngest son, he’s my baby,” Odom said. “I 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?”
Selena Kuznikov contributed to this report.
Priya Sridhar is the Pentagon reporter for MS NOW.
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