Trump orders major U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, six soldiers killed
Trump’s Memorial Day tribute at Arlington came after six Army Reserve soldiers died in the Iran campaign, sharpening the political cost of war.
Trump turned Memorial Day into a stage for the human cost of the Iran campaign he launched in late February, as six Army Reserve soldiers were already dead and at least 18 others wounded. At Arlington National Cemetery, with Gold Star families and senior administration officials present, he honored fallen service members while the war he framed as a defense of Americans continued to hang over his presidency.
Trump announced "major combat operations in Iran" on Feb. 28, after joint U.S.-Israeli strikes began around 1:15 a.m. Eastern under what military reporting called Operation Epic Fury. The attacks hit Iranian leadership, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command-and-control facilities, air defenses, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields. Trump said the goal was to defend the American people by eliminating what he described as imminent threats from the Iranian regime.
The war’s first American fatalities came the next day, when an Iranian drone struck a tactical operations center at Port Shuaiba in Kuwait. Six Army Reserve soldiers from the 103rd Sustainment Command in Des Moines, Iowa, were killed: Maj. Jeffrey R. O'Brien, Capt. Cody A. Khork, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, and Sgt. Declan J. Coady. At least 18 other U.S. service members were wounded. The deaths made the campaign’s costs immediate, personal and politically visible.
Trump later attended the dignified transfer for the fallen at Dover Air Force Base on March 7, joined by Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior officials. By the time he returned to the theme on Memorial Day, the administration was asking the country to mourn the dead while still accepting a war whose scope had widened from a promised strike against threats into sustained combat against Iranian military infrastructure. What remained undefined in the public case for the war was a clear measure of victory, beyond the claim that the United States had to strike first to protect itself.
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