A military official who is treating service members evacuated from the Middle East to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany amid Iran’s retaliation said troops are suffering from “inadequate force protection and planning” and already reporting a severe, destabilizing toll from Iranian ballistic missiles and drones that have been repeatedly striking American military facilities. Thirteen troops have been killed amid the war so far, seven due to strikes, and at least
232 have been wounded.
A ground operation would be “an absolute disaster… we don’t have a plan for that,” the official said earlier this week. “We can’t even fully defend a single land base in the theater.”
A veteran and reservist who mentors younger officers told HuffPost her contacts are expressing a loss of faith to a new degree.
“I’m hearing out of service members’ mouths the words, ’We do not want to die for Israel — we don’t want to be political pawns,” she said. Another reservist in touch with current troops separately reported hearing similar comments.
“I’ve shared conscientious objector information six times in the past two weeks and I’ve been in the military almost 20 years — I’ve never had people reach out this way,” the first reservist continued.
