More than three dozen sailors and Marines wounded this month in support of the Iran war
Nine Marines and more than two dozen sailors were injured this month in support of the Iran war, the Pentagon revealed late last week.
The sharp uptick came as fighting in the war restarted this month, following a lull in August. The new figures — showing nine Marines and 29 sailors — were announced in an update to the Defense Casualty Analysis System, the Pentagon’s database for wounded and killed in action personnel. The new casualties are in the “overseas operations” category, which the Department of Defense has used since July 7, 2026, for all casualties “since Operation Epic Fury has concluded.” Since that designation started, 50 sailors have been injured in the war, most of them this month.
As of Sept. 23, the overseas operations category showed 443 total troops wounded in action. Combined with the 417 wounded during Operation Epic Fury, 860 U.S. military personnel have been wounded. All were the result of hostile action. The update comes as the Army announced the non-hostile death of an officer this month, the 19th official U.S. military death in the war, and as the Washington Post reported earlier that at least four more service members had died in the Middle East since Feb. 28 than DCAS shows.
Since hostilities restarted in July with the breakdown of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, casualties have overwhelmingly been from the Army. That includes deaths in Iraq and Jordan, plus an additional 374 soldiers wounded over the last three months. 10 airmen were wounded in July. The new figures more than double the number of sailors wounded in the war since July 7 and mark the first case of Marines being hurt in the war since March.
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The database does not list the nature of the injuries or details on the incidents but does list the 38 new Navy and Marine Corps casualties as happening in September.
A Navy official said in a statement to Task & Purpose that the “Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) and Navy Casualty officials have fully validated reports to ensure accurate service records.” It declined to identify the names and units of the 29 wounded sailors or where they were when wounded, but said that they “have returned to duty service.”
The Marine Corps directed questions to U.S. Central Command, which did not respond. NBC News, citing multiple sources, reported that eight of those Marines were injured after an Iranian missile hit a non-U.S. Navy ship that they were on in the Strait of Hormuz. Those sources said that injuries were minor, ranging from smoke inhalation to possible concussions. The Pentagon had not announced any incident that day, although the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations organization reported that a cargo ship was hit by an unknown projectile in the Strait of Hormuz.
