The Department of War on Monday identified two active-duty Army soldiers killed during an enemy attack last week at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, the first U.S. service members to die since hostilities with Iran resumed.
First Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, was killed in action on July 18, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, was killed on July 17, according to the Pentagon release. Both soldiers were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the international coalition campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, when the attack struck the base on July 17. The incident remains under investigation.
U.S. Central Command said the two soldiers were defending the base against a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones when they were killed, Fox News reported. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for the strike in a statement over the weekend, according to CNN. The attack set off fires at the desert base, which hosts a significant U.S. presence, and forced the evacuation of several wounded personnel to Jordanian hospitals before they were later discharged.
Feehan was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Gonzales was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, in Ansbach, Germany. Both units specialize in air and missile defense, the mission the soldiers were carrying out when the base came under fire. Feehan enlisted in Ewa Beach but primarily lived in Georgia, his father told CNN.
The casualties did not end there. A third U.S. service member's remains are still being identified, while another soldier was killed Saturday during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance in northern Iraq, U.S. Central Command said. Together, the losses brought the number of American service members killed since the war began to 17, with more than 420 wounded, according to Fox News.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X, "Godspeed, heroes," adding that their sacrifice only stiffened U.S. resolve. Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Sunday night, President Trump mourned the loss of what he called great patriots and said the strikes carried out that evening were done in their honor. He framed the campaign as an effort to ensure Iran could never obtain a nuclear weapon.
The deaths come as the United States and Iran have sharply escalated attacks following the breakdown of an interim ceasefire signed roughly a month ago. That agreement, structured as a memorandum of understanding meant to halt the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to free navigation, unraveled last week and gave way to a return to open war. Trump has since authorized nine consecutive nights of strikes on Iranian coastal military sites and Revolutionary Guard forces, which the administration says are designed to degrade Tehran's ability to threaten commercial shipping through the strait and to punish the units behind the Jordan attack.
Operation Inherent Resolve, the mission the two soldiers were supporting, has wound down its combat operations in Iraq even as the United States consolidates and transitions its footprint in neighboring Syria. Analysts have warned that the shifting U.S. posture could create openings for an ISIS resurgence, a concern CENTCOM has said it is working to counter. Sources: Fox News, CNN