Troops say Army ignored request for more medical support before deadly attack on Kuwait base

Source: CBS News

Updated on: May 19, 2026 / 8:16 AM EDT


A U.S. Army unit asked to bulk up medical support weeks before a fatal Iranian strike on their command post in Kuwait, but they were ignored, soldiers told CBS News. Some of the survivors of the attack also said at least one soldier who was killed could have been saved if there had been more medical resources onsite. The soldiers' accounts suggest the Pentagon didn't adequately prepare U.S. personnel for Iran's retaliatory strike that killed six U.S. service members and wounded 20.

It was the deadliest attack on American troops since the Iran war began, and the worst since 2021. "This was a failure," Major Stephen Ramsbottom said in an interview with CBS News. He said he believed Master Sergeant Nicole Amor could have survived her wounds had there been a doctor, a fixed aid station or more than one ambulance at the post. "She could have been saved," he said. "She fought the whole way and was trying to stay alive."

Ramsbottom told CBS News he expected a convoy of aid to rush in to treat the dozens of wounded pulled from the rubble, only to discover no one was coming. "I wanted to see like a line of ambulances coming towards us or something," said Ramsbottom, who was with the Army's 103rd Sustainment Command at a forward operating base in Kuwait. "And there wasn't that. It was like, oh man, we're on our own."

Ramsbottom is one of eight soldiers from the reserve unit who have disputed the Pentagon's account of the incident in interviews with CBS News. Soldiers previously told CBS News they were left unprotected from the drone attack despite intelligence showing Iran was targeting their position in Kuwait.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/troops-army-medical-support-iran-kuwait-attack/