At the beginning of President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, American forces saw their deadliest day when six soldiers were killed by a drone attack in Kuwait. At the time, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asserted that the drone was what is often called a “squirter,” in that it “squirted” through a heavily fortified defense net. But according to survivors of the attack, Hegseth’s claim was a lie.
"Painting a picture that 'one squeaked through' is a falsehood," one of the injured soldiers revealed to CBS News. "I want people to know the unit … was unprepared to provide any defense for itself. It was not a fortified position."
The soldier and others from the unit spoke under a condition of anonymity due to the military’s strict media restrictions.
According to these service members, missile alarms signaled their crew of roughly 60 troops to take cover several hours before the attack. But then an all-clear sounded, so officers took off their helmets and went back to work in a small office made of wood and tin.
Suddenly, "everything shook," said one soldier. "And it's something like what you see in the movies. Your ears are ringing. Everything's fuzzy. Your vision is blurry. You're dizzy. There's dust and smoke everywhere."
In a daze, the soldier looked around and saw fellow service members with “head wounds, heavy bleeding, lots of perforated eardrums, and then just shrapnel all over, so folks are bleeding from their abdomen, bleeding from arms, bleeding from legs."
It turned out to be a direct hit, killing six — the deadliest attack on American troops since 2021.
Most U.S. service members stationed in Kuwait were relocated in the lead-up to the war, moving them to positions in Jordan and Saudi Arabia beyond the reach of Iranian fire. But members of the Army's 103rd Sustainment Command were instead sent to a small military outpost on the southern coast of Kuwait, which they described as “kind of a classic, older military base,” the type used in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before the rise of drone warfare.
Before the attack, those stationed at the outpost say they were worried about their proximity to Iran. One even saw intelligence indicating that it was a potential target.
"We moved closer to Iran, to a deeply unsafe area that was a known target," the soldier said. "I don't think there was a good reason ever articulated." And once there, they received little in the way of protection, with vertical barricade walls that provided no cover from above. "From a bunker standpoint,” explained the soldier, “that's about as weak as one gets.” In terms of the amount of fortification, “I would put it in the none category. From a drone defense capability… none."
Despite this, Assistant Secretary of Defense Sean Parnell took to Twitter to claim that "every possible measure has been taken to safeguard our troops — at every level" and that "[t]he secure facility was fortified with 6-foot walls."
But an Iranian drone struck a direct hit.
"It was chaos," said another injured soldier. "There was no single line of patients to triage. You're on one side of the fire or you're on the other side of the fire."
The soldiers were forced to triage themselves, applying bandages, tourniquets and braces before commandeering civilian vehicles to drive to a hospital in a suburb of Kuwait City.
"One of the hardest things for me is that I know we didn't get everybody out, so I know that at this point there are still soldiers inside there that still haven't been identified and evacuated," one survivor said of the aftermath.
Later, the soldiers did not agree with Hegseth’s “squirter” characterization of the attack.
"It's not my intent to diminish morale or to disparage the Army or the Department of War more holistically,” said one, “but I do think that telling the truth is important and we're not going to learn from these mistakes if we pretend these mistakes didn't happen.”
When asked if the attack was avoidable, he was unequivocal: "In my opinion, absolutely, yes."