A U.S. Army unit stationed in Kuwait requested additional medical support weeks before an Iranian drone struck their command post at the Port of Shuaiba on March 1, killing six service members and wounding 20. The request to leadership focused on the number of medical personnel and the availability and accessibility of medical supplies, according to soldiers speaking on the condition of anonymity.

About one week before the Iranian campaign the Pentagon dubbed Operation Epic Fury, several dozen members of the Army's 103rd Sustainment Command stationed at Camp Arifjan were ordered to relocate to Port of Shuaiba. Steel-reinforced concrete T-walls designed to shield service members from mortar or rocket blasts surrounded the command post but provided no protection from aerial attacks. U.S. intelligence had warned as early as January that Iran would target the post, and at operations and intelligence meetings beginning roughly two weeks before the strike, soldiers asked for more drone defense.

"We were told: Don't worry about protection," Major Stephen Ramsbottom said. "We had no overhead protection to keep anything from falling on us. We had a tin roof. That's all we had."

Incoming missile alarms sent roughly 80 to 100 soldiers into a cement bunker in the early morning hours before the attack, as an Iranian ballistic missile passed over the post. An all-clear sounded around 9:15 a.m. A drone then smashed through the workspace's tin ceiling, sprayed shrapnel in all directions, and lodged a chunk of glass in the back of Ramsbottom's head. "I heard a loud bang and I got knocked to the ground," he said. "It went black."

Master Sergeant Ann Marie Carrier, who had been seated next to Master Sergeant Nicole Amor when the drone hit, said the Army did not plan for a mass casualty event and did not conduct any rehearsals leading up to the alert. "We didn't have any training," Carrier said. "It's saddening, disheartening," she said. She recalled the lights going out and the smell of blood. "When I got up, I know I instantly started screaming her name," she said of Amor. "She was my yin and yang."

With no ambulance convoy arriving, soldiers commandeered civilian passenger vans to transport the wounded to a local Kuwaiti hospital. Carrier said Amor was still breathing as they hoisted her into a van, but a medic who joined them lacked the supplies to stabilize her. Amor was no longer breathing by the time they reached Adan Hospital south of Kuwait City, where she died.

"This was a failure," Ramsbottom said. "If she would have gotten an ambulance, she might have lived."

Capt. Tim Hawkins said the Pentagon took extraordinary steps to protect U.S. troops before and during Operation Epic Fury and that an investigation into the Kuwait attack is ongoing. "No plan is ever perfect, but accusations suggesting blatant disregard for the safety of our forces are unfounded and inaccurate," Hawkins said.