Roughly 140 American service members have been wounded — eight severely — in the first 10 days of Operation Epic Fury, the Pentagon confirmed Tuesday.
“The vast majority of these injuries have been minor, and 108 service members have already returned to duty,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to Military Times. “Eight service members remain listed as severely injured and are receiving the highest level of medical care.”
Since the United States and Israel began their joint offensive against Iran on Feb. 28, Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed at least seven American service members. President Donald Trump and senior administration officials traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday to witness the return of the first six soldiers killed in action. On Monday, Vice President JD Vance met the grieving family of a seventh soldier as the flag-draped transfer case arrived on U.S. soil.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pledged the U.S. attacks would continue, and warned that Tuesday would be “our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.”
“We’re crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force,” he told reporters in a press briefing Tuesday morning. “We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.”
“Our will is endless,” the defense secretary added. “What I want the American people to understand is, this is not endless.”
At the outset of the U.S.-Israeli campaign, Trump projected the conflict could last “four to five weeks.” But on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reframed the timeline, saying the war will end when the president “determines the military objectives have been met.”
Leavitt told reporters the objectives in Iran are to: “Destroy their missiles and their ability to make them; destroy their navy; permanently deny them nuclear weapons forever; and, of course, weaken their evil proxies in the region.”
The Islamic Republic’s de facto leader has offered no indication that a surrender is imminent. Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, issued a veiled threat Tuesday that Tehran would hold Trump accountable for killing the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
“Watch out for yourself – lest you be eliminated,” Larijani wrote in a post on X.
Khamenei has been succeeded by his son Mojtaba, a selection that was seen as an act of defiance by Tehran, and one with which Trump expressed his displeasure.
Tanya Noury is a reporter for Military Times and Defense News, with coverage focusing on the White House and Pentagon.
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