The Pentagon has quietly cooked up a way to obscure the grim human cost of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.
The Pentagon sparked outrage when it removed the names of four U.S. service members killed in Iranian strikes last week, along with dozens of wounded troops, from its war casualty database.
Pentagon spokesmen blamed the missing records on “temporary data disruptions” and suggested they would be quickly fixed.
But on Sunday, the four fallen soldiers and other wounded troops reemerged in the database under a new category—“Overseas Operations”—which is labeled for “casualties starting July 7th, 2026.”
The new category muddies the public accounting of the casualties, which he launched on February 28 and dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.”
The Pentagon’s casualty database now lists 14 deaths and 417 wounded under “Operation Epic Fury.”
It lists four deaths and 207 wounded under “Overseas Operations.”
But when combined, the true cost of Trump’s war with Iran appears to rise to 18 deaths and 624 wounded troops, although it was not immediately clear whether all of the wounded troops in the “Overseas Operations” category were casualties of the war with Iran.
According to CNN, the updated figures include an additional 140 wounded service members who had not previously been reported.
The White House and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hegseth’s top spokesman Sean Parnell and acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez both insisted last week that the four troops had been removed from the tally of deaths due to “temporary data disruptions” and said the matter would be “resolved.”
There has been no official explanation for why the fallen soldiers were instead moved to a new category, particularly given that Trump himself has acknowledged 18 deaths from the war—both in remarks to reporters and in a bizarre Truth Social post in which he compared casualties across U.S. conflicts.
However, the July 7 date coincides with Trump’s claim in a War Powers notification sent to Congress earlier this month that a new conflict with Iran began that day, arguing that the April ceasefire with Iran had paused the conflict.
The war was reignited earlier this month when Trump’s negotiations with Tehran collapsed. Subsequently, four troops were killed in Iranian strikes: Army 1st Lt Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Hawaii, Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of New York, Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Texas, and Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of North Carolina.
The New York Times last week published a report demonstrating that the Pentagon had failed to disclose injuries suffered by nearly 100 troops since fighting resumed on July 7.
