The number of U.S. troops injured in the Iran war surged this week without any official explanation from the Pentagon.
Another 29 Navy sailors and eight Marines have been wounded, bringing the total number of war wounded to 861, according to updated numbers in the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS).
The Defense Department has not clarified how or when the 37 troops were injured, though a Navy official told The Washington Post that all the sailors had already returned to duty. Likewise, neither President Donald Trump nor anyone else from his administration has publicly acknowledged the rising toll of injuries as the war enters its seventh month.
Instead, Trump on Saturday told reporters he had rejected a seven-day ceasefire proposal from Iran.
“I’m rejecting their deal,” the 80-year-old president boasted. “They want to make a deal where they open the strait immediately ... we’re winning tremendously. We have total control of the Hormuz Strait ... that deal would not be acceptable. They want to immediately open the Hormuz Strait.”
The Trump administration has faced serious accusations of covering up the real scale of casualties to avoid losing support for the war, even as Trump himself and top officials insist that it’s not really a war.
Five U.S. officials told the Post last week that there are more deaths that the public does not know about.
Currently, DCAS points to 19 fatalities of service members - but the officials warned that there are at least three more that are missing from the tally.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has firmly rejected claims of a cover-up.
“Even if we wanted to hide a combat death, we never would and we never could,” he insisted to reporters.
At the end of July, a group of Democratic senators demanded a “full and accurate accounting of the human costs of war.”
“We formally request a comprehensive accounting of the number of service members who have been killed, wounded, or injured in support of the operation,” said a formal letter to Hegseth.
“The information currently available to the public suggests that the Department has not consistently provided timely and comprehensive public casualty reporting throughout the conflict.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Navy for comment on the latest injuries.
