“So Much Worse Than People Realize”: Never-Before-Seen Images Reveal Damage at U.S. Bases as Troops Describe Being…
“So Much Worse Than People Realize”: Never-Before-Seen Images Reveal Damage at U.S. Bases as Troops Describe Being AbandonedService members, contractors, and military families share photos, videos, and firsthand accounts of the Iran war that they say the Pentagon has kept from the American public
When the United States went to war with Iran in late February, the American public was told little about what was happening to the troops stationed across the Middle East. There were no embedded journalists. Casualty details trickled out slowly. Images of damage to American bases were almost nonexistent. Now, service members, civilian contractors, and military families are breaking their silence. MeidasTouch, in coordination with our partner VALOR Media Network, has obtained dozens of never-before-published photos and videos showing damage to U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, along with firsthand accounts from people who were there. They describe destroyed aircraft, bombed-out barracks and mess halls, troops digging their own foxholes, and military families hiding in parking garages while Iranian missiles flew overhead. “It’s so much worse than people realize,” one source said. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because, they said, they have been repeatedly threatened with disciplinary action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for speaking out or sharing images. The accounts were gathered by VALOR Media correspondents El Powers and What in Clay Nation, who provided their notes and the images to MeidasTouch. Some of the claims in this report could not be independently verified, and we have noted where that is the case. The Department of Defense has not publicly confirmed several of the losses described below. “This Is Not a Normal Deployment”Many of the people who shared their experiences are not new to war. Several have deployed to combat zones before. And all of them said the same thing: nothing compared to this. “This is not a normal deployment,” multiple sources said. They described a level of mismanagement they had never seen before. One service member described being called up in mid-February and told to ship out immediately on what was supposed to be a three-week temporary assignment. After arriving, they were told it would be closer to three months. They ended up staying more than seven. Several said they had no advance knowledge of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. campaign against Iran, even though some of them were directly involved in it. They learned that hostilities had begun the same way most Americans did: from the news. “We are sitting ducks,” one said. Unlike past wars, the threat came almost entirely from the sky: drones, rockets, and ballistic missiles launched by an enemy they could not see. One service member described the Iranian drones that targeted their base: “You can’t see them at night. They have no lights and are GPS navigated via coordinates. It sounds exactly like a small Cessna. Looks like a large falcon if it’s about 400 feet up. We had no defense against the drones.” Saudi Arabia: Prince Sultan Air BaseImages supplied by U.S. service members and civilian contractors show extensive damage at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia between March and July.
The photos show destroyed dining facilities and workspaces, and damaged dorms where service members were living during the strikes.
One image shows bunkers the military provided to protect troops from drone and missile strikes, with their doors not yet mounted.
Other images show aircraft burning on the tarmac after missile strikes.
One photo shows a U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS surveillance plane, tail number 81-005, damaged in an attack that sources say injured between 10 and 12 service members. According to the sources, the same attack damaged multiple other aircraft, including two KC-135 refueling tankers.
A source also provided an image they say shows a fully destroyed C-17 cargo aircraft, which they say was piled up to speed cleanup and limit knowledge of the loss. The Department of Defense has not confirmed the loss of a C-17, and MeidasTouch has not been able to independently verify this claim. Videos obtained by MeidasTouch show U.S. interceptor missiles engaging Iranian drones and ballistic missiles over the base, and in one case, interceptors failing to stop a ballistic missile that then struck the base.   Jordan: “Surprised There Weren’t More Deaths”At Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, service members described roughly three months of near-constant incoming fire beginning in March. Alarms often couldn’t keep up.
“They were taking incoming fire so frequently that the alarms couldn’t keep up,” according to one account.
Sources say multiple U.S. Air Force aircraft were damaged during the strikes, including F-15 fighters, F-35s, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and helicopters, along with command-and-control facilities and critical infrastructure.
One image shows the impact crater left by a ballistic missile that sources say got past interceptors and landed near military bunkers, injuring multiple people.
 The most harrowing account involves an attack on the night of July 17 into July 18. According to sources, Iranian ballistic missiles and drones got past the base’s defenses and struck U.S. military barracks. Three service members were killed, and four more were reportedly evacuated. Multiple sources told MeidasTouch they could hear service members calling for help from inside the flames, but that because of inadequate emergency response and a lack of preparation, they could not reach them. Sources said the base was overcrowded at the time of the deaths, and that those on the ground were surprised there weren’t more. Deaths occurred, they said, when service members couldn’t make it to shelters in time. Living conditions deteriorated as the strikes continued. Troops repeatedly ran out of basic supplies, especially personal hygiene items, and the base exchange was often closed during periods of heavy fire. Housing areas were blown up twice. Near the end of the deployment, a hangar storing everything troops were preparing to ship home took a direct hit, destroying gear and personal belongings. Then, in July, service members were told they were finally going home. They were sitting in the terminal waiting for their flight when they were ordered to stay. Many had already thrown away their bedding and hygiene items. They couldn’t replace them.
“That really killed morale,” one source said.
Kuwait: An Abandoned Camp In Kuwait, sources said that after the initial attacks, some service members scattered into the desert and lived out of a van for three months until they could be sent home. Photos taken in September at Camp Buehring, months after the last attack, show a base that sources describe as almost completely abandoned by the U.S. military. Multiple sources said no one is allowed in parts of the camp at night.
UAE: Troops Dug Their Own Foxholes In the United Arab Emirates, service members said they had no warning at all that U.S. hostilities were about to begin, and no shelters or protection when they did. According to their accounts, everything they knew came from the news. Communication was spotty. Only small security teams were armed. Some service members retreated into hotels and had to find their own food, including by ordering takeout. Others, with no other protection available, dug their own foxholes. They described leadership as “rudderless,” caught off guard by a war no one had prepared them for on what was supposed to be a peaceful tour. Bahrain: Families Left Behind Some of the most painful accounts come from Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Images obtained by MeidasTouch show damage to the Fifth Fleet headquarters after it was struck by Iranian drones or missiles.
But the accounts focus most heavily on military families. According to sources, local commanders had evacuation plans in place after the June 2025 attacks, with planes waiting at the Bahrain airport. Families say the Pentagon refused to allow the evacuation, and that they were told it would “make the situation look bad at home.” Then the airport was struck and closed. Families were left to find their own way out. Some, according to sources, paid tens of thousands of dollars to get their families to safety, leaving behind pets, furniture, and spouses they didn’t know if they would see again. Sources also say some senior leaders were evacuated under what was presented as a training exercise, and that some were able to warn their own families. Other families were left behind for more than a week as Bahrain came under attack. During the initial wave, some hid in a mall parking garage for hours, protected in part by other U.S. service members and Bahraini forces. Sources say some of the children were so traumatized they couldn’t eat for days. Sources also say some residential buildings were targeted because Iran knew U.S. service members lived in them, and that some active-duty members were moved into residential buildings and hotels that were then struck by Iranian drones and missiles within hours.
     “We were used as pawns in the war”The spouse of a U.S. service member, who was living in Bahrain with their children in March, shared this account with MeidasTouch: “We were used as pawns in the war. There were many opportunities to get us out BEFORE things broke bad. The planes were sitting, waiting for the call to be made, but the powers that be didn’t make the call to evacuate dependents, and then the Bahrain Airport was damaged and we were trapped. “We lived right under the main missile path and very closely to directly below where the Patriot interceptors would meet the missiles. Our home rattled and shook with every missile that was intercepted or landed. We had missile debris fall in the lagoon our home sits on.” The building next door was hit, the spouse said, and their own building was damaged in the blast, knocking out several ceiling panels. The family is now back in the United States. But the spouse says the damage remains. “Every thunderstorm they ask to be sure it’s not missiles. If we’re keeping too close of an eye on them, they are suspicious that something is wrong. That missiles could be coming to our new home back in the US. My children’s innocence was stripped from them.” “People now say that our kids have seen more war than the average active duty service member,” the spouse said. “Not to diminish the contributions of any service member, but to really drive home how much all of the dependents were exposed to, how much very real danger we were in, and how it was completely unnecessary.” The spouse praised the people on the ground, saying “everyone at the ground level was absolutely fabulous,” but placed the blame squarely on Washington, saying the deepest scars are “the psychological scars of being used as a chess piece while Pete Hegseth thinks he’s a version of Call of Duty where the consequences aren’t real.” The family is now trying to set up a home in the U.S. while almost everything they own remains in the Middle East, with no reliable date for when it will arrive. “The risk that they took using dependents as pawns in a game is unforgivable,” the spouse said. “I do think the families got lost, and the government deserves to be held responsible.” “As an American citizen, I felt completely abandoned”The wife of a U.S. contractor, who supplied some of the footage from Bahrain, said she and her husband were living near the U.S. military base when the war began on February 28. “No advance warnings, no organized evacuation, no assistance whatsoever,” she said. “The only guidance we received was to stay away from embassies and avoid staying in hotels. The airspace was closed, leaving people with very few options. The message was basically: ‘Leave if you can, however you can. You’re on your own.’” She said she watched Iran target residential buildings near her own, including one practically next door. Days later, she escaped through Saudi Arabia entirely on her own and at her own expense. “The U.S. government did absolutely nothing to help me evacuate or ensure my safety,” she said. “As an American citizen, I felt completely abandoned by my own government.” She also described the guilt she felt crossing the border. “I actually felt deeply ashamed to show my American passport,” she said, “because the local people in Bahrain were now forced to stay behind and suffer the consequences, while I had the privilege of leaving.” MeidasTouch has also heard similar, unverified accounts of other Americans who were visiting the region when the war began and say they were left to find their own way out, in some cases paying thousands of dollars for flights home. “No One Was Coming to Help” The reason these service members and families came forward, they said, was a lack of transparency. They pointed to the absence of embedded journalists, which have been standard in past American wars. Spouses back home said they often had more information than the service members on the ground, because they could watch the news. Some were repeatedly reassured that bases had been resupplied. Some learned only hours in advance that their loved one was coming home. The service members’ accounts paint a picture of collapsing morale. They said they have no idea what they are fighting for. Many said they don’t believe in this administration. They described feeling that “no one was coming to help” and that they were on their own. They said military allies in Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE offered more protection to U.S. troops and their families than their own government did. “The whole idea of the military caring about service members’ mental health is bullshit,” one said. “You can only live in that kind of stressful environment for so long without it affecting you mentally,” said another. “As a service member, you lose rights as an American citizen; you are bound to your contract,” said a third. “You just have to ride it out and hope you survive.” Some described hearing rumors that deployment orders could be extended beyond a year. And one said something that should stop every American in their tracks: “Some of us don’t care if we live or die anymore.”
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