Three U.S. soldiers have received Purple Hearts for rushing to help wounded comrades after an Iranian missile struck near their bunker at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, according to a report from Stars and Stripes.
Staff Sgt. Kalob Mitchell, Sgt. Xavier Jones, and Spc. Nicholas Cabo, all members of the 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, were honored for their actions during the March 27 attack. Stars and Stripes, which published its account on Oct. 20, reported that an “Alarm Red” siren sounded to warn of an incoming strike, coming less than a month after the start of the Iran war. A 550-pound Iranian ballistic missile landed near the soldiers’ bunker, and the impact sent shock and sonic waves through the surrounding area.
“Everything went black,” Mitchell told Stars and Stripes. “We’d been hit.”
After another soldier woke them, the three men moved toward the sound of people calling for help. Mitchell described what they found: “Two soldiers, I’m not too sure who they were, had significant injuries; (we) ran over there, applied tourniquets, T Triple C (Tactical Combat Casualty Care), everything.” According to the outlet, the group treated a severely injured soldier, tended to another with a neck injury, and worked to calm a service member who had been disoriented by the blast.
Cabo told Stars and Stripes that instinct took over in the moment. “I think it was just the adrenaline,” he said, adding that he noticed his own leg was bleeding but “it wasn’t anything like crazy bleeding, so we just heard screams and went to go help those guys.”
At the ceremony where the three were awarded their Purple Hearts, their unit commander, Capt. Tyler Ritter, read aloud thank-you notes written by the soldiers they had helped, Stars and Stripes reported. The outlet said it remains unclear exactly how many service members were wounded in the March 27 attack.
A Wider Toll
The incident is part of a larger pattern of casualties tied to the conflict with Iran. The Defense Casualty Analysis System has recorded 21 troops killed and 865 wounded since the war began on Feb. 28, according to the Stars and Stripes report. The article also noted that multiple American military installations have come under attack during the conflict, resulting in billions of dollars in damage to military and diplomatic facilities and affecting hundreds of buildings across U.S. defense infrastructure.
