At least 41 National Guardsmen are among the dozens injured in Sunday’s attack on Tower 22 in Jordan, the National Guard Bureau confirmed on Wednesday.
The troops, deployed in support of the anti-ISIS mission, are the latest in a back-to-back rotation of mostly National Guard units that have been providing support to both U.S. special operators and local forces who have been fighting ISIS since 2014.
“The injured Guard soldiers are from units based in Arizona, California, Kentucky and New York,” according to the Guard’s statement. “Twenty-seven were able to return to duty while 14 others continue to be evaluated for follow-on care, including one requiring medical evacuation from Jordan who is in stable condition.”
The Pentagon was not able to provide an updated number of troops injured as of Thursday.
Three Army Reservists were killed in Sunday’s attack: Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, Sgt. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, and Sgt. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of the 718th Engineer Company, 926th Engineer Battalion, 926th Engineer Brigade, out of Fort Moore, Ga.
RELATED
Sanders and Moffett were posthumously promoted to sergeant, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Defense Department spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday.
A spokeswoman on Monday said more than 40 troops had reported injuries so far, eight of whom were flown to Baghdad for evaluation and three of whom was sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Facility in Germany. One was in critical condition and the other two were in stable condition as of Tuesday.
Troops have suffered traumatic brain injuries in attacks across Iraq and Syria since October, and officials say those injuries can sometimes take time to appear.
Several hundred Guardsmen are deployed to Tower 22, a logistics support facility on the Jordan-Syria border, according to the Guard statement.
They include members of 1st Battalion, 158th Infantry Regiment from the Arizona National Guard, the California National Guard’s 40th Infantry Division, the Kentucky Guard’s 138th Field Artillery Brigade and the 101st Expeditionary Signal Battalion from the New York National Guard.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.
