The Pentagon’s public count of U.S. troops wounded during the Iran war jumped by 37 this week, and the Defense Department has offered no explanation for the increase.
The new figures include 29 Navy sailors and eight Marines, according to a review of the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, the Pentagon’s public database tracking personnel killed and wounded in U.S. conflicts and other military operations overseas.
As of Wednesday, DCAS listed 861 troops wounded during the Iran war.
More than half of those injuries are categorized in the database under “Overseas Operations,” a label applied since the start of a July ceasefire between Washington and Tehran that later collapsed. Before the ceasefire, killed and wounded troops were counted under “Operation Epic Fury,” the Trump administration’s name for the Iran war.
The database does not say how or when the 37 service members were wounded. A Navy official said all of the sailors returned to duty after their unspecified injuries.
Since the ceasefire, President Donald Trump and other senior administration officials have repeatedly argued that the conflict is not a war. Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Sept. 3 that “Right now, there is no active shooting.”
Defense officials have previously said DCAS data entry can lag by days or longer for a number of reasons, including delays in reporting concussions and brain injuries, since symptoms sometimes do not appear right away.
Pentagon spokespeople did not return requests for comment. The Navy and Marine Corps referred questions to U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military missions in the Middle East. A Central Command spokesman declined to comment.
Military officials have not publicly disclosed any recent attacks on U.S. forces or other incidents that would account for the 37 new injuries.
The administration’s handling of casualty figures has come under intense scrutiny since earlier this year, when the names of four U.S. troops who died as a result of the Iran war were briefly left out of the Pentagon’s official count.
Last week, The Washington Post reported that more American service members have died in the Middle East during the Iran conflict than the Pentagon has publicly acknowledged. Officials said as many as five military deaths are missing from the DCAS database, a discrepancy that has not been resolved.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed back hard, claiming the article was inaccurate and calling the reporting “disgusting.”
When that report was published, the database showed 18 U.S. personnel had died from hostile and nonhostile causes since Feb. 28, when the Trump administration, working with Israel, launched the Iran war. According to The Post, not all of the undisclosed deaths are directly tied to the conflict, but they involve U.S. personnel who were in the region during the hostilities.
The DCAS death toll rose to 19 this week following the death of an Army officer who suffered a medical emergency Sept. 18 while flying to the Middle East.
Nonhostile deaths recorded in DCAS have historically included those caused by accidents, sudden health crises or self-inflicted wounds, including suicides. In past conflicts, such deaths were documented to give the American public a full and unvarnished accounting of the costs borne by military personnel and their families.
Polls show the Iran war is deeply unpopular with Americans and could become a political liability for Trump and the Republican Party heading into November’s midterm elections.
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters that Tehran had reached out to Washington in an effort to revive peace talks.
