Three U.S. Officials confirmed the strike happened in the strait, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that carries much of the world's oil traffic. None of the Marines suffered life threatening wounds, but the officials say they sustained smoke inhalation and possibly traumatic brain injuries.
The Pentagon kept the incident out of public view even as it involved a direct Iranian strike on American service members. No timeline exists for when, or if, the military planned to disclose the attack on its own. That silence raises questions about how much the public knows about tensions between U.S. Forces and Iran in one of the most heavily trafficked and militarized waterways on the planet.
For the Marines hurt in the attack, the injuries carry lasting risk even without visible wounds. Traumatic brain injuries often show symptoms well after the initial event, so the full toll on those eight service members may not be clear for some time. Their families, like the public, learned about the strike only after officials leaked word of it, not through any Pentagon statement.