WASHINGTON , The U.S. military on Monday identified two soldiers killed in action last week during the war with Iran.
The Defense Department said in a statement that 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, died in Jordan, where they were supporting a U.S. mission against the Islamic State group. It remains unclear how they were killed.
Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, and 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, were killed in Jordan.
President Donald Trump will attend the dignified transfer ceremony of the fallen service members at Dover Air Force Base on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a social media post Monday.
“The President and the entire White House are praying for their families,” Leavitt wrote.
On Saturday, U.S. Central Command said two service members were killed in Jordan while defending against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks.
The U.S. military has reported 17 total deaths in the war with Iran.
The fatalities underscore the complex reality that American troops do not need to be on the ground in Iran to face lethal risks in a conflict involving drones, missiles and aircraft. U.S. forces are stationed across the Middle East, turning other nations into targets as fighting has escalated following a breakdown in peace talks.
Trump, a Republican, has said the war is necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
First fatalities came soon after the war started
Shortly after the war began Feb. 28, an Iranian drone strike at a civilian port in Kuwait killed six American soldiers. The service members were part of a supply and logistics unit based in Iowa and were working in a shipping container-style building with no defenses.
A seventh soldier died more than a week after being wounded in a March 1 attack by Iran on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Later in March, six service members were killed when a KC-135 refueling aircraft supporting U.S. military operations against Iran crashed in Iraq. The aircraft was in “friendly” airspace when an unspecified incident involving another aircraft occurred, according to U.S. Central Command.
On Monday, the U.S. military said a Navy pilot died in a helicopter crash in the Arabian Sea. The Navy initially described the July 1 crash as an emergency landing and said there was “no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.” The three remaining sailors aboard the helicopter were rescued.
Drones and missiles still claiming lives
The latest U.S. military death in the conflict occurred Saturday in northern Iraq, when an American service member was killed during a “controlled detonation” of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone, U.S. Central Command said Sunday. A second service member was wounded and was receiving medical treatment for a minor injury.
The military said it was withholding additional information until 24 hours after families had been notified.
The deaths in the war are not limited to Americans.
Iranian authorities said at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes over the past three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.
People working on ships, as well as foreign workers and others in Gulf nations, Israel and Lebanon have also perished in the conflict.