Several US soldiers wounded in one of Iran’s decisive drone strikes in Kuwait say the military’s medical system has failed them, leaving the troops without adequate treatment.

They say they had to pursue care on their own after the attack on a US tactical operations center at Port Shuaiba in Kuwait on March 1.

Six US Army Reserve soldiers were killed and more than 30 others wounded when the Iranian retaliatory strike hit the center.

Nine wounded service members said they faced significant shortcomings in their medical care following the strike, with some saying they were left to treat themselves or wait weeks and months for specialized treatment, according to the Associated Press.

Army Lt. Col. Arturo Lincón said shrapnel struck his jaw and neck, severing an artery and lodging in a vertebra. Despite being diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and facing a potential stroke risk, he said the Army did not consider his condition serious enough for admission to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, as he was not properly registered as “wounded in combat”. 

“I was just kind of on my own, at least it felt like that,” Lincón said.

He said he went days without pain medication and subsequently spent seven weeks receiving specialized outpatient treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Shrapnel remains lodged in his back because doctors considered removing it too dangerous due to its proximity to his spinal cord.

Maj. Stephen Ramsbottom said he waited more than four months to receive MRI results after shrapnel was removed from his head.

“I’ve had to build my own case for everything,” Ramsbottom said. “It’s very frustrating.”

Maj. Billy Key, who suffered a head injury, hearing loss and lung damage from smoke inhalation, said he did not receive specialized treatment until mid-April. “It took too long,” he said.

Other wounded service members said they were forced to rely on one another for treatment and did not receive what they considered proper medical care until returning to the United States.

The Pentagon rejected remarks that the Army had downplayed soldiers’ injuries, saying those wounded during the aggression against Iran received the necessary treatment in the theater or were evacuated to higher levels of care.

However, the accounts of the wounded soldiers point to how the Pentagon failed to handle the medical aftermath of the Iranian strike.

US war against Iran under strain as nearly 100 troops injured in two weeks

Nearly 100 US troops have been injured since Washington resumed its military aggression against Iran earlier this month.

In September, sources familiar with the US Department of War’s internal casualty accounting data told the Washington Post that at least 22 US military personnel had died, four more than the 18 fatalities listed by the department’s “Defense Casualty Analysis System.”

One official put the number at 23 deaths since the United States and the Israeli regime launched the illegal war on February 28. The official said some of the deaths not publicly reflected in the department’s accounting were not directly linked to the aggression, but involved US personnel who were in the region during the wartime.

So far, the department’s public database has listed 14 deaths under “Operation Epic Fury,” Washington’s so-called codename for the aggression, while four additional deaths were categorized under “Overseas Operations.”