Air Force leaders lay bare the peril service members faced during Iran’s attacks on bases

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — The Department of War has largely been quiet about the extent of the damage Iran caused during their conflict, though new details demonstrate the contested and chaotic environment that roughly 50,000 U.S. service members have endured for more than six months now.Chief of staff of the Air Force Gen. Ken Wilsbach recently traveled to the Middle East, where he heard firsthand from those in the area of operations about the extraordinary efforts needed to save themselves, their partners, and more. He recalled some of those stories during his keynote address on Monday during the Air Force Association’s Air and Space Conference.With missiles inbound to an unnamed base in the region, airmen sprinted toward bunkers, but one missile got through American defenses, hit an aircraft that burst into flames, he said, adding that “the force of the blast damaged the door so badly it wouldn’t open, trapping the airmen inside.” “Picture the scene: fire was spreading, an aircraft was burning only feet away, their teammates were trapped inside, and they had no way out,” Wilsbach said. “Despite the danger, airmen ran toward the flames. A security forces [non-commissioned officer] grabbed a pry bar and forced the door open, calmly communicated with the airmen trapped inside. Seconds later, the ejection seat on the burning aircraft ignited, sending glass and metal fragments through the air. Finally, the door gave way, and the airmen escaped and ran for cover.”In total, U.S. airmen experienced “1,200 alarm reds while executing 48 airfield repairs and completing more than 420 reportable explosive ordnance” removals, he said. One U.S. service member was killed in July in Iraq during the controlled detonation of an unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone.An Air Force website noted that a code red indicates “that an attack is imminent or in progress,” and personnel should “seek protective shelter immediately.”The Air Force chief also praised an airman he called “Garrett,” who he said was on the flight line helping F-15E Strike Eagles launch when the red alarm sounded. Personnel around him “started running for shelter,” and he even sent a “young airman” to a bunker while he “armed the weapons and cleared the jet,” which included “procedures he had never formally been trained on.”Wilsbach also retold the story of Shanea and Nolan, who “tracked a swarm of enemy drones headed toward their base” hundreds of miles from where Garrett was protecting his fellow airmen.“People sprinted for shelter as alarm red announced an incoming attack, but Shanea and Nolan stayed focused on the screens in front of them, because every inbound track could be a weapon aimed at their teammates,” Wilsbach continued. “Shanea is 27 years old, and Nolan is 21. Think about the responsibility we placed on these two airmen. Hundreds of lives depended on them to identify the threats and employ countermeasures. Every second mattered. The stakes were life and death. Together, Shanae and Nolan achieved more than 10 surface-to-air kills that night, defeating the threat, defeating threat after threat before it could reach the airmen they were protecting.”While neither he nor Air Force Secretary Troy Meink detailed the exact extent of the damage to U.S. bases, aircraft, and radar in the region, public information demonstrates the increased importance of air defense. Ten U.S. service members have been killed in Iranian attacks on U.S. bases in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. Dozens of manned and unmanned aircraft have been damaged or destroyed as well.U.S. sailors taxi aircraft to a staging point on the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in support of Operation Epic Fury, Feb. 28, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo via Newscom) U.S. Central Command’s forward headquarters operates out of Al Udeid Air Base near Doha, Qatar, which also houses the Combined Air Operations Center. With the expectation that the base could come under attack, the military directed the air campaign against Iran from a facility at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina from the onset of the war. The command center took a direct hit from multiple missiles during the start of the war, according to Air and Space Magazine. Last week, acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao acknowledged that Iranian forces “blew the hell out of Bahrain,” which was a reference to Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home of the U.S. 5th Fleet.Wilsbach announced on Monday that the service is advancing two initiatives in the wake of attacks on U.S. bases.“First, we will establish the point defense weapons system, bringing together kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities to secure our air bases,” he said.The Air Force has also recently established a new career path for point defense airmen, and Wilsbach said it will be operational in two years. Two airmen, Senior Master Sgt. Andrew Lewis and Senior Master Sgt. Brandon Spears, are the first in that career track.“We can no longer treat point defense as a side hustle,” Wilsbach declared. “We must make it a core function of air and space power.”A new career track designated specifically for point defense demonstrates the overarching and evolving threat landscape. Any U.S. base domestic or abroad could be targeted and the bases need to be prepared for such an attack, and the threat has expanded with the proliferation of cheap, one-way attack drones that are not meant to be recovered and reused. Cheap drones have allowed smaller militaries with fewer resources and non-state actors to threaten much larger militaries.In a subsequent roundtable with media members, he told the Washington Examiner, “If every base is going to be threatened, we have to have somebody that knows how to defend it. So obviously that’s a long-term objective. But what I’ll tell you for right now is we’re going to develop the career field and push it forward to the most critical bases that need protecting most.”There have also been several incidents in which unauthorized drones have been tracked flying over various U.S. bases.SIX-MONTH IRAN WAR PUTS PRESSURE ON THE PENTAGON’S PROCUREMENT TRANSFORMATION TO MEET THE ‘1939 MOMENT’U.S. air defense largely includes kinetic interceptor options, but there are also non-kinetic ways to stop drones, such as using electronic warfare, GPS jamming, and lasers. The downside of using interceptors designed to stop incoming drones or missiles physically is that each interceptor can take down only one projectile and cannot be reused. More expensive air defense interceptors, primarily intended to stop larger projectiles such as ballistic missiles, can cost millions of dollars apiece and are only intended for one-time use. As a result, the Pentagon is seeking to find more cost-effective alternatives.Another way to protect bases is to make it more difficult for them to come under attack by hardening the facilities, though Wilsbach downplayed the strategy of doing so. The Air Force can “blow” up any hardened facilities that are still above ground, and making a facility “impervious to an attack” would require building it “200 or 300 feet underground,” he said.