Eight U.S. Marines were injured when an Iranian anti-ship cruise missile struck a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month — a detail the Pentagon never publicly disclosed.
NBC News revealed the injuries Sunday, citing three U.S. officials familiar with the September 14 attack.
Seven enlisted Marines and one officer were aboard the vessel as part of a battalion landing team when the Iranian missile struck.
The injuries were thankfully not considered serious.
But the Marines suffered smoke inhalation and symptoms consistent with concussions, including headaches, raising concerns about possible traumatic brain injuries.
All eight have since returned to duty.
But here’s the part the American public wasn’t told at the time:
The Pentagon did not publicly announce that eight Marines had been injured in the strike.
The vessel itself was not a U.S. Navy warship, according to officials, who would identify it only as a “maritime vessel.”
There had been some reporting about the attack.
Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst reported on September 16 that a U.S.-contracted vessel had been struck near the Strait of Hormuz after being targeted by Iranian drones and at least one missile.
That report said U.S. personnel were aboard and that minor injuries, including smoke inhalation, had occurred.
But it did not reveal that eight of those injured were United States Marines.
That information is only coming to light now.
According to NBC’s reporting, the Marines’ injuries were entered into the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System roughly 10 days after the September 14 attack.
One U.S. official offered a possible explanation for that delay, noting that symptoms from injuries such as concussions can take time to emerge and that the casualty database does not update in real time.
But the revelation lands amid broader questions about how the Pentagon has been reporting the human toll of the war with Iran.
As of Wednesday, the Pentagon database listed 861 U.S. service members as injured during the conflict.
And this isn’t the first time questions have been raised about whether publicly available Pentagon numbers tell Americans the full story.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month, citing officials familiar with internal Defense Department data, that at least 22 U.S. service members had died in the Middle East since the war began — more than appeared in the Pentagon’s public database at the time.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth furiously rejected that report, calling it “DISGUSTING and FAKE.”
Now Americans are learning another important detail that wasn’t publicly announced when it happened:
An Iranian missile hit a vessel carrying U.S. forces.
Eight Marines were injured.
And it took two weeks for the American public to learn exactly who had been hurt.
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