Tag Archives: Elizabeth Warren

Congress Still Seeks Answers on Soldiers’ Brain Injuries in Kuwait

Seven months ago, an Iranian drone strike on Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, killed six U.S. soldiers, and injured many others. Recently, nine wounded service members spoke on the record to the Associated Press, stating that the military medical system failed them.

Reportedly, several soldiers who were victims of this drone strike waited weeks for a traumatic brain injury diagnosis, and some were not diagnosed until they returned to the United States.  While Army Lieutenant Arturo Lincón had shrapnel damage to an artery feeding his brain was recognized at the time, he was not admitted to a medical center. (A Pentagon official said medical center’s mission is to stabilize patients for transfer, not to admit them.) Major Stephen Ramsbottom was not diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury until he returned to the States and then waited another four months for MRI results.

Excessive delays and other such failures have been a near certainty within the United States military medical system, no matter who the president is, nor who has the majority in Congress. Recent delays reported in the U.S.-Iran conflict prompted intervention from Senator Tammy Baldwin (WI) in August 2026. The following month, on September 22, Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA), Representative Pat Ryan (NY) and 19 bicameral lawmakers submitted a letter calling for a public hearing about the reported failures.

Brain Injury Emerging as Signature Wound of Iran War

Traumatic brain injury has become the defining wound of America’s war with Iran, with U.S. officials confirming that more than 75% of the 303 service members wounded since Operation Epic Fury began on February 28 have suffered TBIs — the highest such ratio in U.S. military history. Approximately 50,000 American troops were already stationed across the Middle East when the conflict began, with thousands more since deployed.

The injuries are driven overwhelmingly by Iranian drone and missile strikes. When an Iranian drone struck a U.S. operations center at Kuwait’s Shuaiba port in early March, killing six Army Reserve soldiers, dozens more were hospitalized with brain trauma from invisible blast overpressure waves that damage tissue without leaving any external wound.

TBI was already labeled the “signature wound” of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, where the Department of Defense recorded over 518,000 military TBIs since 2000, peaking at 33,000 diagnoses in 2011 alone. The current TBI rate — roughly three times the Iraq-era figure — has alarmed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Sen. Joni Ernst warned that the injury “has become prevalent among hundreds of thousands of service members in recent years,” while Sen. Elizabeth Warren has called TBI research “the minimum that we owe” those who serve.