Three US service members were killed last year as they slept and more than 40 were injured when Iran-backed forces hit an American military housing unit in Jordan.
Those soldiers’ loved ones are watching with trepidation this week as Middle East attacks escalate in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to carry out strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
‘Our concerns are always about the soldiers … our prayers always go out about the soldiers,’ Francine Moffett, mother of Spc. Breonna Moffett, who died in the January 2024 attack, told Daily Mail on Monday – shortly before news broke of Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on a US airbase in Qatar.
‘I don’t know how I feel about the war,’ added Moffett, whose daughter turned 23 just days before her death last year. ‘I just think that it could have been handled differently.’
She added that high-level decision makers often ‘don’t really think about’ the lives on the ground … while her own ‘heart always goes out to them first.’
Iran responded to US hits on its nuclear facilities with threats to kill 50,000 American troops, though no lives were lost Monday in its missile attack on the Al Udeid Air Base.
Donald Trump then declared a ceasefire between Israel and Iran had been agreed, but it spectacularly collapsed when the arch enemies accused one another of breaking it.
Last January’s drone attack in Jordan, however, resulted in two other deaths in addition to Spc. Moffett’s; also killed were Spc. Kennedy Sanders, 24, and Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46. The three US Army Reservists were assigned to the 718th Engineer Company, 926th Engineer Battalion, 926th Engineer Brigade in Fort Moore, Georgia.
The fatal strike on January 28, 2024 was attributed to Iran-aligned Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraq-based group. It hit a housing container unit at the Tower 22 outpost in Jordan, where 350 soldiers were based focused on reconnaissance and special forces operations, according to an Army release.
Spc. Breonna Moffett, from Georgia, turned 23 just days before she was killed in January 2024 in an attack on a US base in Jordan attributed to Iran-aligned Kataib Hezbollah
Spc. Kennedy Sanders, 24, also died in the January 28, 2024 strike on US troops in Jordan
Surviving soldiers suffered concussions and other injuries, but those ‘who were not severely injured worked together to restore communications from the outpost to the outside world as quickly as possible’ and donate blood.
‘The combat lifesavers in the unit grabbed their aid kits and went to help treat other injured soldiers, despite their wounds,’ according to the release.
The attack left a containerized housing unit ‘crinkled like a soda can,’ platoon leader 1st Lt. Ian Gallagher said in the release last month announcing Purple Heart awards for ten of his soldiers injured in the strike.
President Joe Biden stands with his hand over his heart in February 2024 as a US Army carry team moves a flag-draped transfer case containing the remains of Spc Moffett
On Monday, Francine Moffett told Daily Mail that she was thinking of the soldiers still serving in the Middle East – and their worried families – as the situation escalates.
‘It’s in the same space that [the attack] happened to my daughter,’ she said of the current action, noting that she and her family had many friends currently serving in the military.
‘Whenever they said they were going to war, my heart stopped – because I just don’t want to go through this again,’ she said. ‘Our friends, they’re like my kids now, and I just don’t want to do this again.’
Her thoughts turn to the diverse group serving in the US military abroad – ‘not just young people, but you’ve got the moms … is there a dad that’s there that wants to go home to their kids?’
Francine Moffett, mother of Breonna, pictured, says her ‘heart goes out to each and every’ US service member and their families amid America’s fight with Iran
Regarding the loved ones waiting at home, she said: ‘My heart goes out to each and every one of them, and I pray for them daily – for their family to return, to not be another situation that we are in.
‘So I pray for them daily, and I give them my love and my prayers.’
President Trump on Monday called Iran’s retaliatory strikes ‘a very weak response’ but also called for peace.
He expressed hope that Iran had ‘gotten it all out of their system’ that that there would ‘be no further HATE.’
‘Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same,’ he wrote on Truth Social.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, explosions were heard in Tehran after the ceasefire deadline.
Hours later as he left the White House, Trump vented his fury at both Israel and Iran for breaking the agreement.
Back in Georgia, Spc Moffett’s mother was hoping no other families would have to endure the pain she and hers have experienced since January 2024.
‘Our family has been through a lot, and it’s just still a lot to be processed,’ she said of her loss. ‘But you know, we talk about her daily. We go through our situations, and we just remember her as she was, not as she is.’
