By Staff Reporter | March 5, 2026
The final two were identified Wednesday: Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa, and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California. Marzan’s identification is still being confirmed by a medical examiner — Pentagon officials say he is “believed to be the individual who perished at the scene.”
Marzan’s sister remembered him as a “loving husband, loving father, loving brother, and loving uncle and loving friend” and called him “a strong leader who lived by example.”
The first four soldiers were named Tuesday: Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa. All were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, an Army Reserve unit based in Des Moines, Iowa.
Tietjens joined the Army Reserve in 2006 and completed two deployments to Kuwait. Amor deployed to Kuwait and Iraq in 2019 and earned multiple commendations including the Army Commendation Medal. Coady, just 20 years old, had enlisted in 2023 and was posthumously promoted from specialist. Iowa gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand called him “a 20-year-old Army Reservist and Drake student” and asked Iowans to pray for his family.
The six were killed inside a command and control center — essentially a large trailer — that was encircled by six-foot concrete walls, a defensive measure common since the Iraq and Afghanistan era that protects against rockets and mortars but offers no protection against aerial attacks. An additional 18 service members were wounded in the strike.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strike was caused by a powerful Iranian weapon that broke through air defenses and the facility’s fortifications. “Every once in a while, you might have one, unfortunately, we call it a squirter, that makes its way through,” he said. Sources told CBS News the situation was worse than that — requests had been made for more capabilities to defeat incoming drones, but those resources never arrived. “We basically had no drone defeat capability,” one source said.
Preliminary assessments indicate the operations center was struck by a one-way attack drone — Iran commonly uses Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drones. Fire quickly engulfed the buildings, making it difficult to recover the bodies in the immediate aftermath.
Brig. Gen. Clint Barnes paid tribute to the fallen: “They were the ultimate ambassadors for freedom.”
The broader conflict continues to escalate. By March 4, Iran had retaliated with more than 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones aimed at U.S. partners across the Middle East, including Qatar and Bahrain. In Israel, ten people have been killed and nearly 360 injured from Iranian retaliatory strikes. The State Department says more than 17,500 Americans have safely returned to the U.S. from the Middle East since Saturday.
This story has been updated to reflect the Pentagon’s full identification of all six service members.
