The US military on Tuesday identified the US Army soldier who was killed in Iraq on Saturday as Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, a 30-year-old father from North Carolina, the fourth US service member to be killed in the Iran war since Friday.
US Central Command said that Swinton was killed during a controlled demolition of unexploded ordnance from an Iranian attack drone in Erbil, Iraq. A US official told The New York Times that Swinton was not involved in the actual detonation but was hit by flying debris from the blast.
Swinton leaves behind a six-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. “I will never recover from this,” Swinton’s wife, Mia Gonzalez-Swinton, wrote on Facebook, according to The Associated Press. “We had so many plans for when you got back, I’m sick to my stomach.”
The US military has also identified two of the soldiers killed by an Iranian missile attack in Jordan on Friday as Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, and 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii. Remains of what is believed to be a third soldier killed in the attack have been found, but the soldier’s identity hasn’t been made public.
President Trump on Tuesday appeared to downplay the US deaths in the Iran war by sharing statistics of US wars with much higher US casualty rates. The president wrote:
“Afghanistan War: 20 years, 2,000 DEAD.
Iraq War: 9 years, 4,600 DEAD.
Vietnam War: 19 years and 5 months, 58,220 DEAD.
Korean War: 3 years and 1 month, 36,574 DEAD.
Venezuela War: 1 day, 0 DEAD.
Iran Military Conflict: 4 months, 18 DEAD.”
Since Trump launched the war on February 28, at least 18 US soldiers have been killed, according to the US military’s official count. The New York Times reported that the military was withholding information about injuries US troops suffered in the days leading up to the deadly attack on Jordan, which prompted the Pentagon to admit that nearly 100 US troops have been injured in the war since July 7.
US and Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28 have killed around 3,500 Iranians, including more than 50 since the US renewed strikes several weeks ago. In April, Iranian officials said nearly half of those killed were civilians, including the 120 school children killed in the US bombing of an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran.
