When Iran started launching retaliatory attacks against American troops on bases across the Middle East earlier this year, the U.S. military evacuated more than 1,250 people from a major U.S. naval base in Bahrain, according to U.S. Navy officials.
MS NOW spoke to four active-duty spouses and one civilian employee who were part of the Navy’s evacuation of military families from Bahrain in March and said the process was disorganized and chaotic. The spouses and the civilian employee were granted anonymity for fear of retaliation.
They described living with their children through traumatic days under fire in Bahrain, jolting during constant alerts on their phones warning of incoming missiles, seeing smoke clouds from bombs that hit buildings of the base and hearing the booms of interceptor missiles blowing up incoming Iranian drones and rockets.
“I was terrified. I laid really close to my kids because I was like at least if we die, we’ll die and one person won’t be left,” one spouse said.
For two families, their service member spouses were relocated out of Bahrain before the U.S. bombing of Iran began on Feb. 28, leaving them alone in the country. They felt the military had transferred their spouses away and left their families behind and in harm’s way.
“Our spouses who weren’t there. They’re sitting there like ‘my family’s in a war zone and I can’t help them because I’m not there.’ Why weren’t we out? They knew something was going on and they literally left us there as sitting ducks,” said one spouse, whose husband evacuated before the war.
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The families interviewed by MS NOW said they have been living in limbo ever since their hasty departure from Bahrain.
Many left with only one suitcase per person, leaving behind household furniture and personal items with no clear idea when they may see those things again.
They described moving between multiple continents, draining their financial savings and soothing children who were traumatized by the nearby explosions they heard during the Iranian attacks.
Some said they temporarily moved to Germany so their children could be in U.S. military-run schools with some of the same children they had known on the base in Bahrain. The Navy told the families they had to relocate to the United States by June, according to the families, which many scrambled to do, even though they didn’t have the things left behind in Bahrain.
Most of them moved into either short-term furnished rentals or hotels. They said the financial costs of the past year have been devastating.