Kuwait designated a deployment again after drone strike

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait – In response to an Iranian drone strike against Camp Buehring and three U.S. F-15 fighter jets being shot down by friendly fire in the opening days of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. government’s attempt to topple the Iranian regime … or not, maybe? (The talking points for the justification of these strikes are a little wishy-washy depending on who you talk to) the Pentagon is officially reclassifying Kuwait as a deployment zone, once again.

For years, U.S. service members chastised their fellow brothers and sisters in arms who spent the duration of their tax-free Temporary Duty, or TDY, playing recreational sports, drinking mocktails at Chili’s, or lounging by the pool, claiming that Kuwait wasn’t a real deployment.

Well, those days are over.

“We’re making Kuwait deployments great again,” said Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at a press conference at the Pentagon March 2, 2026. “Don’t worry, you’ll still get some bangin’ stir fry on Mongolian Monday and all-you-can-eat wings on Wing Wednesday, but now you’ll get to eat well and play intermural soccer without feeling shame about that combat patch on your shoulder. You’re in a real war now, err … what I meant to say is short-term, awesome military action that the president totally has the authority to do without the approval of congress. Either way, eat up warriors, who knows if this could be your last meal because the T-walls around the Dfac won’t do shit against Iranian drones.”

The government announced the start of Operation Epic Fury with an article posted to the White House website, calling it a “bold and necessary exercise of American strength … a precise, overwhelming military campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian Regime, destroying its ballistic missile arsenal, degrading its proxy terror network, and cripple its naval force.”

While White House allies have called this military action a huge success for the President of Peace’s agenda to stop all wars by getting involved in as many armed conflicts as humanly possible before the midterms, critics were quick to call foul.

“Look, I’m no conspiracy theorist,” said Tad Crater, a previously self-described conspiracy theorist, “but the sitting President of the United States just bombed the fuck out of Iran because he had an unsubstantiated tingle in his tummy that Iran was building nuclear weapons. And this came several months after he supposedly ‘completely obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities with an overnight stealth bomber raid. And that was just a few years after he tore up the nuclear arms agreement Iran had signed with President Obama, which was effectively preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons in the first place. So, um, I guess what I’m saying is, I’m terrified to know what else is in the Epstein files if he’s willing to go to let American service members die to distract us from the truth.”

Of course, it may not be the Epstein files that are the motivating factor behind the decision to go to war. It could be the president’s abysmal 38% approval rating, or the fact his entire tariff economic policy was ruled illegal by the courts, or perhaps it’s because Democrats have been sweeping elections, turning historically very red areas of the country blue, or maybe it’s because he didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize, again, or … you know what? Who knows at this point.

What we do know is that GWOT veterans, many of whom spent years talking about how much they hated being in the military until they made their military service their entire personality as content creators on TikTok, are feeling the itch to get back in the fight.

“I swore I’d never put the uniform back on when I got my DD-214,” said Marty Balmoral, a former sergeant and infantryman with 10th Mountain Division. “But seein’ footage of those Durka Durka’s running for their lives from the lethality of the U.S. military reignited my addiction for Rip-Its, nicotine pouches, and 1300 jack shack sessions in the 103-degree temps of a Kuwaiti porta-shitter. Gimme a pen, I wanna re-up, baby! What makes the green grass grow? Blood. Blood. Blood.”

Meanwhile, troops currently deployed to Kuwait are running to the PX or their supply NCO to be first in line to get their new combat patch.

“The day the drones attacked was my thirty-first day in country,” said Army Pfc. Daniel Freshfish, a human resource specialist. “In any other theater, I’d be authorized to wear a combat patch, but we weren’t here. But now we are. I’m so excited. Also, I don’t really know the regs on this, but even though the drone attack happened at Buehring and I’m at Arifjan, I’m pretty sure I’m still authorized a [Combat Action Badge] since I’m in the same country. This is, like, literally, the best deployment ever.”

The Pentagon has encouraged active service members and veterans to “not get their hopes up”, for a long-term footprint in the Iranian theater of operation, that the U.S. involvement in Iran is isolated to targeting select targets of importance to the Iranian regime and its ability to wage war. Of course, that’s exactly what George W. Bush said in reference to Iraq, and we all know how that turned out.