Pentagon leaders have delivered unwelcome news to the families of soldiers deployed to the Middle East.
The Defense Department is quietly extending troop deployments for another year – or longer – amid a six-month-old U.S. military campaign against Iran, even though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised a quick, decisive operation when it began, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Elements of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division could remain in the Middle East "well into 2027," according to a letter sent by military leaders to soldiers' families and viewed by the Journal.
"We do not share that lightly, and we understand that a longer tour weighs heavily on every household, including our own," the letter states.
The 82nd Airborne isn't alone in facing longer tours. Army air defense units — tasked with shooting down Iranian missiles and drones — have seen their standard deployment window stretch from nine months to a full year, one person familiar with the matter told the Journal. Some units slated for postings in Europe or the Pacific have already spent more than a year in the Middle East instead.
"The operational tempo for air defense units before this war was already among the highest of the joint force," Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the newspaper, warning that extended deployments risk "wearing out troops, delaying maintenance and hampering longer-term modernization efforts."
Navy crews are feeling the strain, too. The U.S. currently has 19 warships in Middle East waters, including two aircraft carriers and 13 guided-missile destroyers enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports.
Destroyers like the USS Delbert D. Black and USS Spruance — each carrying roughly 300 sailors — are now sailing for months at a stretch instead of taking regular breaks.
The USS Gerald R. Ford spent 11 months at sea before returning home in May, becoming the longest-deployed aircraft carrier since the Cold War ended, and the USS Abraham Lincoln is finally heading way home after an extended deployment that weighed heavily on sailors on board.
Compounding the strain, fighting has cut off the Navy's ability to resupply in the region, forcing reliance on the remote island of Diego Garcia — and sharply reducing sailors' mail, care packages and time off the ship.
The extended deployments come even as President Donald Trump privately discusses declaring the Iran war over, while his aides brief him on options to escalate it further, including strikes on a fortified nuclear site and ground operations to seize Iranian islands near the Strait of Hormuz.
For now, military families are bracing for a war with no clear end in sight.