The Army reportedly abruptly canceled a major training exercise for members of an elite paratrooper unit, sparking speculation that the Defense Department could be preparing to send U.S. troops to the front lines of the Iran conflict.
The 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, includes a brigade combat force of up to 5,000 soldiers ready to rapidly deploy, and the unit has been present in recent years during major moments like the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan in 2021 and defense preparations in Europe ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the following year.
The unit’s Immediate Response Force reportedly has not been given deployment orders, but those familiar told The Washington Post they are on alert as the conflict escalates. Other parts of the 82nd Airborne have continued ongoing training in Louisiana in recent days.
“We’re all preparing for something — just in case,” an official familiar with the situation told the paper.
The Independent has contacted the Army for comment.
“Due to operations security we do not discuss future or hypothetical movements,” the Defense Department told The Independent.
Trump administration leaders have not ruled out putting U.S. boots on the ground in Iran.
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told The New York Post this week. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
“Well, they’re not part of the plan for this operation at this time, but I certainly will never take away military options on behalf of the president of the United States or the commander in chief, and he wisely does not do the same for himself,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a media briefing on Wednesday.
Thus far, U.S. military leaders have said the campaign against Iran is making steady progress without U.S. soldiers on the ground in the country. Instead, U.S. forces have barraged Iran with air and naval strikes, largely taking control of the country’s airspace.
The U.S.-Israeli war effort against Iran included a strike on a school in Minab that may have killed upwards of 175 people. U.S. military investigators reportedly think American forces carried out the attack, in what analysts and human rights officials believe is the deadliest incident for civilian casualties since the war began.
“We’ve taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday during a press conference. “We control their fate.”
Six Americans have been killed in the fighting so far.
The deaths took place when an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle struck a U.S. installation in Kuwait.
Before the launch of U.S. hostilities against Iran, the president was reportedly briefed that the campaign would be a high-risk, high-reward operation, one that could kneecap Iran’s extensive military influence in the region while at the same time putting U.S. service members at risk of retaliatory attacks.
The president was also reportedly warned that U.S. stockpiles of advanced munitions have been stretched thin by supporting the defense of Israel and Ukraine.
Secretary Hegseth has insisted that the U.S.’s success in taking over the battle space in Iran has allowed the American military to rely on plentiful stores of more conventional weapons fired from aircraft and other platforms.
