Husband of soldier killed in Iranian drone strike grills Vance on ‘fundamental failures’

The husband of a soldier killed in an Iranian drone strike in March grilled Vice President Vance on what he called “fundamental failures” that led up to the death of his wife.

Appearing on a CBS News town hall with Vance, Joey Amor, the widower of Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, detailed the drone strike that killed his wife and five other soldiers.

“They raised their right hand and they gave an oath. They understood what they were doing. They understood the sacrifice that they were potentially giving,” Amor said. “Though the Iranian drone was the weapon that killed my wife, there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of fundamental failures that led up to that.”

“My wife has told me things before she passed. There are other soldiers that know things that are being quiet about certain aspects of this,” he continued, adding that “there’s a failure in the leadership, and I want to know how this administration is going to start holding those leaders accountable for the actions and the deaths of the soldiers that we honor and that we love.”

Vance told Amor this was “literally the first time I’ve heard of this.”

“This job is an amazing honor, but you live in a bit of a bubble,” he added. “That sometimes information doesn’t filter up to me, and I promise you, I will take every single failure extremely seriously, and we’ll work on it.”

The six U.S. soldiers were killed after an Iranian drone struck the tactical operations center they were working from in Kuwait; the youngest in the group was 20-year-old Sgt. Declan J. Coady.

At the time, CBS News reported the triple-wide trailer the service members were reportedly working out of was only fortified with T-walls — 12-foot-tall, steel-reinforced concrete barriers used to shield military personnel from explosions, rocket attacks and shrapnel — and that such reinforcements could not protect the trailer from an overhead strike.

Military officials also told the outlet that they did not recall hearing warning sirens prior to the strike, giving the troops no time to evacuate to a bunker.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) slammed Vance over this particular moment at the town hall, saying he “wrongly defended this war. His compassion doesn’t fix it.”

Vance’s remarks also come as he and his party are facing a rough political environment ahead of the midterms as the war effort against Iran is widely unpopular with the American public.

The Pentagon updated the American service member death toll of the Iran war to 21 earlier this month.