Gold Star families and veterans in the United States say Iran's campaign against American troops did not begin with recent hostilities but stretches back nearly two decades, to attacks carried out by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq from around 2005 onwards. Relatives of service members killed in these attacks, including the sister of Maj Stuart Wolfer and the widow of Capt Shawn English, say the wounds from that earlier conflict remain raw, even as a new war between the US and Iran has drawn fresh attention to Tehran's hostility towards Americans.

The article recounts how an Iranian-made explosively formed penetrator destroyed a US Army vehicle on a road in Baghdad, killing Staff Sgt William Brooks and severely wounding Sgt (Ret) Robert Bartlett, who says he "died three times" from his injuries. According to findings made in US federal court, this device was one element of a wider Iranian effort to arm and train proxy fighters to target American forces in Iraq, with legal cases identifying hundreds of US victims of the campaign.