3 wounded soldiers receive honors for efforts to save others after Iranian missile attack on Saudi base

Staff Sgt. Kalob Mitchell, Sgt. Xavier Jones and Spc. Nicholas Cabo received Purple Heart medals for their actions following the March 27 attack. Staff Sgt. Kalob Mitchell, Sgt. Xavier Jones and Spc. Nicholas Cabo, all part of 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division Artillery, sit together after their initial medical evaluation on March 27 at the Role 2 Medical Facility at Prince Sultan Air Base in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia. (Derika Upshaw/U.S. Army) The “Alarm Red” siren shrieked across Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 27, a warning that an Iranian attack might be on its way across the Persian Gulf. For a trio of soldiers in the 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, it was a sound they had heard often since Operation Epic Fury against Iran launched nearly a month earlier.

But they still made their way to Bunker 100 at the base to take cover. Staff Sgt. Kalob Mitchell, Sgt. Xavier Jones and Spc. Nicholas Cabo, part of the 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division Artillery, hunkered down and waited for the all clear. “We’re sitting there talking, and then all of a sudden, we didn’t hear anything, no sound at all,” Mitchell said. A 550-pound Iranian ballistic missile had slammed into the base near