National Guardswoman recalls daily challenges while fighting in Epic Fury
DOUGLAS — When Operation Epic Fury (the name given to the Iran conflict by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth) began on Feb. 28, it started like any other day on Samantha Ortega’s base.
One text changed everything.
“A text came through that said that the wing commander is making everyone wear their gear at all times, and I was like, ‘Okay, that’s not a good sign,’” the Converse County National Guardswoman recalled.
That was prophetic. Alarms started sounding the moment Ortega got back to work.
“Alarm Yellow is what went off, and Alarm Yellow is you have 30 minutes before the attack is imminent. So we were like, ‘Okay, hopefully nothing happens, but okay,’” Ortega said.
“Pretty soon a captain from the Army is banging on our door, and was like, ‘Y’all need to get to the bunkers.’ We were like, ‘Dude, it just said yellow, we’re okay,’ and he’s like, ‘I’m telling you what I’m seeing on my scope right now, you guys need to get to the bunkers.’
“From my office, the bunker was probably 30 yards away, nothing bad or whatever, and so as soon as we’re walking out the door, the alarm goes . . . red, which means it’s coming, get to the bunkers immediately.”
Once Ortega and her brethren made it to the bunker and they heard Patriot missiles sent off to intercept incoming Iranian ballistic missiles, they thought they were maybe in the clear.
Then came the radio message.
“The command post came over the radio and said, ‘Brace for impact.’ In that case, you get into a fetal position, you put your head over your ears, you know. So, we brace for impact, and then there had to have been like 10 big booms that impacted onto the base and the shock waves are so big it blew the metal doors completely off the hinge, like just blew them in. And we’re like ‘Holy crap, this is real.’”
First days of war
That was the first of a nearconstant stream of alarm reds about every five minutes. Ortega was eventually able to chance it and make it back to the dormitory during a pause in fire, but even then she was sent immediately to the dormitory bunker.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, the first week we were afraid to use the bathroom because you just didn’t know, and so as soon as the alarm black would hit, you would just take any opportunity you could to use the bathroom or do anything. Once things started slowing down, and they happened, you know, just a couple every hour, that’s when we were like, ‘Okay, there’s an alarm green, I bet we have 20 minutes.’ I could sneak in a shower, but then you were right back in uniform and boots and everything,” Ortega said “I ended up just sleeping in the bunker, because there’s no point. Some people would go back to their dorms during the alarm blacks, and then have to come right back.”
Eventually Ortega, who works in cargo, had to return to her warehouse. But, the missile rain didn’t stop, necessitating the national guardswoman and her fellow soldiers to make the 150 yard run to a bunker often.
“Every time an alarm went off, you had to run all the way. People would fall, it was just a mess,” Ortega remembered.
Soon, though, it wasn’t just missiles blasting into the base.
“That’s when the drones started coming in. These drones are probably, wingspan to wingspan, probably 50 feet. They’re huge, and they soar, and then they just drop, just drop straight down. It was just on repeat like that.
“I don’t think I took my shoes off unless it was to shower. Some of my friends, they were telling their parents ‘We’re sleeping with our shoes on because we can’t afford to take them off and run.’ So some of their families started sleeping with their shoes on.”
This onslaught turned Ortega’s 180-day deployment into eight months. She just recently returned home.
“I was lucky I was able to come home due to a family matter, but my whole unit is still there,” she said. “I have a little bit of guilt, because it’s like, ‘Why am I able to come home, and you guys are still suffering?’ It was really hard to still get the notifications up on my phone and I’m at home. I think coming home, that was the hardest part for me . . . dealing with that little bit of guilt that I had.”
Her worst days
While on the base and under fire, Ortega had many terrible and scary experiences, but there are three that stand out to her as her worst days.
Her third worst day happened while sheltering. Ortega heard a missile hit the German base that bordered theirs.
“I mean, you scream, it’s.. it’s right there, it’s so loud, it just.. it rattles you, it rattles your brain, it rattles everything, sand falls down from the bunkers.”
“My roommate was like, ‘Guys, we’ve heard it, that means we’re alive,’ and we were all like, ‘You know what, you’re right, it could have been way worse.’ Probably 20 seconds after she said that, another one hit straight by the dorm. That hit probably 15 yards from the dorm/bunker, and that one was louder than the one that hit the German compound because it was so close. Everybody in the bunker got a TBI, not from shock wave or anything, but the blast is so loud anything that is that loud in your ears can cause a traumatic brain injury.”
Her second worst day came due to a close encounter with a drone that could have ended catastrophically.
“I was put on nights and some people were going home, family emergencies, medical evacuations, things of that sort. There were, I think, eight passengers leaving this one night, and so in our packs terminal we’re just hanging out waiting for the bird to come in, and a drone flew in our packs terminal, bumped my coworker, and hit the ground. (But it) didn’t explode,” Ortega recalled with fear still in her eyes.
“We all were like, ‘Oh my God, what did we do?’ So we evacuated, and we called EOD. They’re the ones that do the planned explosions and blow things up, and things of that sort. They blew it up, and it unfortunately destroyed our building, but they had to do what they had to do. That was, that was pretty scary, because that could have been it right there for 15 of us.”
“But God was working in mysterious ways, I don’t know what He had in His power that day, but that could have been the end of my life,” she said.
The worst day
As bad as those days were, Ortega’s worst one came following the death of the six soldiers aboard the refueling plane that crashed.
“Those members had to pass through our base to get home to their families, and me and I think two other of my coworkers did the honorable carry onto the flight,” Ortega said. “It still kind of like makes me nauseous thinking about it. One person unfortunately didn’t have a flag on their casket, and I didn’t understand why. This was my first honorable carry, and so I didn’t know. I asked my first sergeant, and she said probably because they couldn’t find that person.
“You can train as much as you want, and you can prepare yourself as much as you want, but nothing will prepare you for another brother or sister going home like that.”
Throughout all the stress, all the trauma and all the paranoia, Ortega was able to still turn to her family for support.
“I took a resiliency class during this, trying to keep my spirits up and find ways to cope. One of the lessons that they were teaching was look for the good, and for me, my thing was I get to Facetime my kids every day, and how blessed we are we can do that, watch them grow up in real time,” Ortega said.
“Even though we may not be here, you still get to watch them grow up in real time, versus 20 years ago it was letters and then you come home and your child is a whole new person,” she said.
Ortega and other members of her unit also found ways to keep their own spirits up on base.
“As bad as it sounds, we would make jokes. We had to. I feel like that might be a trauma response, but it got to the point where it was routine. After, we were all safe and nobody was harmed, we would just make jokes,” Ortega said. “Most of us celebrated our birthdays out there, almost every single one of us, and so we had birthdays to celebrate, and we would go get a cake from the BX or something, and cut cake. Just small things, like children.”
This camaraderie really helped, because “we never went anywhere by ourselves. We would eat together, go to the day room together, work together, we were just always on. We never got tired of each other, because we felt safe with each other.”
It’s not over
Many more soldiers are still out there fighting in Iran, despite ongoing peace talks.
For those with family still serving, Ortega has one message: “I would just say that God is good, and He works in mysterious ways, and by the grace of God, they’re still alive and they’ll be home soon.
“Just to keep praying, because it works.”
This story was published on July 1, 2026.
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