Sgt. First Class Cory Hicks says he remembers hearing a “buzzing noise” that quickly got louder, right before an Iranian drone attack on a U.S. command center in Kuwait that killed six of his fellow service members.
“I remember turning my head to the left and I’d seen the nose of that drone pop through, and as soon as it did I knew what it was, it was either a missile or a drone,” Hicks told ABC Minneapolis affiliate KSTP from his hospital room in the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. “So I turned to my right, and that’s when it blew up and just blew the whole building apart.”
Hicks said he and other soldiers had been in a bunker while missiles and drones were intercepted overhead. He said they then got an “all clear,” so they came out of the bunker and went back into their work station — at which point he said the deadly drone strike occurred at Shuaiba port in Kuwait. The Pentagon hasn’t responded to a request for comment regarding his account.
“Kind of looked around and I saw everything was just smoke and fire and crazy and chaos,” Hicks told KSTP. “At that point in time, I knew that I had to get out of there, so I grabbed my battle buddy and pulled him out and tried to get people out as fast as I could,” he said.
That’s when he realized he was “a lot more injured” than he initially thought.
Hicks said he got hit with shrapnel that severed an artery attached to his spleen and struck his arms and face. He said he has nerve damage to his face that makes it difficult to smile now.
Sgt. First Class Cory Hicks speaks with KSTP from his hospital room, March 9, 2026.
KSTP
“I’m making strides,” Hicks, 37, a native of Princeton, Minnesota, told KSTP on Monday from Walter Reed, where he said he expects to be for several more weeks.
Hicks’ wife, Shanyn, said she was at home getting their children ready for church when a friend called her about the attack and told her her husband was injured and in the hospital.
“I just remember falling to my knees, and just hyperventilating,” she told KSTP from the hospital room.
“Not having all the information — it was terrifying,” she told the station.
Hicks said there’s a joke in the military community that a deployment to Kuwait is a “vacation, not a deployment.” Though a situation can quickly turn hostile, he said.
“You just have to try to prepare your mind for that, and I don’t think any of us were really prepared for it, just because we were in Kuwait,” he told KSTP. “There hasn’t been war in Kuwait for over 30 years. You know, we thought we were safe.”
Hicks is assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, an Army Reserve unit based in Des Moines, Iowa. The six soldiers killed in the March 1 attack were assigned to the same unit.
One of the six soldiers killed in the attack was also from Minnesota — Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake. Hicks said Amor was “literally five feet from me” when the attack occurred.
“She was very, very optimistic on life, very full of life,” Hicks told KSTP.
Hicks said he had gotten to know Amor over the past year and that she challenged him to read more while deployed overseas.
“She was just the kindest, kindest woman ever,” he told KSTP. “She always went above and beyond to make sure you’re taken care of.”
Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
Department of Defense
Hicks’ wife, who is also in the Army Reserves, said she was in the same location as Amor for her first reserves unit.
“She had the biggest, happiest, most welcoming smile,” she told KSTP. “She always went out of her way to help you make sure you were taken care of.”
Shanyn said Amor’s death hits close to home, and that she feels for the fallen soldier’s husband and children.
“Now they have to find their new way of life, they have to find their new way of remembrance and their new way of peace. And that could have been any one of those families overseas,” she told KSTP.
Also killed in the Kuwait attack were Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa; Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California; Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa; and Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska.
Overall, seven U.S. service members have been killed in action and at least 140 injured since the start of the war, according to the Pentagon.
An Army carry team moves a flag-draped transfer case with the remains of U.S. Army Reserve soldier Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor past President Donald Trump during a casualty return, March 7, 2026, at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Shanyn said she feels “blessed” that her husband made it back.
“It could have been a lot worse. He’s here, he’s able to see and hear for the most part, he’s got his limbs, and that’s all I could ask for,” she told KSTP. “Our kids still have their dad, I still have my partner, I couldn’t be more blessed.”
As he recovers in the hospital, Hicks said his message for others is to not take anything for granted.
“Life is precious, life is short,” he told KSTP.
“Appreciate the ones you love and the ones that are close to you, because you might not ever get to even talk to them again,” he said.
ABC News’ Steve Beynon contributed to this report.
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