In April 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that the Trump administration abandoned 1,500 service members and their families in Bahrain, allowing them to leave with only their backpacks.
1,500 soldiers and their families abandoned by Trump in Bahrain. They were allowed to leave with only backpacks.
NPR just published a story that should end every "support the troops" speech any Republican ever gives again. Over 1,500 Navy sailors, their families, and their pets were evacuated from Bahrain after Trump launched a war against Iran without doing the slightest bit of planning for what would happen to the Americans already stationed in the region. They were given backpacks and told to go.
Other social media users on X (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Reddit (archived) shared versions of the claim, and Snopes readers wrote in asking for more details.
The claim appeared to be based on an April 3 NPR report (archived) about the Department of Defense's evacuation of service members and their families from Naval Support Activity Bahrain, a U.S. Navy base.
That article said the Trump administration evacuated, not "abandoned," troops from Bahrain after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran. NPR reported that two sources said families arriving in Europe and the U.S. from the Bahrain base came with few belongings, some with only backpacks.
At the time of this writing, there was no evidence the Trump administration "abandoned" troops in Bahrain. On the contrary, a report published by Stars and Stripes, a military news source that is part of the Department of Defense but operates with editorial independence, reported on March 11 that the administration actively authorized military dependents to leave. NPR's report indicated the U.S. had expanded this authorization to troops as well.
A spokesperson for the Navy told Snopes via email the U.S. relocated "almost 1,500 service members and families and several hundred pets from Naval Support Activity Bahrain to safe havens in the United States."
Snopes could not independently confirm reports that some evacuees left NSA Bahrain with only belongings packed into a backpack, nor whether this was unusual for a military evacuation.
Given the above, we leave this claim unrated.
US authorized military families to leave after strikes
Stars and Stripes first reported on evacuation orders for military families in Bahrain in mid-March 2026. According to the outlet, the Trump administration authorized departures for military dependents in Bahrain after the Feb. 28 U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran. It was unclear when the administration expanded this authorization to include troops, as NPR reported in April.
The New York Times reported that Iranian missiles hit NSA Bahrain, which houses the Navy's 5th Fleet and their families, during retaliatory strikes around Feb. 28. At the time of this writing, the Pentagon had not reported any U.S. casualties as a result of Iranian strikes in Bahrain.
Stars and Stripes reported that many military families from NSA Bahrain first arrived at other U.S. bases in Europe, including Germany, before returning to the U.S.
NPR reported that 5th Fleet members also returned to bases in Virginia, Florida and South Carolina on arrival to the U.S.
'Backpacks' claim came from NPR report
Claims that evacuees from NSA Bahrain left with nothing but backpacks likely came from a source quoted by NPR. The news outlet reported that Keith Shanesy, a vice commander of American Legion Post 327 in Norfolk, Virginia, said:
They literally told them, "Get what you can get in the backpack. You've got to go." They came with no uniforms, nothing. The three we met first, they came with the clothes on their back, what they could fit in that backpack.
Shanesy confirmed to Snopes over email that NPR's reported reflected what he saw. He added that "any short notice evacuation is stressful, whether it is a military evacuation or a civilian evacuation for any reason."
Dawn Cutler, chief operations officer with the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, described an evacuee arriving with a suitcase, rather than a backpack, but still with limited belongings for a child and a pet:
I saw one gal — she had a 2-week-old and a 2-year-old and a dog in a crate and a suitcase. So she was just at the moment, you know, looking to get out of danger, get to someplace safe.
A spokesperson for the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society told Snopes via email that NPR correctly reported Cutler's remarks.
The spokesperson also confirmed NPR's reporting that the society had provided "over $1 million to over 2000 sailors and their families since the evacuations began."
'Hasty' Bahrain evacuation
Snopes asked the Navy, the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, Shanesy and the United Service Organizations, which reportedly provided support to sailors returning from the Middle East, whether it was unusual for people pulled from military bases to arrive back to the U.S. with very few belongings.
At the time of this writing, a Navy spokesperson declined to comment beyond confirming how many troops and families the service had evacuated from Bahrain. We had not received other replies.
Speaking to Stars and Stripes, Chris Moran, a retired Navy commander who last served in Bahrain, reportedly questioned the Department of Defense's timing for pulling military dependents from NSA Bahrain.
Stars and Stripes described the NSA Bahrain evacuation as "hasty," which could explain why sailors and families arrived in the U.S. with only backpacks or missing some essential belongings.
The U.S. previously evacuated some military families from the Middle East before strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran in June 2025. Stars and Stripes reported that some of these families arrived at military bases in Europe without some essentials, including diapers and phone chargers.
That evacuation happened before the U.S. struck Iran,
For further reading, Snopes has reported extensively on claims related to the Iran war.