‘I’ve waited 30 years’: American families of Iranian terror victims see justice served in US-Israeli campaign

In 1996, a truck bomb exploded at the Khobar Towers complex, killing 19 Americans and wounding nearly 500 people.

By Jon Levine, The Washington Free Beacon

Families of the victims of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, organized by Iran and carried out by an Iranian proxy, as well as a survivor of the attack, see the U.S.-Israeli campaign against the Islamic Republic as justice belatedly being served, they told the Washington Free Beacon.

“I’m so emotional because watching this Iran thing unfold is so different for me,” said Dawn Woody, whose husband Joshua was killed in the attack.

“I’ve waited 30 years to watch the leaders finally be held accountable for what they did. No other president has ever held them accountable.”

Dawn and Joshua Woody had only been married a few months when the airman first class deployed to Saudi Arabia with the Air Force to provide support services to Operation Southern Watch in the aftermath of the Gulf War.

He and the other airmen stationed in Saudi Arabia were living in the Khobar Towers, where Iran targeted them in its proxy’s attack.

“His specific job was a ‘weapons jammer,'” Dawn Woody recalled. “He basically loaded the bombs on F-15s. He was so proud of what he was doing and would have been a career military man. That was the plan, anyway.”

A day before Joshua Woody was set to return home, a truck bomb exploded at the Khobar Towers complex, killing him and 18 other Americans and wounding nearly 500 more people.

The U.S. government eventually announced that Hezbollah Al-Hejaz, an Iranian proxy then operating in Saudi Arabia, was responsible.

By 2006, a federal judge ruled that the Islamic Republic itself was directly involved in the planning and execution of the attack.

Dawn Woody spent a decade in the Secret Service, a role that at times gave her an up-close view of how presidents handled Tehran.

“I worked when Obama sent, literally, a pallet full of cash back to Iran,” Woody told the Free Beacon, referencing the infamous payments that comprised part of former president Barack Obama’s Iran deal.

“[It was] a hard day for me, knowing that they were giving money back to the people that murdered my husband.”

The Islamic Republic’s continued attacks against U.S. service members—often carried out through its various proxy groups in the Middle East—were one reason President Donald Trump gave for his decision to launch the ongoing operation against Iran.

“Iranian forces killed and maimed hundreds of American service members in Iraq,” Trump said in remarks early Saturday morning.

“The regime’s proxies have continued to launch countless attacks against American forces stationed in the Middle East in recent years, as well as U.S. naval and commercial vessels in international shipping lanes. It’s been mass terror, and we’re not going to put up with it any longer.”

Herman Charles Marthaler, a retired postal worker who lost his son, Airman First Class Brent E. Marthaler, in the Khobar attack, told the Free Beacon that he strongly supports Trump’s move to strike the Iranian regime.

“I just hope we never quit until it’s all done,” he said. “Well, I want to get rid of all the bad actors in Iran so that the people there can form their own government. We got people all over the world cheering for what we’re doing over there, all Iranians.”

Brent Marthaler was known for his “great attitude” and for “keeping spirits high” among his fellow airmen, according to a biographical sketch the Air Force compiled after the bombing, and he taught Sunday school classes to children at the base chapel.

“I support the president 1,000 percent,” his father said. “I think he’s trying to make America better for everybody.”

Michael Harner, then a first lieutenant in the Air Force who was wounded in the bombing, recalled in a 2011 account of the attack watching a truck pull up to the towers as he stood on his balcony.

“There was no shooting, no crashing into the fence, nothing threatening while I stood there watching,” he said.

“However, something didn’t feel right about the situation. … I sat down to stretch some more in front of a sliding glass door. Within a minute or two, the loudest explosion I have ever heard went off. Praise God I had closed the curtains when I came inside, because I was sitting three feet from the plate-glass door leading to the balcony. Still, glass from the door exploded into the room and into my body. The whole event only lasted approximately 15 seconds, but time stood still during the explosion.”

Harner, like the loved ones of the airmen killed in the attack, told the Free Beacon that he has waited decades to see the Islamic Republic brought to justice.

“I am a Christian, and I believe in forgiving others for what they’ve done, but I do believe in justice and I believe that this has been a long time coming,” he said.

“I am actually very pleased to see this is actually going on, and I feel like this is something that has—I personally think it’s been something—that should have been done a while ago.”