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The Pentagon has quietly added one more U.S. fatality to its casualty counts amid the war on Iran, bringing the officially reported death toll to 19 people — while reports have suggested that the U.S. is covering up several more deaths.

Department of Defense officials added the death to its public casualty database on Monday, but, as The Washington Post noted, had not announced the death publicly as of Tuesday.

Reporters have confirmed the identity of the Army member as Bianca C. Wilkerson, a 37-year-old from Norfolk, Virginia who was deployed to Doha, Qatar, in support of the operations related to the Iran war. She reportedly died on Friday from a “medical incident” while on a non-combat flight to Saudi Arabia.

Wilkerson’s death is classified under the vague category of “Overseas Operations,” which the Pentagon has used since July, when the Trump administration claimed that Operation Epic Fury was over despite the war not being over. The Trump administration has been attempting to manipulate reporting on and wording surrounding the war in order to avoid obtaining congressional approval.

These distinctions are important in classifying deaths, however, as they can lead to different benefits for families of those killed; a widow of an Air Force member who was killed in March........

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