The Pentagon sparked controversy last week when the number of troops killed in the war in Iran suddenly dropped on its public-facing database. 

Dozens of wounded service members were also dropped from the count, and it appears to be the result of a change in the tracking of casualties in the Pentagon's Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS). Some casualties fall under a new category labeled "Overseas Operations" rather than Operation Epic Fury, the original name for the war in Iran, ABC News reports. 

It's not clear how the Department of War is defining "overseas operations" and if that's a full account of dead and wounded in the war with Iran. 

The database is the federal government's authoritative public record for tracking U.S. military causalities from current and past conflicts.