WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met privately Wednesday with families of six service members killed when a U.S. refueling plane crashed in Iraq and later told reporters the families delivered a clear message: “Finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done.” One father who attended the Dover Air Force Base meeting says his conversation did not include that directive.
Charles Simmons, 60, a music teacher from Columbus, Ohio, lost his 28-year-old son, Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, in the crash. Simmons said he spoke separately with Hegseth and with President Donald Trump while at Dover and appreciated the compassion both men showed, but he disputed Hegseth’s summary for his own exchange.
“I can’t speak for the other families. When he spoke to me, that was not something we talked about,” Simmons told NBC News on Thursday. He said his discussions focused on Tyler—his record, rapid advancement in the Air Force and personal qualities—rather than urging continued military action.
Simmons recalled telling Hegseth, “I understand there’s a lot of peril that goes into making decisions like this, and I just certainly hope the decisions being made are necessary.” When asked whether he told either Hegseth or Trump to keep fighting the war, Simmons replied, “No, I didn’t say anything along those lines.” He said he still has unanswered questions about the conflict and cannot draw firm conclusions without more information, adding, “Who wants war? Sometimes it’s a necessity, and I just don’t know what’s going on.”
A Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, issued a statement defending the secretary’s approach: “Secretary Hegseth has the utmost respect for our Gold Star families and has pledged to honor the sacrifice of their loved ones. While at Dover, the Secretary spoke with each family of our fallen heroes and the details of each individual conversation remain private.” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said Trump “grieved” with the “incredible families” and expressed the nation’s gratitude, calling the fallen “the very best of America.”
Simmons described his last conversation with Tyler as occurring the day before the crash, when his son said he loved him. Tyler had hoped to become a commercial airline pilot after leaving the military, and Simmons remembered his son’s “magnetic personality” and how he “never met any strangers.”
Hegseth’s account mirrors comments Trump made after separate family meetings on March 7, when the president said “every single one” of the families told him, “Finish the job, sir. Please, finish the job.” A public official who was near Trump’s meetings told NBC News they did not hear any family members say that.
The Dover visits took place during “dignified transfer” ceremonies, where remains are returned in flag-draped transfer cases and families who choose may meet the president, vice president or other senior officials. Simmons said he left Dover with a different impression of both leaders than he had before—describing Trump as teary and compassionate and Hegseth as visibly emotional over the weighty decisions tied to war. “I also let him know that Tyler was my only son. And you could see the emotion on his face. And I think those kinds of things you can’t fake,” Simmons said.
NBC News contacted families of the other 12 service members killed in the broader Iran war. Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., an Army veteran who attended a March 7 dignified transfer for a constituent, said he did not overhear Trump’s conversations with families and doubted grieving relatives would be preoccupied with messaging about the mission. “The families there are dealing with a terrible, tragic loss,” Vindman said. “They’re still trying to make sense of what the loss means to them personally: losing a husband, father, wife. They’re not thinking about the mission.”
Now in its third week, the conflict has prompted U.S. and Israeli officials to say their assault has severely damaged Iran’s military capabilities and weakened its regime. The war has driven up oil and gas prices after Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane. This week, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, resigned over the war, saying Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.
Simmons recalled something Tyler told him before he volunteered for the mission that led to his death: “He said, ‘Dad, I can’t give you any details, but if civilians knew what we knew, a lot of the criticism [of the war] would cease.'”