{"id":554437,"date":"2026-03-21T07:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T07:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554437\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T07:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T07:06:08","slug":"father-of-killed-us-military-member-disputes-hegseths-claim-he-said-to-finish-the-job-in-iran-us-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554437\/","title":{"rendered":"Father of killed US military member disputes Hegseth\u2019s claim he said to \u2018finish\u2019 the job in Iran | US military"},"content":{"rendered":"

The father of a US military<\/a> member killed in the Iran war has contradicted Pete Hegseth\u2019s claim that bereaved families urged him to \u201cfinish\u201d the job in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Hegseth, the defense secretary and a former weekend Fox News host, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing on Thursday that he had spoken with relatives of all six service members killed in last week\u2019s refueling tanker crash<\/a> during a \u201cdignified transfer\u201d of their remains at Delaware\u2019s Dover air force station the night before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I heard through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve, was the same from family after family. They said, \u2018Finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done,\u2019\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n

However, on Thursday night, Charles Simmons, the father of Tech Sgt Tyler Simmons, 28, from Ohio, said he had no such conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t speak for the other families. When he spoke to me, that was not something we talked about,\u201d he told NBC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Simmons said he had spoken separately with Hegseth and Donald Trump at the military base, and was grateful for the \u201cwarmth\u201d he said both men had shown him.<\/p>\n

But he recounted his meeting with the defense secretary differently from Hegseth\u2019s own assertion.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I understand there\u2019s a lot of peril that goes into making decisions like this, and I just certainly hope the decisions being made are necessary,\u201d Simmons said he told him.<\/p>\n

Asked by NBC News if he said anything to the president or Hegseth about continuing the Iran war, which has so far seen the deaths of at least 13 members of the US military<\/a>, Simmons was adamant that nothing like that had taken place.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t say anything along those lines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Charles Simmons is at least the third family member to voice unease about the Iran<\/a> war, called Operation Epic Fury by the White House, or the Trump administration\u2019s handling of it.<\/p>\n

Stephan Douglas, cousin of Tyler Simmons, who was one of three Ohioans killed in the crash, said the conflict was unnecessary in a weekend interview<\/a> with Columbus news station WCMH.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could have been prevented,\u201d Douglas said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t need to be in this war. This is uncalled for, and this is what we get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernice Smith, Simmons\u2019 grandmother, was equally forthright. \u201cFamilies are suffering right now,\u201d she told WCMH. \u201cJust to create a war because you want to create a war is not right.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she encouraged people to register to vote if they wanted to see change.<\/p>\n

Charles Simmons, meanwhile, told NBC that he did not \u201chave all the data\u201d to be able to establish if joint US-Israel bombing of Iran was justified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho wants war? Sometimes it\u2019s a necessity, and I just don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the network, Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, insisted Hegseth\u2019s conversations with the relatives were \u201cprivate\u201d, even though the Trump loyalist chose to make a feature of them during the Thursday press conference at which he also berated the media<\/a> for covering the conflict in ways he did not like.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecretary Hegseth has the utmost respect for our Gold Star families and has pledged to honor the sacrifice of their loved ones,\u201d Parnell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile at Dover, the secretary spoke with each family of our fallen heroes and the details of each individual conversation remain private.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, told NBC that Trump had \u201cgrieved\u201d with the families at Dover.<\/p>\n

The president, she said, \u201cshared his love and expressed the deep gratitude of our entire nation. These men and women gave up their lives in defense of our freedom, and President Trump will never forget their honorable service and selfless devotion. They represent the very best of America\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month Trump said he expected there will be more US military deaths before the conflict ends. \u201cThat\u2019s the way it is,<\/a>\u201d he said in a video address to the nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The father of a US military member killed in the Iran war has contradicted Pete Hegseth\u2019s claim that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-554437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}