Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said "family after family" of service members killed in the Iran war told him during a dignified transfer on Wednesday: "Finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done."

One of the people he met, Charles Simmons, whose 28-year-old son, tech Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, was among the six crew members killed last week, recalls the exchange differently.

"I can't speak for the other families. When he spoke to me, that was not something we talked about," he told NBC News in an interview.