The Door Opens, and Everything Changes

The doorbell rang. Mylo Simmons opened the door, saw the uniforms, and said the only words that came: *"Oh no. Oh no."

His son Tyler Simmons—his only child, the kid who used to sit with him in a parked car watching planes lift off a Columbus runway—had just become one of six American service members killed in a crash over Iraq. Since the war in Iran began, 13 U.S. military families have received that knock. Thirteen doors have opened onto the worst moment of a life.

The Kid Who Always Looked Up

Long before high school, Tyler was already tilting his head toward the sky. Mylo remembers those afternoons parked near the airport, just the two of them, watching takeoffs and landings. "He wanted to be up there," his father said.

That pull led Tyler to a youth program run by the Tuskegee Airmen—the first Black aviators to serve in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. A deacon at the family's church in Columbus was a Tuskegee Airman himself, and when Tyler was in ninth grade, he took the family to an airfield. "The next thing we know, we're up in the air, and Tyler's flying the plane," Mylo recalled.

The path from there wasn't straight. A star quarterback role in high school, a year of college, a father's blunt ultimatum—"If you're going to be girl crazy, you can do it on your own dime"—and then a job as a ramp agent at the local airport. Tyler enlisted in 2017 and worked his way up to technical sergeant, specializing as a boom operator: the person responsible for refueling other aircraft mid-flight. His mother had hoped he'd choose something safer. But this was Tyler's dream. He wanted, eventually, to fly commercially.

"This is so surreal, unbelievable, unthinkable," Mylo said. "There are no words" for the pain.

Mylo told me this while he and his family were in transit from Columbus to Dover, Delaware, to attend the dignified-transfer ceremony for Tyler and the five others who died with him.

What Comes After the Door Opens

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Grief, in theory. In practice, logistics.

The days immediately following a military death move fast and leave little room to feel. There are calls to answer, flights to book, a dignified transfer to attend, a body to receive, a wedding band to locate, decisions about remains, a funeral to plan, and paperwork—then more paperwork. All of it unfolds under a level of public attention that few civilians ever experience.

Taryn Davis knows this intimately. Her husband, Army Corporal Michael Davis, was 22 years old when he was killed in Baghdad in 2007. In the years since, she founded the American Widow Project, a nonprofit supporting military widows as they rebuild. She told me that the sudden national spotlight that falls on Gold Star families doesn't exactly halt grief—but it does something to it. "I don't want to say it stunts the grieving process," she said. "But it definitely has a way of throwing kindling in the 'grief fire.'"

For Krista Simpson Anderson, who lost her husband, Army Staff Sergeant Michael H. Simpson, to injuries from Afghanistan in 2013, one coping strategy has been deliberate avoidance of the news. "Listening to the news, in my opinion, only can lead you down a path that makes you angry," she said. "Whose fault is it? What was supposed to happen?" She founded the Unquiet Professional, a nonprofit for grieving military families, out of that experience.

The families of those killed this month have offered glimpses of who their loved ones were. Captain Ariana G. Savino "died doing the one thing she loved the most—flying." Captain Cody A. Khork "was deeply patriotic and took great pride in serving something greater than himself." Technical Sergeant Ashley B. Pruitt "was a light in the room," her husband said. Major John A. Klinner loved his wife, his 2-year-old son, and his seven-month-old twins "fiercely and completely." His sister-in-law, Sarah Rose Harrill, put it plainly: "There are real people and real families that are being impacted and will continue to be impacted by these events."

The First Since Afghanistan

These are the first U.S. service members killed in a foreign war since the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. That five-year gap matters. For families who lost someone in earlier conflicts, news of these deaths doesn't land in a vacuum—it reopens wounds that never fully closed.

Bonnie Carroll, who lost her husband, Brigadier General Tom Carroll, in an Army plane crash in 1992, founded the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS). In recent days, she told me, TAPS has heard from multiple families whose loved ones died in past aviation mass-casualty events similar to the one that killed Tyler Simmons.

"We have different words when we talk about a death in the military," Carroll said. "'Gave one's life in service to their country.' 'Made the ultimate sacrifice.' When you walk through Arlington, you don't see the difference between whether it was a suicide or a motorcycle accident or a combat loss. You see lives lived in service to this country, honored and remembered."

The healing journey, every Gold Star family member I spoke with emphasized, is long, nonlinear, and different for every person. What helps, many have found, is community—other families who speak the same language, who understand what it means to receive a folded flag and then be expected to function.