A grieving family feels the cost of the U.S. war with Iran

Captain Curtis Angst of the Ohio Air National Guard and five others were killed taking part in the Iran war operations when their plane crashed.

From childhood until his early death, Curtis Angst’s life centered on flight.

His mother, Lisa Angst, remembers him as a little boy playing with toy airplanes outside their Ohio home. His father, Matt Angst, a private pilot, took Curtis up in the air for the first time when he was a toddler.

Flight is the reason there was a Curtis Angst. Lisa was a flight attendant with the airlines; Matt, an aircraft mechanic when they first met in 1990. They married a few years later, and Curtis was their firstborn.

“Even when he was a little baby, he just loved planes,” Lisa told NBC News in an interview. “I left the airlines when I was pregnant with Curtis, so he had no choice but to be in aviation," Lisa said.

Curtis’ final flight came on March 12. A 30-year-old captain with the Ohio Air National Guard, he was part of the crew whose refueling plane crashed that day in the Middle East. All six service members died, casualties of the U.S. war with Iran.