By Alaa Elassar, Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN
(CNN) — Some of Mary Ellen Klinner’s happiest memories were of watching her son outdoors — camping, hiking and spending long days beside his father — and later seeing him become a devoted dad to three young children of his own.
But since her son Maj. John ‘Alex’ Klinner was killed in the Iran war, those memories have become both a comfort and a painful reminder of the “nightmare” her life has felt like in the past couple of months.
John Klinner is one of the 13 US troops killed in connection with Operation Epic Fury, the name the Pentagon has given to the war with Iran. He died alongside five other crew members who were aboard a US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft when it crashed on March 12 in western Iraq.
Earlier that month, six other service members were killed on March 1 after an Iranian strike in Kuwait’s Shuaiba port. A service member died March 8 following an attack by Iran on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
“If any of their deaths mean anything – then please, do not look away,” Klinner’s aunt Jean Marie Dillon wrote on Facebook. “Military lives are not expendable. The people who decide when and where we go to war answer to us.”
President Donald Trump has said meeting with some of the fallen soldiers’ families did not give him pause about the war. He and senior officials have made clear there would likely be more casualties.
Approximately 400 service members have been wounded in action during Operation Epic Fury, Capt. Tim Hawkins, a US Central Command spokesperson, told CNN. The vast majority of injuries suffered were minor and 90% of service members returned to duty, Hawkins said.
At least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran since the US and Israel began strikes on the country, according to state media Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. One strike killed at least 168 children.
As families of service members still deployed overseas wait anxiously for the war to end, the loved ones of the 13 who were killed are mourning not only the soldiers lost but the vibrant, deeply loved people they were beyond the uniform.
Maj. John ‘Alex’ Klinner
When asked if he has a favorite memory of his son — a beloved husband and father of a 2-year-old and 7-month-old twins — John Klinner pauses.
“Gosh, there’s so many,” he told CNN. “Alex and I did a lot of camping trips. He loved the outdoors, and so we would go up to North Carolina every summer for years and just camped at this beautiful place. I’ve got a lot of good memories from those trips.”
Klinner was “the perfect son, the perfect child,” Mary Ellen says quietly in a classic Southern twang as the pair sit in their Alabama home.
Just a day ago, they visited their grandchildren, who will now grow up without a father. “We’re heartbroken that he won’t be there for them,” John Klinner says. “He loved those children.”
His loss “has left an immeasurable voi