As if this story weren't tragic enough.
President Barack Obama, speaking in
the White House's East Room, said Eckert "was an inspiration to me and
to so many others, and I pray that her family finds peace and comfort
in the hard days ahead."
A week before her death, Eckert met with
Obama at the White House as part of a group of 9/11 families and
relatives of those killed in the bombing of the USS Cole, discussing
how the new administration would handle terror suspects.
Eckert was flying to Buffalo Thursday night to celebrate what would have been her husband Sean Rooney's 58th birthday.
When
he died in the World Trade Center, she became one of the most visible,
tearful faces in the aftermath of the terror attacks.
Carol
Ashley, whose daughter died at the World Trade Center, said the grim
details of Eckert's death are particularly painful to Eckert's friends
among 9/11 families.
"The fact that it was a plane crash, it was
fire, it was reminiscent of 9/11 that way, that's just very difficult,"
said Ashley, a retired schoolteacher from Long Island.
She carried that grief to Congress as she tried to make the government do a better job protecting its citizens from terrorism. Read on.
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