Free Republic

The brilliant Army career of the female helicopter pilot killed in the Washington D.C. plane crash—which Donald Trump blamed on “DEI”—has been revealed. Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, a native of Durham, North Carolina, was identified late Saturday by the U.S. Army’s Public Affairs office despite a previous request from her family to withhold her identity. She had been in the top 20 per cent of Army ROTC cadets nationwide and picked for a prestigious role as a White House social aide. Her awards include the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon. Lobach...

One of three soldiers aboard an Army Black Hawk helicopter that was involved in the deadly midair collision with an American Airlines flight Wednesday near Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., was identified Saturday by the Army as 28-year-old Capt. Rebecca Lobach, who had worked as a White House aide in the Biden administration. The Army said Lobach had served as an aviation officer in the Army from July 2019 until January 2025. She had been awarded the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon. Her family in a statement released through the...

James Karen, the instantly recognizable character actor who moved the cemetery’s headstones — but not the bodies — as the developer Mr. Teague in the modern horror classic Poltergeist, has died. He was 94. The incredibly prolific Karen, who also was noteworthy in such films as The China Syndrome (1979) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985) and on the finale of NBC’s Little House on the Prairie — he’s the dastardly reason the town of Walnut Grove was blown up — died Tuesday at his Los Angeles home, his wife, Alba, said.