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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

President Consoles Families Of 33 Plane Crash Victims Bodies Of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, 32 Others Returned Home

Harry F. Rosenthal Associated Press

As 33 flag-draped caskets were solemnly brought home on Saturday, a sorrowful President Clinton said that the lives of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 32 other victims of a plane crash reflected the best of America. “They are a stern rebuke to the cynicism that is all too familiar today.”

The president, his voice cracking with emotion on a raw, cloudy day, declared that “what they did while the sun was out will last with us forever.”

The caskets were delivered to grieving, still-shocked families as the Air Force Band played hymns and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”

Clinton, along with his wife and Vice President Al Gore, consoled each family in private. The emotion of the moment clearly showed in the president’s face.

“Today we come to a place that has seen too many sad homecomings, because this is where we in America bring home our own, those who have given their lives in the service of their country,” Clinton told the crowd.

His voice often near breaking, the president talked about his visits with the families. “Their loved ones were proud of what they were doing,” he said. “They believed in what they were doing. They believed in their country and they believed they could make a difference.”

Each of the American victims of the crash on a Croatian hillside was represented here by relatives wearing red-white-and-blue ribbons. Two Croatians, a photographer and an interpreter, also died in the accident.

The president said the crash victims “carried with them America’s spirit - what our great martyr, Abraham Lincoln, called the last best hope of earth.”

“The sun is going down on this day,” Clinton said. “The next time it rises it will be Easter, a day that more than any other reminds us that life is more than what we know … sometimes more than what we can bear. But life is also eternal. What they did while the sun was out will last with us forever.”

The Clintons and Gore led a large delegation of government officials to be here as the aluminum coffins were brought from a transport plane into hearses beside an open hangar by eight uniformed pall bearers each. Four howitzers on the tarmac fired a 19-gun salute.

Brig. Gen. William Dendinger, deputy chief of chaplains for the Air Force, offered a prayer. “Help us always to remember these public servants, ever mindful of their willingness to share their talents and their wisdom,” he said.

The president’s friendship with Brown, who was a major player in his 1992 election, was deep and Clinton was visibly grieving as he ended a week of sadness. A day earlier, he made a return visit to Oklahoma City to be with the families of the 168 victims of last year’s bombing of the federal building there.

Clinton said that “at the first of this interminable week,” Brown met with him, Gore and two other people.

“He was bubbling with enthusiasm about this mission,” the president recalled, quoting Brown: “These people are going on this mission because they want to use the power of the American economy to save peace in the Balkans.”

“Sometimes it takes a terrible tragedy to illustrate a basic truth,” he said in his radio speech Saturday. “In a democracy, government is not them versus us; we are all ‘us’, we are all in it together.”

At Dover, each family was assigned a private room in a training building and the president, Hillary Clinton and Gore went from room to room, spending a few minutes with each. Brown’s widow, Alma, joined them in meeting with the families of Commerce Department officials.

Brown’s funeral date has not been set. The president will deliver the eulogy at the service at Washington National Cathedral; the burial will be at Arlington National Cemetery with military honors, reflecting Brown’s four years of Army service.