Rebecca Lobach And The Golden Rule

As soon as I heard the news last week that the Army was withholding the name of the Black Hawk helicopter pilot involved in the Reagan National collision, my antennae went up. There had to be family money involved. Here's the problem:

On Saturday the U.S. Army released the name of the second pilot—reported to have been pilot in command—of the Blackhawk helicopter that collided with American Airlines flight 5342 over the Potomac River, killing 67 people. This was a marked departure from Army policy that states “Names, city, and state of deceased will be withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.” This was the standard process used to identify the other two members of the Army’s flight crew, Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves, and Staff Sgt. Ryan O'Hara. . . . Yet, in an unusual deviation, the Army selectively withheld Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach’s identity for an additional two days. When her name was finally released over the weekend, the Army included a family statement of eulogy that praised Lobach and requested privacy. Army officials claim that violating its own rules was done to respect Lobach’s family’s wishes, but that decision casts an unnecessary shadow over her service and memory.

I saw a military YouTuber claim the family had insisted they feared for their safety if Rebecca's name were made public, and they apperantly needed the extra time to scrub their social media for their own protection, but I haven't found anything to corroborate this. It does sound like the lame excuse someone might try to make -- if they aren't protected, mobs of MAGA types might riot outside their front door. The link above goes on,

The information shared by the Army and Lobach’s friends indicate that she was a stellar soldier. However, stellar soldiers do not ask for special consideration—they demand equal treatment to prove that they are one among a team. Yet we now see a movement to essentially canonize Lobach as a hero while civilian remains are still being recovered from the submerged and fragmented passenger jet that her aircraft knocked from the sky. Army officials rushed to defend a single pilot among a flight crew of three and 64 dead civilians.

. . . Beyond violating military regulations, the Army strategically released Lobach’s identification on a Saturday—a classic public relations tactic used to bury news. Meanwhile, it appears her social media history was erased, despite the insistence that she was an admirable public servant. The inclusion of a family eulogy in the Army’s announcement further signaled that her passing was somehow more profound than the rest. Why?

In short, her family appears to have asked for, and received, special treatment. How could they do this? According to the York, PA Daily Record,

"She was a wonderful, admirable young lady," her uncle, York attorney Jeff Lobach, said. "She deserves a lot of respect. She will be sadly missed."

Jeff Lobach, a partner in the Barley Snyder law firm and a well-known philanthropist, didn't want to go into great detail about his niece, who was a member of the crew of the Blackhawk helicopter that crashed with a regional jet over the Potomac near Reagan National Airport last week.

Capt. Lobach's father, Jeff Lobach's brother David, is from York but currently lives in Durham, N.C. He earned his undergraduate degree from Bucknell University before completing his medical degree and a doctorate at Duke University.

"This is really their story," Lobach said.

Even if it's the Durham Lobachs' story, here's more on Uncle Jeff:

Jeff and Cindy Lobach, whose work on behalf of the Golden Venture immigrants detained in York County Prison garnered international recognition, are this year's recipients of Penn-Mar Human Service's Distinguished Humanitarian Award.

They will receive the award at the organization's 33rd Gala fundraiser at the Marriott Owings Mills Center in Owings Mill, Md., on March 1.

. . . Jeff Lobach, former managing partner and CEO of the Barley Snyder law firm, was a leader of the volunteer asylum project that provided legal services to the Chinese refugees who were detained in York County after their ship, the Golden Venture, ran aground at Rockaway Beach in Queens, N.Y., in June 1993. The Lobachs took in one of Jeff's clients and his wife and daughter, making them a part of their family.

Elsewhere,

Jeff and Cindy Lobach’s varied and eclectic volunteer service led them to create the Jeff and Cindy Lobach Community Fund at the Community Foundation. Jeff, the current Community Foundation board chair, said, “I have a front row seat for the evolution of the Community Foundation to a proactive and impactful driver of positive community change. With college in the rearview mirror for our three sons, we thought now would be a good time for us to focus our giving more strategically and the Community Foundation is the perfect vehicle.”

The Lobachs are passionate about youth, education, health care, and their church, and support organizations that can have “transformative or life-saving effects on our neighbors,” according to Cindy. Globally, the Lobachs are currently working to preserve an area of the Amazon rainforest by helping the villagers living on the edges of the gigantic Tahuayo Tamshiyacu reserve.

Ah, the Jeff and Cindy Lobach Community Fund. But the family requeats privacy. These are powerful Democrat donors. What about Rebecca's dad down in Durham? He's David Franklin Lobach, Medical Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health in the Duke Univeristy School of Medicine, M.S. 1994 - Duke University, M.D. 1987 - Duke University. Ph.D. 1986 - Duke University. His list of grants and citations is impressive. In fact, I would bet he's on a first-name basis with Tony Fauci. He's a member of the medical and public health establishment, after all.

This in turn says to me that there's generational wealth and influence that extends back beyond brothers Jeff and David. I suspect another half hour of searching could turn that up, too, but I don't have the time right now. But this explains why Rebecca was a White House social aide, among other things, and why her friends, contacted for comment, were so insistent that she'd earned everything she got, just like her dad and Uncle Jeff did. What do you bet all the Lobachs are Democrats?

Come to think of it, they didn't do all that great a job of scrubbing their media, either, even with all the extra time they got.