She was 28, a Black Hawk pilot and aviation officer, and her final flight ended in fire over the nation’s capital. Captain Rebecca M. Lobach of Durham, North Carolina, died as her jet approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, one of 67 souls lost in the devastating DC collision. For days, officials honored her family’s request for privacy, until they agreed the world should know who she was, not just how she died.

Her loved ones remember a “bright star,” a woman who was kind, generous, brilliant, funny, ambitious, and unflinchingly brave. She served from 2019 to 2025, earning the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and Army Service Ribbon. A distinguished ROTC graduate at UNC, she ranked in the top 20 percent nationwide before serving as a White House aide under President Biden. To her family, she was more than a uniform or a headline; she was their warrior, and their heart.