Hug From a President

I received this as a forward.   Thought you all might like to see it.

It started out as a fluke. Lynn Faulkner had been
> offered an extra ticket to a Bush campaign event by
> his neighbor Linda Prince. Mr. Faulkner decided to
> offer it to his 15-year old daughter Ashley who he
> expected would decline, as she would have to miss
> some school to attend. But his daughter surprised
> him. Ashley reminded her dad how four years ago
> they attended a similar event when then Texas
> Governor George W. Bush visited the same spot on the
> campaign trail.
>
> Ashley remembered attending that event with both her
> father and her mother Wendy Faulkner. It was
> raining that day and they all stood in the rain
> awaiting Governor Bush "eating Triscuit crackers"
> enjoying the time together and hoping to get a
> glimpse of the would-be president. Ashley recalled
> holding her mothers hand as they waited. So she
> decided to go again this year, but this time her
> mother could not attend. Wendy Faulkner was
> murdered on 9/11/01 in the south tower of the World
> Trade Center. She was there on the 104th floor for
> a one-day meeting. Ashley decided to miss school in
> honor and remembrance of her mother and attend the
> event.
>
> So the trip was on. Linda Prince, along with Lynn
> and Ashley Faulkner, were off to the Golden Lamb Inn
> in Lebanon, Ohio for the event. The group arrived
> early and got a spot close to the front. As the
> event wound down, the president worked the line in
> full campaign mode shaking hands and signing
> autographs. As the president passed the group, Mr.
> Faulkner got an autograph, and the president
> continued on until Linda Prince spoke up, "This girl
> lost her mother on 9/11," Prince told the president.

> Then everything changed.
>
> "The president's entire expression transformed," Mr.
> Faulkner told me on Sunday. "He turned and came
> back against the flow and his eyes locked on
> Ashley's. His face showed a man who was no longer
> the president, he was a father and a husband."
> President Bush made his way back to Ashley and he
> embraced the 15-yeal old young woman. "She snuggled
> in with the president just like she did when she was
> a little girl with her dad," Mr. Faulkner said. "I
> know it's hard," Mr. Faulkner heard the president
> tell his daughter. "I'm okay," Ashley told the
> president. The embrace continued.
>
> Mr. Faulkner had his Kodak digital camera with him
> and debated on invading this very private moment
> between his daughter and the leader of the free
> world. "For 20-30 seconds the president belonged
> exclusively to Ashley," Lynn Faulkner told me. So
> he decided to capture the moment without invading
> Ashley and the president's privacy. He held up his
> digital camera, not even aiming with his eye and
> with one click snapped just one picture. It showed
> in detail the face of a compassionate man who just
> happens to be the president comforting a young woman
> who lost her mother in the 9/11 attacks on America.
>
> Mr. Faulkner told me that he saw tears in his
> daughter's eyes, and saw emotion that he hadn't seen
> from his daughter in 2 ½ years. Ashley told her
> dad, "The way he was holding me, with my head
> against his chest, it felt like he was trying to
> protect me, he wanted to make sure that I was safe."
> That feeling is captured in a very clear way in
> this moving unscripted photo. It's the only photo
> of this special embrace as the press corps had
> already been ushered back on the bus. And the photo
> was never meant for publication. All Mr. Faulkner
> did when he returned home from the event was e-mail
> it to 15 friends and family. But by the middle of
> last week, I had received the photo from eight
> different people. Others were also receiving the
> photo and forwarding it along. It became an
> Internet phenomenon, as it was e-mailed around
> America.
>
> Mr. Faulkner called the embrace "President Bush's
> precious gift to my daughter." And with his small
> act of e-mailing that photo to friends and family,
> the picture can now become a gift to the American
> people.
>
> And as sad as the story is the release and
> publication is a good thing. Disgusting photos
> coming out of Iraq for the past 10 days have shocked
> Americans, as they should have. But no longer are
> the terrible images of 9/11 shown. While the Iraq
> prison photos have been picked up by the elite media
> and shown time and again, this touching photo has
> gone largely ignored by the mainstream media. But
> the alternative media has made this touching
> powerful photo one of the most e-mailed photos of
> last week. The Internet once again took over where
> the elite media failed. Matt Drudge ran it on May
> 7th, as did the Page 2 Politics journal, and
> hundreds of other blogs. Millions have now seen it,
> but millions more need to. It gives a stark
> reminder why America is at war with radical Islam
> and other terrorists around the world that are
> determined to cause this kind of pain to other
> American families.
>
> The images of 9/11 have faded in the minds of far
> too many Americans. This picture and this family's
> riveting story give a stark reminder of why America
> is at war. Each day around the globe our soldiers
> are fighting in an attempt to prevent any other
> event as terrible as the murders that took place on
> 9/11. Look hard at this picture. See the
> compassion and sadness on the president's face.
> Look at this young woman, see her grief and listen
> to her father's words. Ashley and her sister Loren
> just spent their third Mother's Day without their
> mother, as did thousands of other children who lost
> their mothers on 9/11 at the hands of ruthless
> uncaring terrorists. Imagine yourself in that
> position.
>