Flags to fly at half-staff in honor of slain soldier

5/15/2005

Local leaders have ordered that Toledo city and Lucas County flags be flown at half-staff tomorrow in honor of Army Reserve Sgt. Andy Eckert, who died in Iraq on May 8.

Sergeant Eckert, 24, of the 983rd Engineering Battalion in Monclova Township was in a convoy going to retrieve a vehicle when a roadside bomb exploded and killed him. The Sylvania man had been wounded previously in Iraq on March 14, 2004, and he received a Purple Heart as a result.

Toledo Mayor Jack Ford and the Lucas County commissioners all have called for the flags to fly at half-staff tomorrow, which is the day of the sergeant s funeral.