ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Maryland (CNN) -- The 12 U.S. citizens killed in last week's terrorist bomb attack in Kenya were honored Thursday as "the best America has to offer" during an emotional memorial service attended by hundreds of mourners, including President Clinton, shortly after their flag-draped coffins arrived in the United States.

"Nothing can bring them back," Clinton said in a somber ceremony held in a hangar at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. "But nothing can erase the lives they led. The difference they made. The joy they brought... They were what America is all about."

"They were builders and doers," said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who accompanied the bodies on the Air Force C-17 transport plane that brought 10 of them to United States soil from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

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