JINSA Report #569 We Lost; The Soldiers Won't

JINSA
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May 9, 2006

JINSA Report #569

We Lost; The Soldiers Won't

"You're killing us," a Hilton Deputy CEO told a JINSA supporter who
managed to break through the telephone blockade. Would that it was true.
You – our readers plus thousands of others infuriated by the Hilton's
tossing of Fran O'Brien's Stadium Steakhouse Restaurant in Washington,
home of dinners for wounded Iraq and Afghanistan vets – made Hilton's
life extremely unpleasant for a while. They turned off e-mails and
fielded phone calls from former Hilton Honors cardholders. They got
negative - and soldiers got positive - media coverage from The
Washington Post, The Washington Times, NBC Nightly News, National Review
Online and The New York Sun, along with many smaller outlets.

But in the end, Hilton is Hilton and we are only us. After a final
emotional night full of soldiers, families, Rolling Thunder, friends and
teary-eyed Fran O'Brien's staff, the restaurant was locked out by the
Capital Hilton Hotel and closed.

But the dinners are not over. As long as there are soldiers at Walter
Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital needing an evening out and the company
of friends, there will be dinners hosted by Hal Koster and Marty
O'Brien. For now, the Hamilton Crowne Plaza-Washington D.C. has taken
the soldiers in - and the first Friday night was stupendous! There
couldn't have been a nicer, kinder, more helpful or more gracious staff
than the one at the Crowne Plaza, starting with Food and Beverage
Manager Melanie Davis. Please consider taking your business there;
JINSA will.

And, for the future...

First, we want to assure all of the generous JINSA donors who have made
contributions to this program that your gift will be used, as promised,
to provide a fun evening out for our young heroes. The Crowne Plaza is
only the beginning.

Italian Ambassador Giovanni Castellaneta has invited the soldiers to the
Italian Embassy one night this month and the soldiers are already
thoroughly excited. The Italians are our allies in Iraq and certainly
friends of our soldiers. Finmeccanica, the Italian defense conglomerate
and its companies: Oto Melara, AgustaWestland, Selex Sensors & Airborne
Systems, Selex Communications, Alenia and Ansaldo Breda have been major,
major sponsors of the dinners, as has Italy's Fincantieri Marine Systems.

And Fran O'Brien's is considering relocating in Washington with the
assistance of a local real estate magnate.

The people who responded to our calls for help on behalf of the soldiers
- from the e-mail flood to a lawyer who cheerfully and seriously offered
to sue Hilton pro bono - understood what Hilton ultimately did not. Fran
O'Brien's dinners are not about food, they are about fellowship in the
community of people who love, respect and honor American soldiers for
their service to our country and to freedom.

In that respect, Fran O'Brien's doesn't need Hilton and neither do we.

To view this JINSA Report online click on the link below.
http://www.jinsa.org/JINSAReports/3401

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