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Gary Tischler • January 11, 2016

It appears that former District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray’s long political and legal nightmare is over.

The nearly five-year investigation into Gray’s victorious 2010 campaign against incumbent Mayor Adrian is over with no charges filed against Gray.

The office of the U.S. District Attorney, headed by Channing Phillips, who took over after then District Attorney Ronald Machen stepped down this year, issued a statement saying, “Based on a thorough review of the available evidence and applicable law, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has concluded that the admissible evidence is likely insufficient to obtain and sustain a criminal conviction against any other individuals.”  This means that Gray, although his name was not mentioned, will not face prosecution or charges.

The announcement amounted to a bittersweet victory for Gray.  Federal prosecutors, after all, did uncover a slush fund or “shadow campaign,” presumed to be headed by businessman Jeffrey Thompson, an ally of Gray.  Several Gray campaign aides have already been indicted and await sentencing, along with Thompson, who insisted in negotiations with the prosecutor that Gray knew about the “shadow campaign”.

The investigation into the campaign exploded at the start of Gray’s administration, dogging and shadowing him throughout his tenure, right up to and including his campaign for re-election.  Machen all alone suggested that Gray’s victory over Fenty was suspect and went to great lengths to prove it, snaring aides and Thompson—but without in the end being able to charge Gray.

What the investigation did manage to do was perhaps cause Gray to lose his re-election campaign against Muriel Bowser, who went on to become mayor. Three weeks before the Democratic primary—which is still tantamount to a guarantor of victory in the general election– Thompson pleaded guilty. Prosecutors and Thompson said in court and in public that Gray knew about the illegal funds that fueled his 2010 campaign.  At the time, while Bowser had been surging, the primary still appeared to be in the very least too close to call. That changed quickly with the late-campaign contratemps around Thompson.

While most observers would suggest that Gray’s tenure by and large was a successful one, he was in some ways wounded politically.  With the investigation making constant news as revelations about the “shadow campaign” continuing to erupt in the media and in the courts with every indictment, Gray was dogged by the press and the media about the campaign and had difficulty getting out the news about his policies and programs.

There is probably no question that a slush fund existed—but it also appeared then and appears now that prosecutors had no meaningful or solid evidence against the mayor.

There is an irony in that, of course, several.  Most District political observers suggest that even though it appears that illegal funds were being used, they were most likely unnecessary to defeat Fenty who had been behind in the in the polls for weeks leading up to the election. 

Gray obviously recognized the might-have-been aspects of what transpired, in terms of the 2014 election, in terms of how his tenure was affected.

In a statement released through his former campaign manager Chuck Thies, Gray said, “Here in the District and around the country, many people had had their faith in our justice system tested. Justice delayed is justice denied, but I cannot change history. I look forward to getting on with the next chapter of my life, which will no doubt be dedicated to service.”

The population increase and shift in the  city, and a building boom that came with it, as well the burgeoning reputation of the city as a destination spot can probably be traced back to Mayor Anthony Williams, Fenty and most certainly Gray, who can take considerable credit for the rise of the city. But it was also during his time in office that the investigation put a cloud of distrust over the government.  The convictions of three council members on other matters, did nothing to reduce that impression.

Mayor Bowser released a curt statement Dec. 9 in response to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia’s announcement on the 2010 mayoral election investigation:
 
“The U.S. Attorney is responsible for bringing cases and securing justice.  The new U.S. Attorney for the District has concluded that justice has been secured with seven convictions in the 2010 Gray mayoral campaign and a dozen in total. It is not my job to question his actions but to continue to do the job that the residents elected me to do: expand opportunity to more D.C. residents. And that’s what we do — not just today but every day.”

Georgetowner •

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier announced Thursday that her department would conduct new searches around the city for Relisha Rudd, a little girl who was eight years old when she went missing in March 2014.

“There’s nothing more important than trying to locate a missing child, and we want to make sure that we haven’t missed anything,” said Lanier, announcing that her department would search a construction site at New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road in Northeast and other areas that Lanier declined to provide details about. “We don’t want to leave any stone unturned here. This is our highest priority,” she said. According to MPD, the new searches were not prompted by tip from the public.

Relisha lived at a homeless shelter with her mother and siblings in SE D.C., and was last seen with Khalil Tatum, a janitor that worked at the shelter. After Relisha was reported missing, Tatum was found dead of a self-inflicted gun wound in a park in Northeast. In addition, police found Tatum’s wife’s body in a suburban Maryland motel shortly.

At time of print, Relisha, who would’ve turned 10 on Oct. 29, had not been found.

Georgetowner •

Sinatra’s Night at Living Room Live

December 10th, 2015 at 07:00 PM | Free | info@artsoiree.com | Tel: 202-470-2642 | Event Website

Celebrate 100th Birthday of Frank Sinatra with a one-night-only performance – Sinatra’s Centennial by Friends of Frank.

From “New York, New York” to “That’s Life”, Friends of Frank will perform Sinatra classics and audience favorites!

Seating is on the first come basis. Doors open 7pm. Live Performance start 8pm.

Address

The Ritz-Carlton, Georgetown; 3100 South Street NW

Hoppy Holidays presented by Drink The District

December 11th, 2015 at 06:00 PM | $35-$50 | tickets@drinkthedistrict.com | Tel: 202-618-3663 | Event Website

‘Tis the season to celebrate good friends and good fun with a bevy of beverages and live music. Keep warm with savory and sweet treats while you sample stouts, lagers and ales and ponder who’s been naughty or nice. Enjoy 3 hours of unlimited tastings of over 30 beers and unlimited full pours of 2 beers.

Session 1: FRIDAY, Dec 11th, 7pm-10pm

Session 2: SATURDAY, Dec 12th, 2pm–5pm

Session 3: SATURDAY, Dec 12th, 7pm-10pm

Address

The Ring Building; 1200 18th Street NW

Gas Station Horror

December 11th, 2015 at 10:00 PM

From NYC, Gas Station Horror is a high-energy improv show that turns terrible horror movies into excellent comedy. For this special edition they are bringing horror to the Holiday with films like Silent Night, Zombie Night.

Address

Source, 1835 14th St. NW

Age-Friendly DC Info Session

December 11th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | FREE | rebekah.smith@dc.gov | Tel: 202-727-0232 | Event Website

D.C. is on the way to becoming an age-friendly city. Come learn about the city’s Age-Friendly DC 2015 Progress Report and what you can do to help transform D.C. into an easier city to grow up and older.

The Age-Friendly D.C. plan includes 75 strategies that District agencies are implementing with support from community partners to make life easier for residents of all ages. For more information please visit the Age-Friendly D.C. website: http://agefriendly.dc.gov/

Address

Georgetown Neighborhood Library; 3260 R St NW

National Building Museum’s 35th Birthday!

December 12th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | Free

Thirty-five years ago today, an Act of Congress established the nation’s only museum dedicated to the history and impact of the built environment. To celebrate our birthday, we’re throwing open our doors and offering free admission to all, as well as birthday festivities throughout the day. Learn more at go.nbm.org/35years.

Address

401 F St NW

Christmas Mart

December 12th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | – | dumbartonpastor@yahoo.com | Tel: 202-333-7212 | Event Website

You can find holiday gifts and help with world peace and understanding by shopping at Dumbarton’s Christmas Mart on Saturday, December 12, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The Dumbarton United Methodist Church Youth group will be selling global, hand-made, fair trade items from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Local artists will offer a variety of their art, jewelry, and crafts. A portion of all sales goes to fund the 2016 youth work trip. The church is at 3133 Dumbarton St. NW, just off of Wisconsin Avenue.

Address

3133 Dumbarton St. NW

Tea with Santa

December 12th, 2015 at 11:00 AM | $30 | education@dumbartonhouse.org | Tel: 2023372288 | Event Website

Sit back, relax and let Santa’s helpers serve you during this magical holiday experience. Visit with Santa and hear a special holiday story. Families enjoy a delicious holiday tea complete with special holiday tea blends, hot apple cider, sandwiches and desserts. After taking tea, children decorate their own gingerbread cookies to take home.

Adult Member $25; Non-member $30; Children $20

Address

Dumbarton House, 2715 Q Street, NW

Cathedral Choral Society: Family Joy

December 12th, 2015 at 12:00 PM | $15-25 | lsheridan@cathedral.org | Tel: 202-537-2228 | Event Website](http://www.cathedralchoralsociety.org/)

Join us for a special Christmas concert! This one-hour program has something for all ages, including a kids-only sing-along. Bring the whole family and get swept up in the sounds of the season. Special guests: Children’s Chorus of Washington and American Youth Philharmonic Brass Ensemble.

Address

Washington National Cathedral; 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW

Saturday Showing – “Sylvester”

December 12th, 2015 at 01:00 PM | Tel: (540) 687-6542 | [Event Website](http://nationalsporting.org/)

We invite you to join us in the Founder’s Room for a showing of Sylvester. Admission is free and Popcorn Monkey will be on hand selling popcorn to accompany the film!

Address

National Sporting Library & Museum; 102 The Plains Road; Middleburg, VA 20117

Joy of Christmas

December 12th, 2015 at 04:00 PM | $25-77 | lsheridan@cathedral.org | Tel: 202-537-2228 | [Event Website](http://www.cathedralchoralsociety.org/)

Celebrate the warm spirit of the season in a majestic setting. A well-loved Washington, DC holiday tradition, this concert will include Christmas favorites and a festive carol sing-along. Program will feature a newly commissioned carol by British composer James Whitbourn.

Led by Music Director J. Reilly Lewis with Edward Nassor, carillon; Todd Fickley, organ; Lyric Brass Quintet; and Children’s Chorus of Washington.

Address

Washington National Cathedral; 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW

A Celtic Christmas

December 12th, 2015 at 04:00 PM | $30-$35 | office@dumbartonconcerts.org | Tel: 2029652000, ext. 100 | [Event Website](http://www.dumbartonconcerts.org/tickets)

A Celtic Christmas. The Barnes and Hampton Consort, flutist Joseph Cunliffe, percussionist Steve Bloom, and radio celebrity Robert Aubry Davis return to Dumbarton Concerts with this annual Christmas tradition, featuring well-known pieces like “In the Bleak Midwinter”, traditional Irish music, and readings of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas, as well as other poems by Langston Hughes.

Address

3133 Dumbarton St. NW

A Candlelight Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

December 13th, 2015 at 05:00 PM | FREE ADMISSION | sam@stjohnsgeorgetown.org | Tel: 202-338-1796 | [Event Website](http://www.stjohnsgeorgetown.org/)

Celebrate the season with this beloved holiday service of readings and music, in the tradition of King’s College, Cambridge. Performed in the serene and radiant beauty of candlelight, the program will feature music by Rutter and Willcocks in addition to traditional Christmas carols for all to sing.
Holiday Reception in Blake Hall following the service.

Free Admission

Early seating is advised

Childcare available

Address

St. John’s Episcopal Church; 3240 O St. NW

Washington Nationals Winterfest

Where: Walter E. Washington Convention Center 801 Mt. Vernon Place NW Washington, DC 20001

When: Saturday, December 12 and Sunday, December 13 (two days)

Time: 11:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. (time is the same for both days)

Tickets: Tickets purchased in advance at www.nationals.com/NatsWinterfest cost $30 for adults and $20 for children 12 and under, with prices increasing at the door. Tickets must be purchased separately for each individual day.

Description: The Nationals’ event of the offseason is now two-days. Open to fans of all ages, guests can enjoy holiday and baseball themed activities and interactive events, meet and greet their favorite Nationals players, take a photo with Santa, donate a toy to a child in need, enjoy their favorite ballpark concessions and much more.

More information can be found at www.nationals.com/NatsWinterfest

Robert Devaney •

Ri Ra Irish Pub at 3123 M St. NW has been shut down by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board Jan. 4 through Jan. 12 for “Sale to Minor Violation, Failed to Take Steps Necessary to Ascertain Legal Drinking Age.”

During the Nov. 18 hearing that meted out the punishment, the ABC Board “accepted an Offer In Compromise: $4,000 fine to be paid within 30 days. Charge I-$4,000 and Charge II -dismissed. Suspension of the license for 15 days, 9 days served and 6 days stayed. The suspension days are January 4-12, 2016. Indefinite suspension of the license if the fine is not paid by December 18, 2015, 5-0.”

Aside from the obligatory ABC placard taped to the Ri Ra window this week, the Ri Ra management also offered its own apology letter on its front door window—promising its customers and the community that such a violation would never happen again.

Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Bill Starrels, who heads the group’s alcoholic beverage committee and in whose single-member district Ri Ra operates, commented on the restaurant’s temporary closure: “According to my constituents that usually frequent the pub, it seems to have changed since its first year and has a different clientele. On its opening day, the Ri Ra owners appeared to be a first-class act.”

The ABC Board is part of D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. Board members are Donovan Anderson (chair), Nick Alberti, Mike Silverstein, Ruthanne Miller and James Short.

Robert Devaney •

Promoters, developers and designers of the future building and park that will emerge out of the West Heating Plant site at 1055 29th St. NW, just south of the C&O Canal and the Four Seasons Hotel, addressed the members and guest of the Citizens Association of Georgetown Dec. 9 at the Georgetown Public Library.

The development group, headed by Richard Levy of the Levy Group, showed the designs of British architect David Adjaye and landscape designer Laurie Olin. Others in the group include the Four Seasons and the Georgetown Companies of New York. The team bought the two-acre property from the federal government in 2013 for $19.5 million. High-end condo units — managed by the Four Seasons — will number 60 to 70, and half of the land will become a park.

Adjaye is the architect for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture as well as two D.C. public libraries. He presented his first design that echoes the way the building, shut down for 15 years as a power plant, now looks with its vertical lines. As the present structure is not designated a historic landmark, Adjaye’s second and preferred version reveals a differently aligned building with horizontal lines that echo the flat sweeping lines of the Kennedy Center and Watergate complex as seen from the Potomac River coming up to Georgetown. The footprint of the building would remain more or less the same.

The group has many hurdles for completion. It may take three years to tear down the building, clear the land and finoish the building — after many approvals. Ahead is an Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting in February as well as one with the Old Georgetown Board. Levy and his team have to get Mayor Bowser to deem their efforts a “project of special merit” to have a completely different building (though it is a similar size) for the site.

Meanwhile, there will more opportunities for public comment. Overall, impressions from the neighbors at the meeting about the new designs seemed upbeat. More to come on this project, no doubt.
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Peter Murray •

Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled a two-year action plan Dec. 17 for the city’s Vision Zero program, an initiative started in Sweden that is aimed at eliminating traffic deaths in the District by 2024.

“We know over the past two decades we’ve seen annual traffic fatalities in our city reduced very significantly, but still too many people are dying as a result of traffic accidents,” Bowser said said. “That is why we talk not of reducing traffic fatalities, but getting to zero.”

The new plan, which spans 56 pages and 68 action items, is broken into four parts. Some steps are intended to create safe streets and protect vulnerable users, while others are meant to prevent reckless driving and promote transparency. Some steps are ambitious, like redesigning roads for all users, while others, like increasing fines for driving violations and expanding D.C.’s automated traffic cameras, are intended to deter bad behavior.

Learn more about D.C. and Mayor Bowser’s Vision Zero action plan here.

Gary Tischler •

Each year, we count up our losses — the passing of those who in the course or the whole of their lives were notable for their presence, for their achievements, for their personalities, for those moments when fame or something like it knighted or benighted them.

Memory and space are not democracies, of course, unlike the lengthy list that accumulates at Wikipedia every year, which appears to make an effort to circle the globe and search the nooks and crannies of accomplishment in every nation and municipality (which speaks well of the likelihood that even our own preordained passing might well be noticed by someone, somewhere).

So, we too choose to notice any number of people who have touched us, sometimes through specific, personal contact, sometimes for their impressive lives of achievement and contribution, sometimes for a singular kind of thing: a song, a book, a performance, a role in another singular life.

It is like an annual parade passing — full of leaders, writers, elected personages of high standing, singers of songs, poets, band leaders and band members, game players and athletes, more-than-average citizens, owners and inventors, people who encountered fame head on or were struck glancing blows by it.

Their proximity and contributions added to the richness of our own more humble lives. Take writers, for instance. When writers pass, they stop writing: books, essays, stories in the dwindling newspapers and magazines, poems, plays, words shaped to form a novel, a tale, six stanzas or librettos, the words spoken by actors on a stage.

Thusly, there will be no more words from the great, Nobel Prize-winning and complicated German writer Günter Grass, who spent his life writing novels that addressed the impossible 20th-century history of Germany through characters that included a boy who willed himself to stop growing in “The Tin Drum” and Hitler’s dog in “Dog Years.”

There will be no more thick, addictive books from Colleen McCullough, the Australian novelist who produced a melodramatic best seller called “The Thorn Birds,” then proceeded to delve into Roman history in a series of story-telling triumphs that began with the stories of Marius, Sulla and a young Julius Caesar and ended with Caesar and Cleopatra.

There will be no more elliptic, haunting novels by E. L. Doctorow, who chased American history as if it were an elusive heiress through “Ragtime,” “Billy Bathgate” and “The March,” among many books. There will be no more poems from Rod McKuen, who, for a time in the 1960s, was the hugely popular Pied Piper of quasi-lonely young men who, he wrote, “were left with the Saturday night consolation prize, the Sunday paper,” and no more poems from the much more respected and less best-selling Philip Levine.

For that matter, there will be no more true-crime books from Ann Rule, who knew Ted Bundy, and no more thick volumes on the history of Soviet horrors like “The Great Terror” by Robert Conquest. And no more of the elegant medical writings and books of Oliver Sacks, and the less elegant, but totally juicy novels of Jackie Collins, sister of Joan.

Actors from the silver screen and the small screen remain with us forever. There are no small roles in small or big movies or shows, and so we remember the rich face of Al Molinaro who played a guy named Delvecchio in “Happy Times” and Murray the cop in “The Odd Couple.” We remember Jack Larson, who spent part of his life as Jimmy Olsen on the 1950s “Superman” show, and Judy Carne, for being on “Laugh-In” (and being married to Burt Reynolds) and Gary Owens, who told us that “Laugh-In” was coming from “beautiful downtown Burbank,” and Alex Rocco, who got shot in the eye as Moe Greene in the climactic cleanup at the end of “The Godfather.”

We remember the shining old-movie beauty of Joan Leslie as Gary Cooper’s love in “Sergeant York” and the good girl in Bogart’s “High Sierra,” the boyish face of good man Martin Milner in “Route 66” on television and as the book-reading kid who got shot storming the beaches in “Sands of Iwo Jima.” We remember French suave personified in Louis Jordan, courting Leslie Caron in “Gigi,” and Rod Taylor, the hunky, not-quite-big-star in “The Time Machine” and “Young Cassidy.” Then there’s “Our Gang” member Dickie Moore, who gave Shirley Temple her first screen kiss. Trust me, it’s all there, somewhere, on celluloid, in digital, big screen, YouTube, the back of my mind.

Fred Thompson, who was a senator and once ran for president, straddles the line — he was a district attorney on “Law and Order,” where he can be seen any time you want, and appeared in any number of movies.

Leonard Nimoy and Christopher Lee were part of our fascination with space. Nimoy transcended the “Star Trek” series as Mr. Spock, becoming a kind of gentle philosopher. Lee was a villain in the second round of “Star Trek,” which — hold on to your hats — is back again, but touched pop culture over and over as the bad wizard in “Lord of the Rings” and the most memorable Dracula ever (excuse me Lugosi and Langella and all the rest). I did not see “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and so cannot comment how good Gunnar Hansen was as Leatherface.

Fame is funny — it’s almost like a pool table or six or two degrees of separation. Here’s one for you: Three Dog Night (“Joy To The World”) lost co-founder and lead vocalist Cory Wells and keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon, not to mention June Fairchild, an actress who was noticed in the Cheech and Chong get-high movie “Up in Smoke” and suggested the band’s name to her boyfriend, a band member. Her life is an abject lesson in what even a light touch of the spotlight can do to a vulnerable soul.

These annals of pop and rock and blues are full of one-hit wonders, but B.B. King wasn’t one of them; the king of the blues led a musical life that was one big hit. Not quite so big, but totally memorable, were the stylings of Ben E. King, with and without the Drifters: “Up On the Roof” and “Stand By Me.” And there were one-hitters — Billy Joe Royal with “Down in the Boondocks,” Frankie Ford with “Sea Cruise” — and multiple-memorable hitters, like Lesley Gore with “It’s My Party” and Lynn Anderson with “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” and Little Jimmie Dickens, a Grand Old Opry mainstay.

Ernie Banks (“Play Two,” Chicago Cubs), Minnie Miñoso (Chicago White Sox) and eternal Yankee Yogi Berra form many of our baseball memories, where it’s always déjà vu all over again.

Locally, the losses included, most notably and most recently, Austin Kiplinger, a forward-looking gentleman and publisher of the old school who treasured history enough to help in the creation of a museum of Washington history and serve as president of Tudor Place. He defined the idea of leading a full life in the midst of history.

You could find no one more helpful and kinder than Cherie Cannon.

Both Moses Malone, player, and Flip Saunders, coach, are fondly remembered by fans of the Washington Wizards (the Bullets in Malone’s time). And let’s throw in Dean Smith, the classy University of North Carolina basketball coach, for causing so much pain to the Georgetown Hoyas and the Maryland Terrapins.

We left people out. This happens — in life and in death. But imagine, for just a moment, all these people at a lawn party, say at Tudor Place or the Kennedy Center or your backyard. Who would be watching out for Uggie, the dog from “The Actor” and Jack the Bulldog Sr., the Hoya mascot?

Peter Murray •

The District Department of Transportation announced Friday that the prices for tickets related to traffic violations are going way up. Under the new proposal, exceeding the speed limit by 25 mph or over could cost you $1,000 while turning right on red without stopping could cost as much as $200.

Other newly proposed fines include $500 for drivers who fail to slow down or move out of the way for emergency vehicles and $100 for going over the speed limit near recreation and senior centers. There’s also a new $500 fine for failing to yield for buses reentering traffic.

The new proposal also includes fine increases for a number of violations regarding car-bike and car-pedestrian interactions. For example, the fine for hitting a bicyclist will increase from $50 to $500, parking in a bike lane will go from $65 to $200, hitting a pedestrian will cost $500 instead of $50, and failing to yield to a pedestrian before turning right on red will run $200 rather than $50.

DDOT proposed the new changes without the District Council’s input, a development that auto club AAA Mid-Atlantic questions. “DDOT is doing this through the regulator process,” said AAA’s John B. Townsend II. “Why not do it through the legislative process, where you can have public hearings?”

DDOT Director Leif Dormsjo told the Washington Post that there is no formal vote required by the Council on the changes, which are part of Mayor Bowser’s Vision Zero plans, but members can ask to amend or reject the proposed rules through the legislative process.

Bicycle and pedestrian advocate groups supported the proposal as a part of the larger Vision Zero initiative. They argue that stricter penalties will make D.C.’s roads safer for all users, whether they are pedestrians, bicyclists or drivers.

Under D.C. law, regulations can be changed after they are published in the D.C. Register twice, with a comment period of 30 days in between publications. So, while these rules are not final, they are currently in effect.

Robert Devaney • January 10, 2016

That fellow at Dog Tag Bakery just might be a veteran who has quite the story to tell. Some are more intense than others.
Lizandro Mateo-Ortiz and his wife Milena were part of the inaugural class of Dog Tag fellows. Army veteran Mateo-Ortiz barely survived being pulled under a Humvee in Iraq in 2007 and required many surgeries. He still walks with a brace and works with his wife of nearly 25 years. They have been in stories about the bakery.

Another story recalls the days of “Shock and Awe.” The newest Dog Tag fellow is 32-year-old Ayad Ahmed, who got swept up during the Battle of Baghdad in April 2003 . . . actually and harshly. His life changed forever. A bunker-busting bomb hit his street in the Mansour district, looking for Saddam Hussein on incorrect intelligence. The shock bombing killed his girlfriend and left his mother bleeding and grandfather in a coma. Eleven were killed. Ahmed was the only local who could speak English. Tough special operations soldiers grabbed Ahmed, tossed him in a Bradley fighting vehicle, threw a bullet-proof vest at him and told him to translate. None of the Americans spoke Arabic. Ahmed thought to himself: “You came all this way with no translator? What is Saddam doing in my garden, dude?”

His language skills saved the lives of some of his neighbors, whom he never saw again. “Everyone in the neighborhood hated me,” he said. There remains a bounty on his head, and he has never returned to Iraq. He lived with U.S. forces from 2003 until June 2009, when he left for Fort Riley, Kansas, for five years. “I was stuck with them.”

Ahmed became a U.S. citizen in November and wanted something more, he said, perhaps in Washington, D.C. While visiting the Pentagon, he stood in first of the office of Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pondering his future. In a moment, Ahmed’s life would change again, when he was urged to contact Dog Tag, Inc. He began working at the bakery last week.

Georgetowner •

Dog Tag Bakery’s Can-Do Spirit Provides Jobs for Disabled Veterans, Along With Sweet and Savory Treats for All

“True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.”—President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

FDR could have been speaking about Dog Tag Bakery, located on the perfectly named Grace Street, just past the C&O Canal below Wisconsin Avenue and M Street.

It’s an airy place, busy, with room enough to sit in style and ponder the world, take in really good cup of coffee, order up sandwiches, scones, sweets and soups, all while supporting veterans. You can see the bakers, the cooks, the people manning the cash register, the kitchen itself.

Here, the baguettes are exceptional, the chocolate cake great, the ginger pear torte exquisite and the soups super. This place is among the best in the city.

Yet this is more than your neighborhood coffee shop. When you step into Dog Tag Bakery — with its wide entrance for easy wheelchair access — you become a part of something larger than the time of the day, the aroma of coffee, the pleasantries, and stories shared around a table. Becoming a customer at Dog Tag Bakery lets you see the results of a unique program in action.
One of its slogans is “Baking a Difference.”

Dog Tag Bakery is part of Dog Tag Inc., which operates a six-month training program aimed squarely at “driven, entrepreneurial-minded wounded veterans and their spouses.” The program, through Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies, concludes with a group of fellows — all wounded veterans, or their spouses, and other professionals who have served in combat zones — well on their way to perhaps owning their own businesses or finding sustainable slots in the workplace. Its inaugural group of fellows has already graduated, and a second group started last month.

Dog Tag Bakery is a kind of physical, practical and workaday manifestation of the program, where veterans put their new business skills into practice: managing, keeping the kitchen running, preparing food, handling the counter. A chandelier of 3,456 dog tags is both a reminder of purpose and an additional way for customers to get involved. A $125 donation lets you hang one there too.
The program — which also features a lecture series and opportunities for wounded veterans to tell their own stories — is the first of its kind, a pilot program which its founders and operators hope to see duplicated in other cities.

Dog Tag has gotten a lot of attention from media, local and national, from the get-go. Its goals and the stories of the veterans are compelling. Retired Army Ranger Sedrick Banks, who had his neck broken in Iraq, told CBS News: “Dog Tag was my first major step back into the working mindset. Before the program, I didn’t have confidence. I didn’t feel like I had the ability. Now, I’m confident in myself, you know?”

The mission of Dog Tag has also earned the confidence and support from the likes of Mark and Sally Ein, Steve and Jean Case, Tammy Haddad, Roy and Kelley Schwartz, just to name a few.

Among the many human ingredients that go into Dog Tag’s operation are co-founders Rev. Richard Curry, S.J., and Constance Milstein; Chief Operating Officer Meghan Ogilvie; General Manager Justin Ford; Head Baker Rebecca Clerget; and Director of Development Simone Borisov.

Yet the most critical human ingredients are the fellows, the wounded veterans themselves, seeking doorways to enter the workforce, learn new skills, become entrepreneurs, become a part of the American mainstream. And that’s where the 72-year-old Father Curry comes in.

“He is the Jesuit father, and I am the Jewish godmother,” Milstein, one of Washington’s — and the country’s — leading philanthropists, told the crowd at the bakery’s grand opening in December. The attorney and real estate developer said she considers their partnership “a match made in heaven.” She is committed to helping veterans — her involvement with Blue Star Families is one example — and has also set up nonprofit bakeries in New York.

“It is because of my father, friends I lost in Vietnam, and those who continue to defend our freedom today that I am dedicated to our military and to helping empower and care for our military families,” Milstein has said.

It is Curry — a Jesuit brother who was ordained a priest at age 66 — who brings with him just what is needed to help disabled, wounded veterans. If there were degrees and medals in empathy, affinity, the ability to listen to and tell stories, Curry would have a fistful of them.

Curry founded, and headed for three decades, the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped, a nonprofit theater-arts training institution for persons with physical disabilities. Reaching out to disabled combat veterans, especially amputees, he began the Writers’ Program for Wounded Warriors, which encourages wounded veterans to tell their stories.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, he is technically disabled himself, having no right forearm. “I was born this way,” he told us in an interview at Dog Tag Bakery. He laughed. “I’m still wrestling with that. It still hurts.” But it also lets him understand with deep feeling, intellect and sometimes humor the plight of wounded veterans.

“Many people faced with a loss of a limb or internal organ internalize things. They can’t let it out,” he said. “And they think they won’t be able to do anything in life, all the things they could have done, all the tools to provide for a family. And that’s not true.”

“I don’t think of myself in terms of my disability,” Curry said. “And it’s important that our wounded warriors not be defined by their disabilities. This program is about confidence.”

Curry himself is a lot about building confidence — he exudes not so much strength as a kind of viability. He has that air of Irish curiosity about him, a conviviality that comes naturally, a love of the human race and its individual spirits.

In many ways, he is the heart of the Dog Tag enterprise, or at least its warmest cheerleader. The veterans themselves are the real stories, of course, and over the years Curry has managed to get them to tell their stories, time and again, in school and on stage; the stage at Dog Tag is one of his innovations.

“That was one of the reasons I started the wounded veterans’ writing program. There is this need for them to tell and write their stories,” Curry said. “Look what happened during the course and aftermath of the Vietnam War. The veterans, many of them badly wounded and maimed, and just as much psychologically, couldn’t tell their stories. Nobody wanted to hear them.

“This is about their stories as much as learning how to run a business, how to be part of a business,” he said. “So many buried their stories in silence and they have made us realize that war has its price.”

The need is obvious. Nearly 120 veterans applied for spots in the first group of fellows. Ten were chosen.

Curry decided to enter the priesthood after many of the wounded veterans he dealt with asked him to hear their confessions.

According to one story, a veteran asked him why he wasn’t a priest and Curry said he felt he had not been called. “Well, I’m calling you,” the man said to him.

Beyond his ability to administer the sacraments, Curry has written two books, “The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking” and “The Secrets of Jesuit Soupmaking.”

At Dog Tag Bakery, he’s already sharing his finely tuned Jesuit gift for compassion, hitched to intellectual curiosity and empathy, linked to worldly action. [gallery ids="102126,133741,133739" nav="thumbs"]