Social Scene

Carolyn Landes • June 22, 2015

The Capitol Hill Club hosted the Fourth Annual Memorial Day Kick-off and Veterans Tribute, honoring veterans and veterans in Congress and benefiting K9s for Warriors, a nonprofit dedicated to providing service canines to warriors suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury or trauma as a result of military service post 9/11.

Emceed by CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett, the May 19 reception was attended by several Members of Congress, including Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), all veterans, all of whom addressed the audience.

Zinke, a freshman congressman who served as a Navy SEAL, from 1985 to 2008, called today’s servicemembers “magnificent,” highlighting the “enormous sacrifice these men and women are making every day.”

Citing the hostile reception that many U.S. warriors received upon returning home from the Vietnam war, Coffman, who possesses 20 years of combined service to the Army, Army Reserve, Marines and Marine Reserve, urged the crowd of supporters and politicians to “make sure our veterans that are returning home today are never treated like those returning from Vietnam.”

Rangel, a recipient of a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, prompted attendees when speaking to vets, “Instead of just saying thank you, say ‘Can I help you? How are they treating you?’ ”

The attention being paid to veterans’ mental health and wellbeing upon returning home from combat is relatively new, when compared to America’s lengthy wartime history. “When you leave the service,” Rangel said, “they teach you to be proud, but you can be lonely.”

Loneliness, depression, substance abuse and other problems of physical and mental health are all symptoms of PTSD that some veterans encounter upon returning home from military service. As greater recognition of the mental effects of war has come about in recent years, organizations like K9s for Warriors have come to the aid of afflicted servicemen and women.

Captain Jason Haag, a Purple Heart recipient who served three tours of combat duty leading Marine Corps troops across Iraq and Afghanistan, is a recipient of a K9s for Warriors dog named Axel. Haag gave a moving speech to the audience, crediting Axel with saving him from the despair he felt upon returning home after his third tour of duty. “Axel awakens me from my nightmares still today,” said Haag. He shared that he has lost nine friends to post-war suicide – a startling number, greater than those he has lost on the battlefield.

Haag shared that K9s for Warriors has a 100-percent success rate and in 2016 will save 200 veterans’ lives, as well as 200 dogs’ lives – 95 percent of the organization’s dogs are rescued from shelters. Axel was just two days away from being euthanized before being saved by the program.

Special guest, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Steve Ritchie and the only fighter pilot ace of the Air Force since Korea, was honored. Ritchie received the Congressional Gold Medal the following day, an award bestowed by Congress and one of the highest civilian awards in the U.S.

After Ritchie’s speech, guests delighted over a performance of “O, America!” by Irish tenor Anthony Kearns and regaled while sipping spirits courtesy of the Beer Institute, the Wine Institute and Beam Suntory.
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Mary Bird •

Irish Ambassador Anne Anderson welcomed Founding Friends members for a literary luncheon May 20 and hailed the Irish roots of Washington Post journalists Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, who collaborated with Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus on the current New York Times bestseller, “Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland.” The women, and Michelle Knight, who has already written of the ordeal, were held captive for ten years in Cleveland by school bus driver Ariel Castro, who committed suicide in prison. The book details their amazing strength and resilience amid horrific abuse and Berry’s birth to a daughter Jocelyn.

Mary Bird •

Connie Lawn signed copies of her updated autobiography, “You Wake Me Each Morning: The Final Chapter,” at the National Press Club May 21. The title comes from international listeners to her radio broadcasts. Nelson Mandela told her during a Washington news conference, “You gave my people hope.” The book follows Lawn’s career as a White House reporter since 1968 and the struggles of her one-woman news bureau. Lawn has received multiple honors, including the Life Time Achievement Award from New Zealand’s National Press Club. [gallery ids="117568,117563,117556,117572" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney •

Restaurateur Tony Cibel celebrated his 78th birthday with a full house of happy guests June 4 at his riverfront restaurant at Washington Harbour, Tony and Joe’s Seafood Place.

Party-goers were again treated to endless servings of oysters, shrimp, lamb chops, sauteed soft-shell crabs, split lobster, prime rib and drinks.

Native Washingtonian Tony Cibel founded Tony and Joe’s with Joe Rinaldi in October 1987 at the newly constructed Washington Harbour. His business projects have expanded since then. Cibel is the patriarch of the Oceanside Management Family of restaurants, which has included the Dancing Crab, Tony & Joe’s Seafood Place, Nick’s Riverside Grille, Kaufmann’s Tavern, Cabanas and the Rockfish. Tony and Joe’s survived the April 2011 flooding at the waterfront that damaged it and several other places. With a re-design, it emerged better than ever.
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Mary Bird •

Latin American girls celebrate their 15th birthday in a big way. On June 11, In Series followed suit at DACOR-Bacon House with a garden party, seated dinner and gala musical program. The ambassador of Chile and his Antonia Echenique Celis, as well as Ambassador Emilio Rabasa, Permanent Representative of Mexico to the OAS, and his wife Carmen were honorary patrons. Producing Artistic Director Carla Hübner said, “Talk to your best friends and not so best friends about us, so we are not such a well-kept secret.” In Series takes fresh approaches to the classics and blends performing arts in unconventional ways.
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Pamela Burns • June 18, 2015

Carolina Herrera opened her latest CH Boutique on Tuesday, June 9, in D.C.’s CityCenter. The 2,400 square-foot boutique is Herrera’s 21st store in the U.S. The CH Boutique features women’s suits, shoes, accessories and signature gowns, as well as men’s sportswear. The night was a huge success and 10 percent of the profits benefited the national Portrait Gallery.
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Kelly Byrnes •

Journalists, family and fans met June 11 at the National Press Club for the American News Women’s Club’s 21st Annual Roast, which honored “CBS This Morning” host Norah O’Donnell with its “Excellence in Journalism Award.” There were lots of laughs with O’Donnell, but it was Bob Schieffer who stole the show.
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Mary Bird •

On June 4, Esther Coopersmith entertained those gathered for a five-day symposium to support Maha el-Khalil Chalabi, founder of the International Association of Tyre, the American Committee on Tyre and Friends of Tyre, to raise awareness of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Lebanon. The Senator Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) and Coopersmith received recognition for their pioneering roles. [gallery ids="102119,133790,133787,133792" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • June 11, 2015

In Washington, D.C., it sometimes seems that every day is a commemoration of some other day, some other time.   It’s natural that we do this is in this city. For the country and for the people who live here, this city is a kind of hallowed and symbolic ground in its name, its statuary, its function, its cemeteries and its governmental business of being the pragmatic soul of what we believe and how we present ourselves to the world and to ourselves. 

It is also home to most of the world’s embassies who presented themselves formally and culturally to this city on a daily basis, and also in memory.  That makes Washington a unique place—among us scattered across the city, including Georgetown, are the envoys and functionaries of long-time friends, sometime adversaries,  and former enemies, who also have moments and events  to commemorate from their histories,  events in which they were sometimes co-joined with the United States cooperation and triumph.

Memory—and a desire in difficult times to have things be something other than what they are—serves as a kind of engine on these occasions.  So it was—after the city, and London and Paris, celebrated the 70th Anniversary of Victory-in-Europe Day—or V-E Day—that it came to pass that the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation and the Embassy of the Russian Federation presided over “Unforgettable Years, 1941-1945,” billed as a “Salute of Arts and Culture to the 70th Anniversary of the Allied Victory in Europe” last week.

Which meant that hundreds of invited guests gathered at the Embassy of Russian Federation in an event—reception, dinner, exhibits, vodka, food, speeches, World War II patriotic posters throughout the embassy and music and stories told as if around a rather splendid campfire—stirring memories recalled of suffering, war and harrowing times in the Russian theater of World War II.  

If the atmospheric setting—some members of the embassy staff were dressed in the uniforms of WWII Soviet Union soldiers—suggested a commemoration of the Russian experience of the war, the theme and focus of the event, echoed both by speakers and the performers, seemed more to focus on a singular aspect of that war—the spirit of assistance, and cooperation that existed among Americans and Russians in their combined efforts to finally defeat Nazi Germany’s war machine.

In particular, the night’s events returned again and again to a singular and triumphant event, when American and Russian troops hooked up at the Elbe River on April 25, 1945, in a joyous, sometimes inchoate meeting of troops, officers and men,  tanks and jeeps, marking the military end of Nazi Germany.   It was in many remembered ways, the high-water mark of American and Russian cooperation, time and again referenced by speakers and performances throughout the evening.

It was noted often that Russian soldiers and civilians suffered inordinately during the course of the war. “Russia deaths totaled 27 million, or roughly 19,000 deaths a day during the course of the war,” said Sergey Kislyak, the congenial ambassador of the Federation of Russia in his welcoming speech. But this was not to be an event only  about the suffering of Mother Russia.  “On this day, we also remember our comrades in arms abroad . . . today we are gathered to remember this important convergence of American and Russian history,” said Kislyak, as he noted that Arlington National Cemetery includes a memorial  to the meeting at the Elbe.  “We hope that the spirit of the Elbe descends on us.”

This was the kind of celebratory, moving and wishful night in which the reality of history, past and current, took a back seat in a vintage WWII jeep with no mention of the Cold War that commenced fairly soon after the Nazis surrendered in Europe.  There was no mention of missiles and arms races, Cuba and Afghanistan, or the tensions that continue over the crisis in the Ukraine.  It seemed that everyone and all wanted to resurrect a singular moment in time, willing it back to life. 

This tends to happen when people—many of them quite prominent—get together in the spirit of a singular, jointly and hard-gained triumph, when soldiers clutched each other in mutual honor of the suffering and courage they all contributed.

We heard from veteran diplomat John R. Beyrle, who told the remarkable story of his father, Joseph Beyrle, a paratrooper from Michigan who jumped behind the lines in advance of D-Day, was captured, escaped in Poland and met a Russian tank unit—commanded by a female soldier—with whom he fought for a time on the Eastern front until being badly wounded and returned to the U.S.   

Rabbi Arthur Schneier, founder and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, walking slowly to the podium, told how he was freed from Auschwitz by Russian troops. “Believe me, I was a lot thinner then,” he said.  “No one believed such things could happen.  We cannot ever forget—none of it.”

Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower who commanded the western Allies’ invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe, spoke of her grandfather’s belief in the importance of the “imperatives of peace.”  

In a buoyant performance, former congressman James Symington, a tenor, and Anton Fedyashin, a baritone, combined on singing the popular World War II song, “On a Wing and a Prayer,”  in English and Russian. 

Russian Pianist Yuri Shadrin played Sergei Rachmaninoff stirring “Prelude in G Minor.” A group of performers evoked the period with the moving “The White Cliffs of Dover,” sung by Embassy Series founder and director Jerome Barry. It was all part of a musical program of music popular in the Soviet Union and the United States during the war.

Throughout the evening, several Russian veterans of World War II mingled, shook hands and were honored by the guests. They came from another time . . . on a place . . . on a river . . . in Europe. 
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