I ran across this at
Capitol Hill Blue.
For more than 100 Friday evenings, some of America's worst war-wounded have made their way to a Washington restaurant to feed their stomachs and souls.
At Fran O'Brien's Stadium Steak House, hundreds of soldiers and Marines maimed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dined gratis on thick steaks, tossed back a few cold ones and basked in the normalcy and comradeship offered there.
But come May 1, those much-anticipated outings from local military hospital wards will cease. Hilton Hotel Corp., landlord of the restaurant, is evicting Fran's from its decade-long location in the basement of the Capital Hilton in downtown D.C.
The wonderful folks a Hilton are not renewing the lease for Fran's, a restaurant co-owned by Marty O'Brien and Hal Koster.
The restaurant owners wanted Hilton to install an elevator to make it easier for those with severe injuries to not have to deal with twenty stairs.
Hilton spokeswoman Lisa Cole denied that anything other than business considerations played a role.
Bullmuffins!
This is a slap in the face of all our Vets. Why don't they just come out and say they don't want all those injured and disfigured people running around scaring all the out of towners.
This is a wonderful program, and a service to our vets that I for one, would think The Hilton Corp. would want to be associated with.
But what the hell do I know?
BTW, this is my first attempt at a diary, so please be gentle dear Kossacks.