Yeah, I got that same note back from Hilton. The one that went like this:
Your e-mail has been forwarded to me, Brian Kelleher, General Manager, of The Capital Hilton.
Thank you for your expression of concern regarding the Fran O’Brien’s restaurant. I appreciate your interest and would like to take this opportunity to respond to you personally.
For strictly business reasons related solely to the inability to reach a new lease agreement, the Capital Hilton has elected to terminate the lease with the operator of Fran O’Brien’s restaurant at the hotel. This decision was not at all related to the Friday night dinners for disabled veterans but rather a result of lease negotiations that failed. The hotel has offered to host and sponsor the May 5, 2006 dinner and expressed interest in working closely with Walter Reed so that the Friday night tradition can continue. Furthermore, the hotel is in discussions with one of the sponsors of the Friday night dinners to continue their support of the dinners.
The Capital Hilton prides itself on its involvement and support of many community organizations and events and has provided complimentary or discounted rooms to families with veterans in the hospital, donated facilities to military organizations and most recently hosted a meeting for 300 people.
Sincerely,
Brian Kelleher General Manager, Capital Hilton
Far be it from me to cast aspersions, but color me: Unconvinced. Sure, there’s the potential that all-around good guy and Vietnam vet Hal Koster, the same guy who’s been digging into his own pocket to serve disabled Iraq and Afghanistan veterans of a Friday night, has held a little back on the topic of lease negotiations. I guess.
On the other hand, I suppose it’s just possible that corporate megalith Hilton Corp behaved poorly, got caught doing so and, having been discovered on the back side of the popular opinion curve and is looking to “re-frame” the debate.
I leave it entirely unto you, you few, you happy few, you band of readers to puzzle it out amongst yourselves.
But I can’t help mentioning that congressional staffs do a very good job, in cases like this, of ferreting out the truth. Just, in case, you know: You were curious.
How that worked.
If it was me, and I was you? I’d write back and ask them to reconsider their timeline. Another 30 days, maybe. Give Fran O’Brien’s a chance to negotiate for new digs, if they can’t come to terms on the lease conditions. That way nobody gets hurt.
Or else we take the blogosphere off, and nuke ‘em from orbit.
Only way to be sure.
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Yes, yes. Yes! I bought the new Macbook Pro. I needed it, constant reader. For my studies, like. Which consist of all kinds of spreadsheet manipulating tools that only work under the grinding, fascist boot heel of the WintelTM tyranny.
But I did get a student discount, he said primly. Which took a bit of googling, and confirming that yes, I was in fact a student. Swear.
Had rather an awful evening configuring the damn thing though. Tedious tale, suffice it to say that downloading the entire contents of my desktop machine onto the laptop hard drive, deleting the excess and only then attempting to partition the drive is not a winning formula for success. Especially when one compounds the error by putting critical system resources in the trash can, where they’re no good to man nor beast, and then restarting the system. I am accustomed (although not recently) to the “sad Mac” icon, the “question mark folder” icon, and the “kernel panic” bomb. The gray screen flashing the Mac apple and a “do not enter” sign, however, devastated me utterly. Did some rudimentary puttering around - power reset, PRAM zap, etc. All to no avail. Headed down to the local Apple store to speak to a scruffy twenty-something straight from central casting. Who managed to be polite, courteous and helpful, while somehow managing to convey the clear impression that your humble scribe really ought to be in a home somewhere, with the rest of those well past their primes.
Or maybe it was me, feeling it. That could be too.
But all is hunky-dory now, and even as I write Office 2003 downloads merrily in the background, fully licensed and free o’ charge to students. Even superannuated ones. And no, deferred gratification is not all that it used to be.
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All those generals? Beats hell out of me. I hold no particular brief for the Secretary. On the other hand, it would have meant a great deal more if they’d have said something about their misgivings back when it mattered. Back when they might have sacrificed their careers, but saved a few (thousand) lives, if that’s the way they really felt about it. Perfect right to speak up of course. All due respect, etc.
Still: Unseemly. More here.
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You know, the Navy once had a “revolt of the admirals.” After World War II, the Air Force thought this whole “naval aviation” thing was so over. In the future, you see, every war would be fought with strategic bombers and nuclear weapons. Senior Navy flags disagreed, vehemently. The idea of smashing every martial bug with the nuclear hammer seemed, how do I say this? Excessive? Immoral?
At the time, some said that they had rebelled against the sacred notion of civilian control, and who knows: Maybe they did. But they laid their active duty stars on the line alongside their beliefs, and many were forced to retire afterwards. Professionally, they “died” for what they believed in.
Maybe it’s the southerner in me, “The Cause” and all that. But I respect them more, and these other generals just that little bit less. Your mileage may vary. It isn’t that the 1949 flag officers, forged as they were out of the cauldron of world war, and purified by the fire of existential consequence, were any more moral than their mid-century adversaries. And it isn’t that our recent general officer critics were chosen from the ranks of the great unwashed under the aegis of a very different administration, just a few years back.
At least, I don’t think it’s those things.
Well, SNO has just shown up with several of his cohort, and it’s time for me to play the host, like. Have a great weekend!
14 responses so far ↓
1
Kevin
// Apr 14, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Lex, Did you try using the migration assistant when you moved your stuff over? I’ve never used it, but everyone I know who has raves about it.
Re bootcamp - it’s beta software and there have been a few reports of people who’ve booted in to XP and are unable to get back into OS X. My advise is to go to your local compUSA/fry’s and buy a really big (300 gig or so) HD and a firewire case. (or buy one that’s already assembled. Then get a program called carbon copy cloner and run it at least once a week. If you were unlucky enough to get stuck in XP, this will save you hours of pain and suffering.
2
Oldtom
// Apr 14, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Full disclosure: As a former JO who played “you bet your bars”, I don’t have much sympathy for Senior Officers who only have moral reservations after they’ve left active duty.
Trust is the issue for me.
We (if I may be so bold) have made lots of lousy decisions in the military. Human beings and all. What really chaps my ass is that these Generals are telling the active force that careers are more important than mission or the troops. I hoped I would read of Flag Officers taking the McNamara defense. “I knew x was wrong, but didn’t speak out”. Imagine the impact if all these Generals had spoken out at the time.
They chose not to do so. They didn’t keep the faith.
If their opinions weren’t important enough to express at the time, they aren’t worth consideration now.
3
Oldtom
// Apr 14, 2006 at 10:32 pm
Fouled up.
Change ” I hoped I would read…” to “I hoped I would NEVER read…”.
Maybe too cranked up.
4
badbob
// Apr 15, 2006 at 7:24 am
re Hilton: This has gotten much larger than “Brian Kelleher, General Manager….”ask them to reconsider their timeline. Another 30 days, maybe” I’ll bet Lex, that already is an emerging legal/PR tactic that they are going to default to next to get out from under the blitz. To counter I would humbly recommend zero-sum, no holds barred approach.
re- Revolt of Flags, then & now: Do not expect anyone above 0-7, any service, to do the same as those Admirals in 1949. Former SECNAV and 1st SECDEF Forrestal took it seriously enough to do the unthinkable…
While I do not doubt any serving Flag Officer’s bravery and willingness to die for their country, never assume they will do “that thing”, volunterally, which will lead to a curtailment (insert your own) of their CAREER. Recent history, last 15 years in particular, are flush with examples that prove my point.
Ah, but the axes do grind after retirement with all the requisite perks (largest being ACCESS) those of us with lesser pedigrees do not warrant…
Sickening. Is a spot on CNN (insert outlet) as a “military analyst” rerally that seductive?
B2
5
Buck
// Apr 15, 2006 at 12:13 pm
I find it interesting that all of the current crop general officers in revolt are either Army or Marines. Not a single USAF or USN flag officer is involved this time around. (Of course we know Gen. McPeak, former CSAF, endorsed Kerry in 2004, but he’s been quiet on Rumsfeld. So far.)
And this analysis is pretty well spot on…
6
HomefrontSix
// Apr 15, 2006 at 1:15 pm
I. AM. SO. JEALOUS.
of the MacBook Pro purchase. Wish you were gonna be at the conference so I could drool over it!
- hfs
7
lex
// Apr 15, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Kevin - the migration assistant worked great for mirroring the desktop computer. Right down to the background pic and desktop docs. Problem was that I needed to purge the Hobbit’s profile, plus sundry other files and apps in order to build room for a windows partition. When I deleted the files, they didn’t leave the disk uniformly, and I couldn’t make the partion unless I backed up and re-formatted the startup disk. Which is where I got in trouble.
Did a complete erase and install using the OSX DVDs, and with a clean drive was able to partition the disk, then move my backed up files from a firewire external drive back into the Mac directory.
Funny thing is, I think that the windows apps run just a bit faster on the machine than the native OSX apps do…
That was a good read, Buck. I just wish everyone would stick to convention: Army and USAF senior officers are “general officers” - only Navy and CG are “flags.”
8
lex
// Apr 15, 2006 at 1:26 pm
HFS - re: “Wish you were gonna be at the conference so I could drool over it!”
Wish you knew how hard it was to leave that alone
9
Brian
// Apr 15, 2006 at 3:42 pm
I agree w/ oldtom…I was disappointed/dissallusioned with Navy “leadership” after Tailhook and I left the Navy in part because of it (I also worked at NAVAIR in DC at the time - which probably soured my view of things too - sometimes seeing the sausage being made can ruin your taste for it). Anyway, what really chaps my ass (HT to oldtom for a most appropriate term) about this is that these guys were given high rank for just such occassion. When the civilian leadership starts heading over the cliff their responsibility (no, their DUTY) is not to jump off the stagecoch and say “I knew that was going to happen” safely from afar - they should resign in protest if they saw a wreck unfolding before them. Careers be damned at that point. Their pensions are safe and think of how popular they’d be on the Sunday gab-fests if they’d just resigned in protest. The impact of that move would be 10 times that which they’re having now, and nobody would be able to call them out on the carpet as we are doing right now. Frankly, self-serving and spineless are how I’d describe them right now.
All those chiefs and not a leader among them…how sad for the troops on the ground.
Brian
10
Ozwitch
// Apr 15, 2006 at 5:55 pm
I wonder if all these generals will have the ‘courage’ to stand up in front of the families and friends of the troops whose lives were ‘endangered’ or lost by Rumsfeld’s decisions, and explain to them why they didn’t take a stand when it mattered.
Cold comfort for these families to find out in retrospect that the generals didn’t have faith in the orders they carried out, but let it happen anyway for reasons that the families will never, ever be able to fathom.
As commanding officers, these senior generals would have had to tell many a parent, wife, brother or sister of the courage and commitment to duty showed by the loved one they had just lost.
Perhaps they should now add a postscript: “I believe that your loved one lost his/her life unnecessarily because of the flawed order from above that was given to me to enact, but unfortunately my own courage and commitment was not up to the task of saying so at the time. However, now that I have retired, it is easier for me to come clean about it from behind the safety of my pension and other considerable benefits.
We should both be grateful that although your loved one’s life was lost/endangered, my career was saved so that I can now speak out against future ill-conceived and executed decisions. I am sure your loved one would be glad that their lives were lost in such an honourable cause.”
11
Oyster
// Apr 15, 2006 at 6:31 pm
For what it’s worth, here’s a theory that I think explains at least some of the motivation behind the “get Rummy” crowd. If you think back to late summer 2001, SECDEF was getting it from all sides. Entrenched powers that be in the Pentagon were pushing back hard and of course, the unbelievably biased and lazy journos were onboard. Me? I think, absent 911, that Secretary Rumsfeld would have been a dot before year’s end, which would have meant that he wouldn’t have lasted a year in the job. 911 changed all that of course. I think that what we’re seeing now is a reattack. I actually heard one flag officer say on CNN Friday night that he’s speaking out because of Rumsfeld’s “arrogance.” Astoundingly immature and disappointing in anyone, let alone a flag officer. But then, Wesley Clark became a Democrat because the President didn’t return his calls. Colossal egos don’t always make for quality leaders. Nice post Lex.
12
steveH
// Apr 15, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Lex, if the MacBook thing doesn’t turn out, I’d be willing to sacrifice, you know, to help out. Well, I’d pay shipping, at least. Driving down to pick it up from your doorstep might be a bit much. Probably. Maybe. Just trying to be helpful.
Before you set yourself to a future of rebooting to switch between operating systems, I have one word of advice for you: Virtualization. As in, running multiple operating systems at the same time. Having done both, it’s a lot more convenient than rebooting.
Take a look at a company called Parallels who just released a beta of their virtualization application, and it supports a lot more than just XP, not that that’s a bad thing, of course. http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/
Like BootCamp, it’s in beta. I have no connection with either product, but I’m keeping an eye peeled in both directions. (Ouch. Makes me sound like a chameleon.)
Have fun.
13
sid
// Apr 16, 2006 at 4:49 am
re: Admirals Revolt.
No better a guy to make flag than D.V. Gallery…
Need more like him today.
14
HomefrontSix
// Apr 17, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Lex ~ re: “Wish you knew how hard it was to leave that alone ”
I was talking about the COMPUTER…sheesh!
- hfs
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