Category: Connecticut
East Lyme Soldier Shot in Iraq Hopes to Be Home by Christmas
LOZANO
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 5, 2008
WASHINGTON— Army Spec. Alex Lozano was on a routine security detail in Baghdad three weeks ago when he suddenly felt as though he was hit in the stomach with a baseball bat.
Turns out it wasn’t a bat but a bullet, which pierced the torso of the 21-year old East Lyme High School graduate, causing him to lose a kidney. He is now recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
“I heard the crack of the shot and I ran back to my truck and collapsed down to try and let others know that something happened because I couldn’t really talk,” Lozano said from his hospital room. “At first I knew I got hit but I didn’t know I got shot. I started to undo my vest until I saw part of my stomach and the blood on my hands.”
Lozano was shot on Nov. 13. He was flown to a military hospital in Iraq, where surgeons removed his kidney and repaired his intestines. After a few days he was flown to a military hospital in Germany, where his mother, Maria Lozana, soon met him. Two weeks ago they flew to Washington.
“I remember being put on a helicopter or something and then I don’t remember too much after that,” Lozano said. “I remember getting rolled into a surgical ward, and the next thing I know I’m in Germany.”
Lozano said he is “doing a lot better” but still has pain in his stomach, back and throat. The bullet struck him in the right side of his back and exited his front left, leaving a “half-dollar sized wound.”
He began occupational therapy at the beginning of the month—with the aid of a walker and other supports—and said he hopes to be home by Christmas, depending on his progress.
“The first time he got to the door and had to come back; now he walks a couple halls [in the ward],” said his mother, a teacher in Niantic. “It’s going slowly, but it’s going.”
Lozano’s throat is sore from the feeding tube removed a few days ago. So far he’s gotten by on Jello and pudding, but he was looking forward to a vanilla milkshake and fries from the Burger King in the hospital food court.
His mother said she hopes he’ll be well enough next weekend to take a bus tour of Washington organized by the hospital and tailored for convalescing soldiers.
In the meantime, Lozano has kept busy with leather work, a skill he picked up from his father, Phillip Lozano. As of Friday morning he had already completed half of a pair of moccasins.
Lozano also has had a slew of hometown visitors, including his girlfriend of two years, Melissa Hemler, 20, who paid him a surprise visit Thursday night.
“I was scared and worried, but he’s amazing,” Hemler said of Lozano’s deployment to Iraq. “I knew he was going to be OK.”
Another visitor on Friday was Jim Barnes, the East Lyme school system’s security director, who brought with him roughly 500 get-well cards for Lozano and other wounded soldiers. Barnes knew Lozano when he was a member of the high school’s public safety club, which Barnes advises.
He joked that Lozano’s weakened voice wasn’t too much of a hurdle for the former student.
“Alex has always been soft-spoken,”’ he said. “He’s a ‘walk softly but carry a big stick’ person—a man of few words, but good words.”
Maria Lozano said her son, who majored in criminal justice at the University of New Haven, has always been interested in law enforcement. He was a member of the East Lyme Police Explorers in high school and his father is a former Texas state trooper.
“He was making guns with little Legos in day care,” she said.
Lozano is a member of the 344th Military Police Company, which conducts joint patrols with Iraqi police and trains them. The unit includes more than 90 Army Reserve soldiers from Connecticut and Massachusetts.
They were in an area of Baghdad known for covert bombings of military vehicles; Lozano said he was at the front of a convoy when he was shot. He had been in Iraq since July, and had expected to return home in April.
As for what he’ll do back in Connecticut, Lozano, who was deployed during his sophomore year in college, said he’s not ready to look that far ahead.
“I just want to heal right now,” he said. “I’m really not thinking of anything else.”
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Norwalk World War II Airman Laid to Rest at Arlington
TROY
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
11/20/08
ARLINGTON, VA. – On an appropriately cold, gray morning, Army Staff Sgt. Martin F. Troy of Norwalk was finally laid to rest with military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, a full 64 years after his bomber crashed during World War II in Nazi-occupied Europe.
At Wednesday’s early-morning Catholic service, “Ave Maria” played on the organ as six soldiers from The Old Guard carefully and methodically carried the American flag-covered casket between somber rows of family, friends and well-wishers, including Rep. Chris Shays and Rep.-elect Jim Himes – each of whom turned, out of respect, to face the fallen soldier as he traveled up the aisle.
Troy’s only living sibling, Julia Carvutto, sat in the front row of the small, whitewashed Old Post Chapel on the grounds of Fort Myer Army base in Virginia, just outside the gates of Arlington. Carvutto, 90, never took her hand off of the attentive man next to her – William Wilcox, her son – who supported her physically and emotionally throughout the morning’s ceremonies.
“It is just overwhelming,” Wilcox said later, his eyes brimming. “We’re flooded with emotions. We are just so relieved that finally he’s home.”
Wilcox’s sentiment echoed that of the service’s presiding cleric, Monsignor Joseph Goudreau, who said the family were likely to be experiencing the “conflicting emotions of gratitude and sorrow,” because Troy had for so long gone without a proper burial.
Joseph “Jerry” Conlon, 83 – a survivor of the June 30, 1944, air battle that took the lives of 17 of the 41 men who flew that mission – made the three-hour trip from his home in Roaring Spring, Pa., specifically to see the last man of their fallen crew laid to rest.
“This has been a long time in coming,” Conlon said slowly to open his memorial remarks at the service.
With somewhat halting speech, Conlon talked about the unexpected gun fight that interrupted their mission to bomb a German oil refinery, and how three of the four U.S. planes in the air crashed into swampy Hungarian soil. Several soldiers, including Conlon, were able to parachute out of their falling planes to spend the remaining months of the war in German prisoner of war camps, but 17 men were not as lucky, hitting the ground still inside the planes. Sixteen of those bodies were eventually recovered and buried, but Troy seemed to have been forgotten.
“I have 14 great-grandchildren now,” said Conlon. “All this time, Martin’s remains have been underwater, in the crater made by his plane when it crashed.”
The retired soldier went on to describe how 37-year-old Troy, who was married at the time of his death, and his best friend John Lenburg palled around on their Italian base, always smiling and laughing. It was Lenburg, Conlon said, who petitioned the government 10 years after the war ended to return to Hungary and try to recover Troy’s remains.
When Lenburg died before Troy’s remains were found, Conlon took the burden upon himself. On July 17, 2007, bone fragments were found, he said, and two days later, he flew to Hungary to witness their long overdue recovery.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command compared the DNA of the fragments to Carvutto’s DNA and confirmed that they belonged to the missing airman, said Patrick Troy, great-nephew of Martin Troy.
“It’s incredible that the Army spent the time and money to bring him back,” said the 49-year-old salesman from Newtown. “I’d always heard about Uncle Mart, but I only knew that he’d gone down in a bomber during World War II. I didn’t have all the details. This really made the extended family learn more about him.”
Troy said that the discovery allowed him to reconnect even with the family of his great-aunt – nieces and nephews mostly, since Martin Troy and his wife had no children.
Led by a gray hearse, the funeral procession wound through Arlington’s manicured hills, passing many soldiers standing guard and six black horses pulling a cloaked black caisson, and eventually stopped in Section 60, where Troy will be surrounded by soldiers from more contemporary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
With Carvutto and Conlon again in the front row, a minister quietly uttered a prayer before seven nearby soldiers fired a sharp salute, and out of the quiet, a lone trumpet began to play taps, bringing tears to many of the roughly 30 mourners.
A soldier on bended knee presented the flag to Carvutto. Candy Otstott – a member of the Arlington Ladies, a group of military wives who ensure that someone will always be at a soldier’s burial – stepped away from her Old Guard escort to offer a note and word of condolence to Carvutto, before the entire party made its solemn procession back to the waiting cars.
“Julia, I’m sure the passage of time has assuaged some of the hurt you must have felt when the KIA soldier walked into your house,” Conlon said to Carvutto in the chapel. “I’m thankful he’s finally home, and may his soul rest in peace.”
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Thousands Request Tickets to Obama’s Swearing-In
CONN TICKETS
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
11/19/08
WASHINGTON – With Inauguration Day still two months away, tickets to the swearing-in ceremony are already nearly impossible to obtain.
Connecticut residents should be able to call or e-mail their members’ congressional offices to request one of the estimated 2,000 free tickets given to the Connecticut delegation for the Jan.20 ceremony, but the number of residents who have already done so reaches well into the thousands.
Fourth District constituents are in a less-than-ideal position. With Christopher Shays on his way out of Washington and Jim Himes not yet secure in a Capitol Hill office, area residents have even less of an opportunity to get their names on the inaugural list.
There “really isn’t a mechanism in place” for newly elected members to take ticket requests from constituents, said Carole Florman, spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which organizes all inaugural ceremonies held at the U.S. Capitol. Often, outgoing members take requests and pass on a list to the incoming member, she said, although they aren’t required to do so.
Rep.-elect Jim Himes does have an e-mail alert system on his home page, where 4th District residents can sign up to be informed on how to acquire the sought-after tickets – a system Florman said she was encouraging.
Dave Natonski, press secretary for Shays, said that he is not keeping a list of interested callers and instead telling 4th District constituents to contact the offices of Connecticut Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joe Lieberman.
The number of constituents requesting tickets from Lieberman’s office has topped a thousand, but an aide estimated that the office will receive only 400 tickets, leaving many residents who make the trip to Washington to watch the festivities on giant television screens posted on the National Mall and across the parade route.
In all, 240,000 tickets are available for the inaugural ceremony, but the largest portion go to the president-elect and vice president-elect. The remaining tickets are distributed to members of the new Congress, with each senator receiving a greater number of tickets than each House member, Florman said. If lucky enough to reserve tickets, constituents must pick them up in person at the congressional offices in Washington during the week leading up to Inauguration Day, she said.
None of the Connecticut offices has divulged exactly how the tickets will be doled out – whether by lottery or first-come, first-served – and that decision is left completely to congressional discretion.
Don Carlson, transition chief of staff for Himes, said that the Connecticut delegation will be meeting soon to come up with a consistent policy for ticket distribution in an effort to avoid any appearance of impropriety regarding this historic inauguration – for which Washington officials say they expect more than 2 million visitors.
Carlson also indicated that Himes, and the delegation as a whole, will be organizing inaugural parties both in the 4th District and in Washington so that Connecticut residents can come together to experience history.
Jennifer Paul contributed to this report.
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Connecticut Congressional Delegation Welcomes Himes, Congratulates Larson
HIMES
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
11/19/08
WASHINGTON – Connecticut’s members of Congress officially welcomed Jim Himes, the 4th District representative-elect, to Washington Wednesday in a small, ornate room in the House wing of the Capitol that was overflowing with good cheer and aggressive hugs.
All seven members of the now all-Democratic delegation spoke at a press conference designed to formally introduce Himes, who will take office in January, and to congratulate 1st District Rep. John Larson on his election as House Democratic Caucus chairman– a post that will be left open in the new Congress when Rahm Emanuel moves to the White House in January.
“I want to congratulate all the House members on their victories this past November, and of course, particularly welcome Jim Himes,” Sen. Christopher Dodd said. “We have a small delegation in this state, and we need to work very closely together…. We try to make a difference every day for the people we represent.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of the 3rd District,– and new dean of the Connecticut House delegation – echoed Dodd, saying the hallmark of the delegation was the willingness to work together to get things done for Connecticut.
“Jim Himes has truly changed the face of the 4th District, and we could not be prouder,” she said.
Larson called Himes a “tribute to the people in your district who have sent you here” and welcomed him to an already “blessed” talent pool of Connecticut members of Congress.
Himes, in turn, accepted the louder-than-anticipated applause graciously and immediately spoke of the “real honor to be standing with these giants of Congress who have accomplished so much.”
And he paid tribute to the man he beat, Capitol Hill veteran Chris Shays.
“My predecessor, Congressman Shays…we certainly disagreed on a number of critical issues, but he is a man of courage and a man of grace, and I stand here knowing that I have very big shoes to fill,” Himes said to a roomful of applause.
Though certainly the main attraction, Himes was not alone in receiving congratulatory praise.
In his remarks, Dodd described Larson as “one of the most respected and well-liked” members of the House – a sentiment echoed by the other members of the delegation.
Dodd also addressed speculation about this week’s closed-door meeting in which fellow Sen. Joe Lieberman learned of his potential punishment for speaking against the party and campaigning for Sen. John McCain.
“An overwhelming majority of my colleagues from across the political spectrum stood up one after another and expressed their confidence and support in the person they’ve known, worked with and admired,” Dodd said of the meeting.
Lieberman, who joked that Himes shouldered a “special burden” in having him as a constituent, said that the post-election period “hasn’t been an easy” one for him.
“I do want to say a personal ‘thank you’ to [Dodd,]” Lieberman said. “It meant everything to me to have the man who is not just my senior senator, but my dear friend for 40 years, not just standing by my side, but advocating on my behalf. I am so pleased to be continuing as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.”
With the delegation banding together in support of their once-rogue senator, newcomer Himes did not want to speak out of turn.
“Truthfully, I haven’t given it much thought, I’ve been so busy,” Himes said of Lieberman’s situation. “I’m not even a congressman yet, let alone a senator, and the people who brought me here didn’t do so to worry about Sen. Lieberman.”
Nearing the end of “freshman orientation,” Himes has spent his week on Capitol Hill, along with wife, Mary, attending back-to-back activities – some of which recalled his school days: a freshmen photo, class elections and choosing an office, for example.
“It’s been an enormously exciting week for me,” Himes said Wednesday during a 10-minute break in House leadership meetings at the Library of Congress. “There’s such energy here, and a sense that we need to do bold things quickly.”
Himes also referred to what he saw as a “commitment to being pragmatic” by describing the traditional welcome dinner hosted by the speaker of the House that usually includes only majority party members but that this year included both parties and party leaders.
The freshman congressman said that though he loved the history in Washington, he wouldn’t dream of moving here at this point because it would be too disruptive to his young daughters, Emma, 9, and Linley, 6. Also, he added, it is critical to stay connected to his constituents, who haven’t had the chance to get to know him as well as they knew 11-term veteran Shays.
Rep. Joe Courtney of the 2nd District, who said he and 5th District Rep. Chris Murphy often felt like “Frick and Frack” during their freshman term the past two years, offered some advice to the young congressman from the 4th District.
“Be tough on your scheduler to make sure family doesn’t get lost,” said the father of two. “If you want, you can use my rule. Just say: never on Sunday.”
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Connecticut Delegation Welcomes New Member Into Fold; Welcomes Back Lieberman
WELCOME
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
November 19 2008
WASHINGTON—Connecticut’s congressional delegation is officially blue. The state’s senators and House members warmly welcomed Rep.-elect Jim Himes of the 4th District to Capitol Hill Wednesday. His election victory two weeks ago rendered them a Democrats-only club.
In a press conference colored by hugs and handshakes, schmoozing and self-deprecating quips, the lawmakers presented themselves as a “united team” ready to tackle the state’s economic challenges.
“With a united Democratic congressional delegation,” Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said, “we now have the ability to help deliver the change American people deserve and need.”
The conference was also a “welcome back” of sorts for Sen. Joe Lieberman, as his colleague Sen. Chris Dodd put it. Lieberman was reelected in 2006 as an independent after losing in the Democratic primary and now identifies himself as an independent Democrat. But he angered Democrats by aggressively campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.
Lieberman thanked Dodd for helping dissuade Senate Democrats from stripping him of his prestigious Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairmanship.
“Look, this last couple of weeks, and the whole post-election period, hasn’t been an easy one,” Lieberman said,. “It meant everything to me to have [Dodd] not just standing by my side but advocating on my behalf.”
Lieberman noted that Himes is joining an exceptionally powerful Connecticut team. Dodd chairs the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and Reps. John Larson, 1st District, and Rose DeLauro, 3rd District, have leadership positions in the House.
Still, there was a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor all around. Lieberman referred to himself as a “lowly junior senator,” and DeLauro, the dean of the Connecticut House delegation as its longest-serving member, deferred to Dodd, saying, “I know where I stand.”
When Larson, mentioned that Dodd and Lieberman were former presidential candidates, Dodd quipped, “Not very successful ones— though combined we may have made it.”
Courtney, who won a second term earlier this month, said after the event that he had some personal advice for the incoming freshman. He urged Himes, a father of two young children, not to forsake his family when he’s in the district.
“Your staff would like to have you going full blast every minute when you’re home,” Courtney said. “But you just want to make sure you got somebody to go home to.”
Himes, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who defeated 11-term representative Chris Shays to capture the state’s 4th district earlier this month, will take office in January.
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Stamford Native Stands Guard on Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill
CHARLES
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
November 18, 2008
WASHINGTON – Connecticut native Charles Dunn stands guard for hours on a street corner here – keeping patient watch over the nation’s Capitol building. Daily, and without complaint, he endures extreme temperatures, wailing sirens and confused tourists – all in pursuit of his childhood dream.
Dunn did not grow up wanting to pitch for the Yankees, drive a race car or walk on the moon – he just wanted to protect members of the United States Congress.
Currently a U.S. Capitol Policeman, Dunn gave up the exhilaration of NYPD foot chases in favor of endless security screenings and the chance to join the prestigious Dignitary Protection Detail, a Secret Service-like arm of the Capitol Police responsible for protecting members of Congress. His dream of joining the detail is almost within reach now, and his words show he does not want to jinx it.
“I am honored to have this job,” said 30-year-old Dunn of his current position in the Senate Division of the U.S. Capitol Police. “People want to harm our government, the people who run the country. We’re here to protect them. That’s enough for me – I’m just hoping to do even more.”
According to his El Salvadoran mother, Blanca, who lives in Newtown, such sentiment is typical of the son she calls by his shortened middle name, Tony, to eliminate confusion between her only boy and his father, Charles Anthony Dunn Sr. Always putting family first, Dunn has long been the family’s protector, she said in a warm, melodic accent, and even now he calls home two or three times each day to check on his parents and three sisters.
“I had to encourage him to leave the nest, and I had to learn to let him go,” Mrs. Dunn said of her son, who attended in-state schools for both college and graduate school.
Dunn, who grew up in cities across southern Connecticut – from Stamford to Danbury – knew what he wanted to do early and went after it avidly. He earned his undergraduate degree in political science at Southern Connecticut State University, and started down the path towards a law degree, when the events of 9/11 changed his course.
“Before 9/11, national security was not talked about so much, and certainly not studied,” said the small, clean-shaven man with bright eyes and rich, tanned skin. “Given what I wanted to do, I thought law school was my best bet, but after [9/11] national security programs started to appear.”
So, in 2005, Dunn graduated from the University of New Haven with a Master’s degree in national security, and took his first job outside of Connecticut, in the 44th precinct of the New York Police Department. It was not exactly what his parents had in mind.
“Oh no, we were not too happy about that,” said his father, who works in the quality assurance department of Procter & Gamble in Stamford. “His mother would lie awake at night, and you just feared…you never knew when you would get a call.”
The two-mile section of the Bronx that made up the 44th Precinct, where Dunn was assigned, was home to a vast array of criminal activities that Dunn likened to a “Law and Order” episode. He learned quickly what it meant to stake your life on fellow officers – a camaraderie he had heard his father talk about when describing his Army days.
The elder Dunn, now 61, was stationed in Germany during part of the Vietnam War, and served as a combat medic and surgical technician. After returning home to Connecticut and working for a few years, he enrolled in the Connecticut State Police Academy but, at age 40, ultimately decided he was a little too old to be entering the field. The younger Dunn points to this as part of the reason he decided to pursue law enforcement, to “pick up where my father left off.”
The 44th Precinct also was home to Yankee stadium – the team that, by all accounts, remains one of Dunn’s great passions. His mother said he would sometimes call home when on patrol, asking what had happened on the field to make the fans cheer so loudly they could be heard blocks away. His father said he took a young Dunn to several New York Mets’ games at Shea stadium – something that still upsets his Yankee-fan son so much he doesn’t like to talk about it.
Despite the long, less-than-ideal hours (he worked the night-shift) and obvious danger (he said he felt bullets flying by him on more that one occasion), Dunn’s face lights up when talking about his one year with the NYPD, a year he said really taught him he could make it anywhere.
So, after proving himself on the NYPD, Dunn was accepted to the elite Capitol Police force in early 2007, undergoing weeks of testing, interviews, exams and polygraphs before eventually securing one of 48 spots – beating out more than 9,000 other applicants, he said.
With his new classmates, Dunn was sent to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia for three months of intensive training. According to a fellow officer, those several months of living with and relying on each other tend to reveal one’s true nature.
“[Dunn] was a complete professional,” said Derren Fuentes, an ex-Baltimore Police Department detective who joined the Capitol Police force at the same time as Dunn. “He was the person who’d be there to help, no matter what it was. We had new people taking tests, practical exams and there was never a moment when he wasn’t helpful, giving support.”
Dunn describes the training period as being one of the most exciting times of his life and it may be because during that training he met a local dental office manager named Emily Anderson, to whom he proposed a year later.
“I’ll tell you, to me she’s the best thing that could have happened to him – he’s all alone down there,” his mother said emphatically. “Anything could happen to him, and it’s good to have a sweet girl who cares for him. It’s time now anyway, he is 30.”
Now on his way to forming his own family, Dunn said one of the greatest lessons his mother ever taught him was understanding the value of a dollar.
“I tell my children, even if I had everything to give to them, I wouldn’t,” she said. “That’s not teaching them responsibility.”
He listened and learned well, according to his father, who said Dunn has consistently worked a lot of overtime, trying to save money for his greatest love: restoring old cars.
As part of a “car family,” where his father spent much of his free time restoring the blue 1968 Dodge Coronet he eventually sold to his son for “a good price,” Dunn caught the restoration bug, and now owns an orange 1969 Dodge Super Bee and black 2007 Corvette in addition to the Coronet.
“The funny thing is, before I met him, I knew nothing about muscle cars,” said 37-year-old Fuentes of Dunn’s passion. “Now I know about every tire and engine and name. He says he’s trying to swear off it – with the economy so bad – but not a day goes by that he’s not online looking.”
Dunn laughed at his friend’s comment, and said the cars would stay with him as long as he’s around, confessing he’d part with one only if he could pass it down to his own son, as his own father did with him.
But despite his potentially expensive passion, Dunn managed to save enough to procure a house for himself and new fiancée in suburban Washington, D.C. When his parents – who have been married for 35 years, after meeting in church – and sisters visit his newly-purchased Fredericksburg, Va., home this Thanksgiving, they will meet the extended Anderson clan for the first time, in preparation for next year’s late summer wedding.
And so, the facets of Dunn’s life appear to be falling into line – the single holdout remains his dream of being accepted into the Dignitary Protection Detail. But after all of his hard work, that dream may come into reach in the next few months, according to Fuentes.
A few spots in the coveted protection unit will be opening at the start of the 111th Congress early next year, Fuentes said, and Dunn will have the chance to finally grab the post he’s been aiming for since childhood.
“I’ve worked as hard as I could, and I take my job very seriously,” said Dunn, staring out the window at the Capitol. “I hope to one day make that leap.”
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Washington Capitals’ ‘Family Man’ Captain Seeks Return to Form
CLARK
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 18, 2008
WASHINGTON—Chris Clark was taking his time. The 32-year-old captain of the Washington Capitals hockey team, a South Windsor native and lifelong Hartford Whalers fan, was flanked by reporters as he loosened his skates after practice one morning. Twice, a Capitals staffer tried to pry him from the scrum for a meeting with the team’s general manager, George McPhee.
“How long are you going to be?”
“Another minute,” Clark replied, and then, assessing the queue of quote-hungry reporters, added, “Oh, probably another couple of minutes.”
Clark has been called a calming presence in the locker room. But lately, his patience has been put to the test. After enjoying two career seasons in Washington, playing with National Hockey League superstar Alexander Ovechkin on the scoring line, the affable, blue-eyed father of three spent most of last season sidelined with an exasperatingly persistent groin injury.
Clark watched from home as his teammates won 11 of their final 12 regular season games to scrape into the playoffs, and then lost in the first round.
“This is just awful,” he told The Washington Times last spring. “It is the most frustrating thing—not just not playing but not being able to help the team in some way, any way.”
Clark is back in the lineup this season, but his frustration persists. Although the team is off to a flying start, Clark has only two assists in his first 17 games. And his defensive record, normally his calling card, is just as spotty.
Clark traveled from his summer home in upstate New York to Vancouver seven times last summer to see a groin specialist. He insists that “everything feels great” as long as he adheres to an intensive rehab regimen.
But the plucky right-winger, whom McPhee once described as quiet off the ice and cantankerous on it, has grown tentative. His mighty stride has slowed, and he no longer dominates the corners and crease as he used to.
“He’s still in his training camp,” Capitals’ coach Bruce Boudreau said more than a month into the season. “He’s better than he was a month ago; he’s going to be a lot better in a month than he is now. He’s getting there; he will get there.”
Chris Clark is, first and foremost, a family man. The local hockey writers tease him for wearing “bad Macy’s suits” and for having driven a pick-up truck when he arrived in Washington three years ago.
Clark’s married to his college sweetheart, Kim, whom he met 12 years ago while studying business—and playing hockey—at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. The couple lives near the Pentagon with their three young kids—two boys and a girl, all under 6. His parents still live in his childhood home in South Windsor, and he tries to visit at least once a year, though “with three kids it’s getting pretty tough.”
He still keeps in touch with his buddies from South Windsor High School, one of whom recently e-mailed him the old Hartford Whalers anthem, the “Brass Bonanza,” to use as his cell phone ringtone.
Family stability was one of the reasons Clark signed a three-year, $7.9 million deal last year that will keep him in Washington through the 2010-2011 season—as long as he avoids another trade or injury. Clark doesn’t know what he’ll do when his career is over, but hopes that day’s a long way off.
“It’s great now that my kids are old enough to recognize what I do for a living,” he said. “I’d like to play as long as I can so they could enjoy being in this life as well.”
Clark has never taken his NHL career for granted. The Calgary Flames’ third-round choice in the 1994 entry draft, he played four years at Clarkson and a full year for Calgary’s farm team in Saint John, New Brunswick, before seeing his first NHL start. He then spent another two seasons shuttling across Canada, finally securing a spot in Calgary at the hockey-ripe age of 25.
In Calgary Clark was a reliable third-liner, scoring 10 goals in each of his three full seasons there. He scored three goals in his first playoffs in 2004, the year the Flames lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final. During the lock-out season that followed, Clark played in fledgling leagues in Switzerland and Norway to keep up his game.
Then, after 10 years in the Flames system, Clark was traded to Washington—for a sixth-round conditional draft pick.
“I think he was surprised,” Darryl Sutter, Clark’s coach in Calgary, said. “Chris was getting to the point where he was probably going to double his salary and we weren’t able to keep him.”
Within a day, Clark dropped from the top of the Western conference to the bottom of the East.
“It was tough in the beginning,” Clark said. “Going from the Cup finals, seventh game, and then coming here, reading the papers and seeing, ‘It’s going to be a tough couple years, it’s a rebuilding year.’”
But there was an upside. The career third-liner was put on the first line with rookie phenomenon Ovechkin, and suddenly the 10-goal man became a 20 and 30-goal scorer in successive seasons. Even Clark seemed mystified by the experience.
“It’s unbelievable playing with him,” Clark told The Washington Post, referring to Alexander the Great. The Post called it a “once-in-a-lifetime break” for Clark and Ovechkin was quoted saying, “I’m very happy for him.” Here was a seven-year veteran playing with a 20-year-old kid, and everyone was acting as if Clark were the Cinderella man.
When Clark returned to the third line last year—before his groin injury cut his season short—he reacted with typical deference, saying, “I think it’s great because it means our team is going in the right direction.”
At times, Clark seems equally incredulous about his captaincy—even though he wore the “C” during his senior year at Clarkson and for Team USA at the 2007 World Championship. When the Capitals named him captain, at the beginning of the 2006 season, Clark told the Calgary Herald that being an NHL captain “was never one of my goals because I never thought it was attainable.”
When an XM radio host asked Clark if people assumed he was warming the captain’s seat until Ovechkin matured, Clark responded, “It’s definitely going to be his eventually.”
Still, Clark takes his role to heart. He puts pressure on himself to lead by example on the ice and to maintain team spirit behind the scenes. When a junior is called up, or a European player joins the team, Clark makes a point of reaching out to them, making sure “they’re comfortable, they’re settled, so they can do the best they can,” as he put it.
“If we have any questions, that’s the first guy we go and ask,” said Milan Jurcina, the Capitals’ 25-year-old Slovakian defenseman. “He welcomed us [European players] pretty good…making us a little more comfortable.”
Goalie José Theodore, a Quebec native, said that when he joined the team, Clark assured him that “if I needed anything, he was there for me.”
In other words, Clark brings his family values to the team. Just ask Brooks Laich, the Capitals’ 25-year-old, Saskatchewan-born center who by his looks could be Clark’s younger brother.
“Being a single guy, not having a wife down here,” Laich said, “the last three Christmases I’ve been at Chris Clark’s house. He invites me over for Christmas Eve…. He has Christmas morning with his family and he invites me back over…. And in the last couple years there’s been a couple guys who’ve gone over there…. So he’s always looking out for guys and making them feel at home.”
Whether Clark can return to rugged form remains to be seen. What’s clear is that he has a locker room full of fans rooting for him.
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Korean War Medal of Honor Winner Finally Buried in Arlington
BURIAL
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
November 12 2008
WASHINGTON—This time it was a happy occasion. Fairy Mae Papadopoulos sat calmly in her wheelchair, swinging her legs as the buglers played a now-familiar call, and the chaplain recited the 23rd Psalm.
The uniformed men were honoring her brother, Sgt. Cornelius H. Charlton, a Korean War hero who died in battle more than 57 years ago. Charlton was finally in his rightful resting place in Arlington National Cemetery—and Papadopoulos finally found closure.
“It’s all settled now,” the 81-year-old Pawcatuck resident said after Wednesday’s ceremony, surrounded by a few of her 11 children and countless grandchildren. “I don’t have to worry about him too much anymore.”
This was Charlton’s third funeral. He was killed on June 2, 1951, at the age of 21 while serving with the Army’s all-black 24th Infantry, the legendary Buffalo Soldiers. After his commander was killed, Charlton rallied his fellow soldiers and spearheaded three successful assaults before suffering a mortal grenade wound. For his bravery he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Charlton was interred in his family’s burial place in West Virginia. In 1990, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society had Charlton’s remains exhumed and reburied in the American Legion Cemetery in Beckley, W. Va.
But Charlton’s relatives always knew that “Uncle Connie” belonged in Arlington.
“He finally got put to rest,” Thomas Fisher, Charlton’s grand-nephew, said after the ceremony. “He’s where he belongs now.”
The event was as much family reunion as funeral. Fisher came down from the Bronx—which is where Charlton and his siblings grew up—along with two busloads of relatives. Some Connecticut and New York cousins were meeting for the first time, exchanging hugs and posing together for photos.
During the ceremony, the youngest family members sat on their fathers’ shoulders, flanked by veterans proudly wearing their “Buffalo Soldiers” jackets. Relatives held up digital camcorders and media were invited graveside, a rare event at an Arlington funeral.
Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, called Charlton a “superhero for our country” and thanked Charlton’s niece, Zenobia Penn of New London, for leading the reburial effort.
It’s not clear why Charlton wasn’t buried in Arlington in the first place. The military says it was an administrative oversight, but some members of the family have always believed it was because Charlton was black.
Sgt. Turhan Papadopoulos, Fairy Mae’s son, strongly disputed this notion.
“It was not a racism issue,” he said after the ceremony. “Millions of people have been in the military and some are going to fall through the cracks. One happened to be my uncle.”
Still, the issue of race hung over the ceremony—which took place a week after the country for the first time elected an African-American as president—though any residual anger seemed to be overpowered by a sense of pride and vindication.
“Last Tuesday, this country took a historic step forward,” said Rep. Jose E. Serrano, D-N.Y., whose office chartered the buses for the Bronx delegation. “Many would say that step was part of the reconciliation with our past as a nation. Today continues that reconciliation.”
The celebratory mourners responded with a resounding chorus of Amens.
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Dodd to Keep Chairmanship of Banking Committee
DODD
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
11/6/08
WASHINGTON – Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., announced Thursday that he would retain his position as chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in the 111th Congress because “our economic crisis is the center of gravity to which all our problems are being pulled.”
The senator’s statement put an end to speculation that, as the second-ranking Democrat, he would assume the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations when the current chairman, Vice President-elect Joseph Biden, leaves the Senate.
“We have been left with a terrible mess,” Dodd said at a Capitol press conference. “Unemployment is rising. Incomes are stagnating – while at the same time the cost of health care, housing, education and energy is skyrocketing.”
“Every day for the past several weeks, an average of 44 families in my state enter foreclosure – some 16,000 in all,” he continued. “Thirty-five of its workers lose their jobs. Countless men and women – in Connecticut and across the country – sit around their kitchen tables at night, worrying about what might happen next.”
Dodd highlighted several issues he would focus on as committee chairman in the next congressional session, which begins in January: oversight of bailout bill implementation, modernizing the financial structure, strengthening consumer protection and renewing the focus on national security challenges.
As many Americans have done this week, Dodd also took the time to reflect on the historic nature of the country’s presidential choice.
“Just over 40 years ago, well within our lifetimes, African-Americans as a people were excluded…from participating in our nation’s political life,” the senator said. “On Tuesday, they joined with others from across the racial, ethnic, regional, economic and ideological spectrum to elect a man who personifies the freedom, equality and opportunity that is the birthright and the hope of every American.”
The senator said he will continue to serve as a senior member of both the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.
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Dodd to Remain Banking Committee Chairman; Lieberman ‘Considering Options’
DODD
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
November 6, 2008
WASHINGTON – Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said Thursday he will stay at the helm of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in order to serve his constituents and tackle “the defining issue of our day”—the economy.
“Our economy is the center of gravity to which all our problems are being pulled,” Dodd said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “As the United States senator from Connecticut, there is no more important way right now that I can serve the people of Connecticut and our country than as Banking Committee chairman.”
Dodd said Connecticut’s role as the “home of the insurance industry” and its proximity to Wall Street make it particularly vulnerable to financial turmoil. He also cited Connecticut’s soaring unemployment and foreclosure rates.
With Vice President-elect Joseph Biden leaving the Senate, Dodd could have replaced Biden as chairman of the prestigious Foreign Relations Committee. Dodd said he will continue to sit on that committee, but not as chairman.
Meanwhile, the future role of Connecticut’s other senator, Joseph Lieberman, remains in limbo. Lieberman, who was reelected in the 2006 general election as an independent after losing in the Democratic primary, caucuses with the Democrats. But he angered Democrats by aggressively campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Many expect the Democratic leadership to strip Lieberman of his Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairmanship, which could drive him over to the Republican Party.
But after meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Thursday morning, Lieberman said he is still “considering the options I have before me.”
Dodd said he would work closely with President-elect Barack Obama in putting together his economic team. He said he believed President Bush should consider nominating Obama’s choice for Treasury secretary before the end of Bush’s term on Jan. 20.
“Given the magnitude of these problems, we cannot wait until inauguration day in my view,” he said.
Dodd also was cautious in celebrating the gains made by Senate Democrats in Tuesday’s election. He said both parties need to work together to fix what he called “a terrible mess.”
“If you neglect to deal with the other party,” he said, “you will not achieve much.”
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