Family Member Injured

U.S. Army Capt. Pat Horan Recieves
Purple Heart From President Bush.


That's my brother-in-law, U.S. Army Captain Pat Horan getting a visit from President Bush. Patrick has a brain injury after getting shot in the head in Baghdad back in July. He received his new prosthetic skull in a surgery at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda December 14th.

The President presented a Purple Heart to Pat on December 19th. Pat's wife, Patty Horan, his mother, Mary Jo Horan, his father, Richard Horan and his brother, Chris all got to be in the room with him and also got to meet the President.

Patrick is the youngest of six children. We all grew up West Springfield. After graduating from Radford Univerisity, Pat shocked all of us by announcing he was joining the Army. He started as an enlisted man and later went to Officer's School. That background gave him a unique relationship with the men he led. They respected him greatly. In his year in Iraq, none of his men received a scratch. When he was injured on July 7th, he had been leading his men from their Fort Lewis, unit, the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, on a reconnaissance mission securing a road in Baghdad. They had been out all night and had run out of supplies. Instead of just sending one of his men, Pat went with two of his men to retrieve water and other supplies out of their Strykers. As he was heading down a staircase from his post atop a building, an Iraqi soldier below saw movement and apparently, not realizing they were U.S. soldiers, started firing. A bullet hit Pat's left temple just under his helmet.

None of us will forget when we first heard the news. But, it's been five months and Pat has made huge progress. He and Patty spent 3 1/2 months at the Rehabilitation Institute in Chicago where he learned to walk and talk again. He still has a long way to go, but we know he will continue to get better and better and as his mom says, "Make it all the way home!"

No matter how you feel about the war, it is important to support our servicemen and women. And when they're injured, we need to do whatever we can to take care of them and help them get better.

You can see my story about Pat at this link: http://www.wusa9.com/rss/local_article.aspx?storyid=66565.

Look for another story about Pat and what it takes for these injured soldiers to get over a brain injury coming up in February.

GREAT HOLIDAY GIFT ALSO HELPS SICK KIDS

Cookies for Kids' Cancer is a totally unique fundraiser. These limited-edition cookies are being baked by volunteers from the French Culinary Institute in NYC, using recipes provided by renowned cookbook author Sally Sampson. All supplies have been donated, so nearly 100% of your purchase price will go to the cause.

For every $30 box of cookies sold, $26 will go to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center to fund development a new treatment for one of the deadliest pediatric cancers, neuroblastoma. Your purchase will make a real difference in the lives of many children and families!

WHY MUST PARENTS SELL COOKIES TO SAVE THEIR CHILDREN???

Childhood cancer is rare, and because the number of children diagnosed each year is so small, pharmaceutical companies do not fund research into new drugs for neuroblastoma and other pediatric cancers. Similarly, government funding for research is based on the number of diagnoses for each given type of cancer, so childhood cancers receive very little public funding.

Band of Parents has pledged to raise $2 to $3 million needed by Dr. Cheung and the team at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center to develop a humanized form of the 3F8 antibody that Jennifer Click of West Springfield, Virginia believes the treatment saved her daughter Carolyn by teaching her own immune system to fight neuroblastoma. Because the current version of the antibody is mouse-based, about half of the children with neuroblastoma (mostly kids under age 5) who undergo antibody treatment develop resistance to the mouse component before their immune system has been fully "trained" to fight the disease. For those children, when the cancer comes back, it is almost impossible to stop. This new antibody treatment offers these little ones their best chance at getting to grow up.

Two of the children with this cancer live in Northern Virginia. You may remember a story I covered back in the summer about seven fathers biking across the country to raise money to save their kids. The two Virginia fathers were the fathers of those two little girls, Grace and Taylor, who are in the battle for their lives. I can't think of a sweeter holiday gift than giving these cookies to help these children.

Smoke-Free Mall in NOVA? We Wish.

Even in the shopping malls that claim to be smoke-free, they often are not because some of the restaurants inside the mall allow smoking. Take Tysons Corner Center. The mall is smoke free, but most of the restaurants have smoking areas, and they tend to be toward the large mall walkways. In between the movie theatres and the children's play area, there is a TGIF restaurant which allows smoking in the area by the walkways.
Smoke often drifts out into the main walkway so it is nearly impossible to miss it. The same is true for the outside steps where smoking is allowed at Tysons and other malls. It would be nice for those of us who don't want to breathe smoke, or have our children breathe it, if malls and restaurants would voluntarily ban smoking all together in their establishments.

Montgomery County bans smoking in bars and restaurants and the businesses seem to be doing fine. McLean Family Restaurant banned smoking a few years ago and the manager tells me it's helped his business.

And, I just heard McLean's McKeever's Pub has gone smoke free. On a dining guide website, an entry in 2002 said this : "The only downside to McKeever's is that you must be able to tolerate smoke. It's unavoidable and your clothes WILL need washing afterwards. "
Several other reviews mentioned the thick smoke. Maybe that's why the restaurant banned smoking... bad publicity! The new policy apparently hasn't hurt business there. I heard a father taking about how great the new smoke-free McKeevers is now. I'll have to try it out.

My family and I had banned the Pub because of the smoke.

LET US KNOW ABOUT GOOD SMOKE-FREE RESTAURANTS IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA!

If you're looking for a smoke-free restaurant in Northern Virginia or elsewhere, here's a useful website: www.smokefreeworld.com/va.shtml.

Holiday Events In Virginia

Joyous Holiday Music!

Singers from Fairfax County's Crossfield Elementary will sing songs of the season at Reston Town Center on Tuesday, December 11, at 7 p.m. Members of the fifth and sixth grade chorus will perform "Silver Bells," "It's a Marshmallow World," "The Festival of Lights," "Heavenly Peace," and "Rockin' on the Housetop." The chorus will sing in front of the tree across from the ice skating rink

McLean Goes to the Dogs for the Holidays!

McLean's annual REINDOG Parade was huge success on Saturday, December 1 at the Langley Shopping Center.

That's Matthew Wallace, McLean Chamber President with the dog on the right, you-know-who in the red suit, Me and my daughter Leah in the cow-coat, and Scott Monet past-president of the chamber.

A few hundred people and their holiday-decorated doggies turned out for the annual competition. There were doggie Santas, Angels, wreaths, a McLean Football Holiday Doggie, and even Doggie Dancers! Yes, the Nutcracker Doggie ensemble took 'Best In Show!"

Participants brought lots of canned dog food to benefit the Fairfax County Animal Shelter.

Numerous pet services, venders and rescue organizations attended and Moorenko’s Ice Cream even provided canine ice cream for the dogs and Three Pigs will cooked up some nice hot chocolate for us two leggers.


WOLF TRAP SING-A-LONG

A wet time this year, but still enjoyable.

PERFORMANCES BY:
The United States Marine Band
Lieutenant Colonel Michael J. Colburn will direct audience participation and a choir of more than 400 members representing vocal groups from across the Washington, D.C. area.