I enjoyed your story on the Soldiers’ Home (“The Coldest War,” 4/2). I read about that place for years (Carl Sandburg has a cool anecdote in his Lincoln biography about someone taking a potshot at Abe as he rode up to the home late one night) and knew it was in the city, but didn’t really know anything about it. Nice writing.
A nagging question, however, has been bothering me since I read your piece. It is this: Why haven’t the powers that run the place sought outside or corporate philanthropic supportsome sort of endowment that would preserve and help the place survive? Or have they done so?
I keep thinking that a phone call to Bob Dole (or Tom Hanks, who was recently in a full-page ad in USA Today flacking the World War II memorial on the Mall) to sign them on as honorary chair or whatever and some sort of fundraising foundation would have no trouble coming up with support for a home for aging war veterans. You’d think corporations would appreciate the PR value.
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