The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

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tuesday, november 12 , 2019. washingtonpost.com/regional eZ su B

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

For veterans in need, the

Post’s helping hand partner

so others Might eat offers a

home and support. B3

CAPITAL WEATHER GANG

Why do yellow jackets,

which can sting multiple

times, become more

aggressive in the fall? B5

OBITUARIES

italian puppeteer Maria

Perego created the mouse

topo gigio, a staple of

49 ° 49 ° 38 ° 33 ° “the ed sullivan show.”^ B6

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 12 a.m.

49

°

Precip: 90%

Wind: NW

10-20 mph

Photos by Matt Mcclain/the Washington Post

CLoCkWise froM toP: Harry f. Miller, 91, who saw combat with the 74 0th tank Battalion, joins fellow veterans

at a ceremony at the national World War ii Memorial. Patrick McCourt is seen in front of representatives of Georgia

Military College in Milledgeville, holding photos of fallen World War ii service members. vietnam veteran Bernie

klemanek of Mineral, va., salutes at the memorial. World War ii veteran ewing Miller, 96 , attends the ceremony.

This Veterans Day,

I can’t stop

thinking of a little

candy shop in

england.

This will make

sense later.

The story that

ends at a candy

shop begins with something

familiar to many military families

— sacrifice. And it reminds us of

all the ways in which military

families — the spouses, kids and

support systems of our armed

forces — are equally important to

every mission.

This is the story of Justin

Constantine and his wife, Dahlia.

They met at a language class

they were both attending in

Buenos Aires years ago. He had

flown in from Virginia, she from

California. They dated that whole

summer.

And their relationship was

blossoming when Dahlia Hamza

began pursuing her lifelong

dream of getting a PhD at the

University of Cambridge in

england, and Justin Constantine

deployed to Iraq.

All was good, a modern

military love story of emails and

phone calls when Constantine

was on a routine combat patrol in

2006 as a civil affairs team leader

with a Marine infantry battalion

and was shot in the head by a

sniper.

The bullet tore apart his jaw

and part of his face, and he was

declared dead. Until a navy

corpsman stepped in and didn’t

give up. He saved Constantine.

Hamza flew to the military

hospital in Germany to be by

Constantine’s side.

see dvorak on B4

Don’t forget

to thank

veterans’

families, too

Petula

dvorak

istock

virginia state University

i s one of the eligible HBCUs.

A salute to WWII veterans

Hundreds pay their respects at memorial on the Mall

BY FREDRICK KUNKLE

About 40 volunteers, led by a

handful of former military per-

sonnel, marked Veterans Day

on Monday by reaching out to

homeless veterans in the Dis-

trict.

The effort — organized by

Veterans on the Rise and the

Union Veterans Council of the

AFL-CIo — targeted shelters

and other places frequented by

the homeless. The volunteers

gathered in the parking lot of

shiloh Baptist Church for an

8 a.m. b riefing before breaking

into s maller t eams that h anded

out kits containing toiletries,

gloves, socks and wool caps to

anyone who needed them.

They also handed out cards

with information on how to

obtain temporary shelter or

assistance from the Depart-

ment of Veterans Affairs.

Alfred Burley, 71, said he

created Veterans on the Rise in

1980 after struggling with drug

addiction that put him on the

street for many years. Burley,

who had been a paramedic with

the Army in Germany toward

see veterans on B2

Veterans Day mission targets District’s homeless

Fredrick kunkle/the Washington Post

dan Helmer, right, and student volunteers do homeless outreach

organized by veterans groups trying to help others who’ve served.

Ex-service members

hand out comfort kits

and VA information

BY JUSTIN WM. MOYER

With a color printer, paintings

and artwork strewn about the

floor, the tiny sun porch of Veron-

ica Melendez’s Mount Pleasant

group house is the launchpad for

a publication designed to lift

voices she says are sometimes

lost.

For the co-founder of La Hor-

chata, a zine dedicated to Central

American artists, necessity is the

mother of invention.

“It just came to me one day:

Instead of waiting for someone

else to make this happen, we have

to make it happen ourselves,” s he

said.

Melendez, 30, founded the zine

in 2017 with Kimberly Benavides,

29, whom she met in art school at

the Corcoran College of Art and

Design. It w as launched about the

time the Trump administration

announced the end of a program

that granted Central American

minors temporary legal residence

in the United states.

More recently, the administra-

tion announced plans to send a

large number of asylum seekers

from Honduras and el salvador

to Guatemala, instead of process-

ing their claims in overwhelmed

U.s. immigration courts. The

publication focuses on the art of

those nations that have some of

the highest rates of citizens trav-

eling north to seek asylum — and

to show their experiences south

see zine on B5

D.C. zine

amplifies

voices of a

community

L a Horchata aims

t o reflect e xperience o f

Central American artists

BY LAUREN LUMPKIN

early this semester, college

counselor shannon Jeffries

emailed a digital code to her

students that would allow them

to forgo the cost of applying to

dozens of historically black in-

stitutions.

on the receiving end of the

email: 70 seniors at D.C. Inter-

national school who have been

thinking about college since

10th grade. one of the students

at the charter school figured he

would enroll in a two-year

degree program.

But he tried the code anyway,

Jeffries said. The student re-

cently found out he’d been

accepted to Ta lladega College, a

four-year private historically

black school in Alabama.

“It was a matter of, ‘Let me

see’ [about this],” Jeffries said,

“which expanded his options.”

The student is part of a

recently announced push by

see initiative on B4

D.C. gives

HBCUs a

boost with

initiative

Part of a citywide push

to waive application fees

for dozens of schools

BY JOE HEIM

The mystery of the missing

student newspapers at Radford

University in southwestern Vir-

ginia has been solved.

sort of.

In a letter sent Friday to the

Ta rtan, the public university’s

student-run newspaper, campus

Police Chief David Underwood

told the paper’s editor, Dylan

Lepore, that a Radford employee

was responsible for removing

newspapers from four news-

stands the evening of sept. 18.

But the police chief did not di-

vulge the name of the employee,

saying that the removal of free

newspapers was not a crime and

that it was being handled as an

administrative matter by the

school.

University administrators

confirmed the chief’s account,

including the decision to not

name the employee. The Ta rtan

first published news of Under-

wood’s letter on its website Fri-

day.

“A s a result of RUPD’s compre-

hensive and in-depth process,

which included conducting one-

on-one interviews and reviewing

video footage, a classified staff

employee was found to be re-

sponsible for taking multiple

copies of The Ta rtan from a total

of four newsstands,” Caitlyn

scaggs, associate vice president

for university relations, wrote in

a statement s ent to The Washing-

see radford on B3

University:

Employee

removed

newspapers

radford will not

disclose name

Student publication was

taken from newsstands