ABCDE METRO wednesday, july 7, 2010 LOCAL HOME PAGE 86, 9 a.m. 96, noon 100, 5 p.m. 90, 9 p.m.


Obituaries Robert N. Butler, a pioneer in research on aging, founded organizations dedicated to care for the elderly. B7


Holocaust survivors fault VRE


Looking for a job? Want to work for the feds? Federal careers expert Derrick Dortch gives advice on finding a government job. Go to PostLocal.com.


MARYLAND


Car chase in Montgomery A Montgomery County police officer shoots a bank robbery suspect in a Damascus cornfield as the suspect drives his car at the officer at the end of a chase. B5


contract Firm has ties to French company from which they seek reparations, apology


by Katherine Shaver


Some Holocaust survivors are criticiz- ing Virginia Railway Express for award- ing an $85 million contract to operate and maintain its trains to a company partly owned by the French railway that transported people to Nazi concentra- tion camps. The company, Keolis Rail Services America, also has submitted a bid to the Maryland Transit Administration to op- erate the MARC Brunswick and Camden lines now under CSX control, a Keolis of- ficial said. The five-year contract is pending, a MARC spokesman said. A group of 269 American Holocaust


survivors objects to Keolis and its major- ity owner, the French railway company SNCF, seeking public rail service con- tracts across the country, said Dale Lei- bach of Washington-based Prism Public Affairs, which he said is doing pro bono public relations for the group. SNCF, which has been partly owned by the French government since 1938, trans- ported nearly 77,000 Jews and other Holocaust victims from France to Nazi camps, according to historians. Leibach said the group wants SNCF to describe, and apologize for, its role in the Holocaust and pay reparations to survi- vors and victims’ families before it or any of its subsidiaries receive U.S. gov- ernment contracts. The group formed in 2000 via word of mouth as part of a class-action lawsuit filed against SNCF


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 The Pentagon to review checkpoint changes. B4


LINDA DAVIDSON/THE WASHINGTON POST Sen. Robert Byrd’s casket was adorned with a large bouquet of white roses with a single red rose in honor of his wife. COURTLAND MILLOY


For a soldier’s mother, only the loss is certain


of Vashir City, for instance, where her son was killed in 2007. “I tried to find it on a map but didn’t see it anywhere,” Lewis told me during a visit to her home in Northeast Washington.


T Afghanistan — a country the size of


Texas, located nearly 7,000 miles away —has towns and villages with names that can be spelled many different ways. On some maps, for instance, Vashir is spelled Waser or Washar. For Lewis, it’s as if the country itself


was playing a shell game with her. During our talk over the Fourth of July weekend, she seemed resigned to the possibility that Afghanistan might never give up its secrets about what’s going on with this war. “I just know my son is gone and won’t be coming back,” she said. Her spirits were lifted, though, as she


watched Independence Day celebrations on TV. A rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” filled her with pride, and scenes of U.S. troops being saluted and cheered as they returned from Iraq and Afghanistan brought tears to her eyes. “I’m happy for their families,” she


said, before confessing with a winsome smile, “I started wishing that my son had come home, too.” Army Capt. Darrell C. Lewis, 31, was


on patrol in Vashir when he was mortally wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade. A casualty report by the Defense Department blamed


milloy continued on 5 JUANA ARIAS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


Ingrid Hsieh-Yee, interim dean at Catholic University, talks with the Very Rev. David O’Connell, the school’s outgoing president, at a reception for him.


here is much about the war in Afghanistan that Hannah Lewis still does not know — the location


Longest-serving senator finds final resting place


Robert Byrd, son of W.Va. coal fields, is buried next to wife in Arlington The longest-serving lawmaker in the


by Michael E. Ruane W


hen Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s niece began to sing “On the Wings of a Snow White Dove” at his funeral Tues- day, she faltered.


Jassowyn Sale Hurd said she had nev-


er gotten the chance to sing with the late statesman, and now, as she stood before his polished brown casket in an Arling- ton church, she briefly forgot the tune. She apologized. “Let me try this again,” she said, and as she did, the congregation


assembled to bid the lawmaker a last farewell on a broiling summer day began to softly sing along:


When troubles surround us, when evils come, the body grows weak, the spirit grows numb.


It was a moment that might have made the Democrat from West Virginia smile: the sweet melody, the evocative re- frain:


On the wings of a snow-white dove, He sends His pure sweet love.


history of Congress and proud son of Ap- palachian Bible country was borne to his rest Tuesday amid the strains of the mu- sic he loved and the words of the Scrip- ture he revered. Byrd, who died June 28 at age 92, was buried beside his wife, Erma, in an Ar- lington County cemetery after a simple but moving funeral at Arlington’s Memo- rial Baptist Church. It was the final goodbye in a week of heartfelt salutes to the child of the coal


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JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON


Love those utilities A few days of water restrictions and a sudden loss of electrical power are reminders of how much we have come to rely on the conveniences of civilization. B2


Is it hot, hot, hot enough


for you? MERCURY CLIMBS INTO TRIPLE DIGITS


Higher temperatures expected through September


by Rick Rojas and Phillip Lucas


Temperatures in the region climbed into the triple digits Tuesday, continuing a heat wave that meteorologists say might just last through the summer. The mercury reached as high as 102 degrees at Reagan National Airport as near-record temperatures spread across the Eastern Seaboard. The National Weather Service issued heat advisories from Washington to Boston. Forecasters said they expect tempera- tures to be higher than usual through September, threatening residents sus- ceptible to heat-related health issues and possibly placing considerable strain on the region’s electrical grid. “We are looking at above-normal tem-


peratures through the summer,” said Kevin Witt, a National Weather Service meteorologist. “I can’t say we are expect- ing any more hundreds, but this is sum- mer. If we have another area of high pressure move into the region . . . that might bring us more higher tempera- tures, if not record temperatures.” The high Tuesday missed the record by one degree. The high mark for July 6 was set in 1999, with a reading of 103 at Reagan National. The temperature has crossed the 100-degree mark six times in the past decade. In Washington, weary pedestrians


huffed and perspired as they shuffled along sizzling sidewalks, occasionally catching puffs of cool air as they passed open shop doors or Metro station en- trances. Parks and sidewalk cafes were generally cleared of people, although a few folks stopped to dip their feet in fountains. Many tourists said they were opting for museums or simply staying in their hotel rooms. Along with the heat warnings, the Na- tional Weather Service issued a Code Or- ange air-quality alert for the region, last- ing through Thursday. The alert, for ozone pollution, is targeted at children, the elderly, and those suffering from heart disease or asthma and other lung diseases. Sensitive groups are urged to minimize strenuous activity outdoors. The searing temperatures are expec- ted to endure through the week, with a high nearing 100 on Wednesday. Show- ers and thunderstorms are forecast for


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on washingtonpost.com Scenes from


a scorching summer


Check out our heat-related photo gallery and get forecasts from the Capital Weather Gang at postlocal.com.


Catholic U. chief leaves school transformed, divided by Daniel de Vise David O’Connell made it cool to be at


Catholic University. He arrived in 1998 on a Northeast


Washington campus that was unkempt and spiritually adrift. In 12 years as president, he manicured and ministered, leading his institution back to its found- ing identity as the flagship American university of the Roman Catholic Church. He leaves this month, widely be- loved.


But it has been a rocky ride. Detractors


say the Very Rev. O’Connell has steered Catholic into a thicket of social issue politics, spawning one controversy after another: Celebrity speakers disinvited. Student newspapers seized. Prohibitions against student sex. Highly publicized feuds with gay rights advocates and the NAACP.


Some say O’Connell is the greatest president in Catholic’s 123-year history. Others say he has divided the Brookland campus. This much is clear: He has held one of the toughest jobs in higher educa- tion. O’Connell and the “bishops’ univer- sity” were cast as standard-bearers in a campaign by the Vatican to reassert con- trol over a rebellious flock, the nation’s 201 Catholic colleges and universities. “This institution represents the insti- tutional Church. And that’s hard for some people to grasp,” O’Connell said in a recent interview. “My goal was to be in the center and to speak the Church’s truths with clarity.” O’Connell, 55, is leaving Washington to become bishop-elect of Trenton, N.J. His replacement at Catholic, John H. Garvey, is dean of the law school at Bos- ton College.


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