Photo credit: Janet Donovan
The Daily Beast’s Hero Summit came to town on October 10th, landing at The Newseum for a live journalism event featuring panel discussions and interviews with some of the world’s most influential figures including military leaders, decorated veterans, Nobel Prize winners and politicians to speak on issues of service and heroism.
The roll call read like the Oscars of intelligent thinking: Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast; Senator John McCain, Black Hawk Down producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Jane Harman, Director, President and CEO, Woodrow Wilson Center; Catherine Herridge, Chief Intelligence Correspondent, Fox News Channel; Bob Woodward, Associate Editor, The Washington Post; Senator George J. Mitchell, Chairman Emeritus, DLA Piper; The Hon. Olympia J. Snowe, Former United States Senator;Walter Isaacson, President & CEO, The Aspen Institute; Martha Raddatz, Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent, ABC News and so on.
Invitees who arrived by the 8:30 AM welcome call sans caffeine didn’t need it. The ever colorful Senator McCain was the wake up call. Here’s a clip:
The full video coverage of The Hero Summit available here.
The evening agenda featured a dinner and screening of “Lone Survivor” (Peter Berg’s adaptation of the bestselling memoir by Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell) hosted by Tina Brown and Ron Meyer, Vice Chairman of NBC Universal and the Heroes at Home Award Presentation with Olivier François, Chief Marketing Officer, Chrysler Group LLC and Fiat Group Automobiles.
“Lone Survivor” is based on the failed June 28, 2005 mission “Operation Red Wings.” Four members of SEAL Team 10 were tasked with the mission to capture or kill notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shahd. Marcus Luttrell was the only member of his team to survive.
The film was directed by Peter Berg, an American actor, director, writer, and producer who moved on to behind the camera to produce “Lone Survivor” which was shown to an enthusiastic audience.
The Trailer:
Just before the screening, Hollywood on the Potomac caught up with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D.Tx) to get her take on the shutdown and the looming debt ceiling crises.
“Let me just say there are a lot of good efforts going on in Congress on behalf of those of us who believe America and our Federal Government is an umbrella on a rainy day to avoid people from losing their benefits, not being able to make ends meet.
We’re doing individual case work right here in Washington. I just got off the phone with a hospice cancer victim who is in the hospital,” she said. “She called me today, I called her back. She’s frightened because she is also taking care of her elderly father.
Tina Brown and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
“We’re going to try and get past the shut down of the departments where her money comes from and make sure she gets her disability check. That’s an individual effort when hard working government workers are not there to be able to respond to crises like this.
But the other thing is, today I introduced H Res. 375. We’re beginning to build the co-sponsors so that the House of Representatives commits to never ever again to tie a non germaine legislative fight to keeping the government open or the debt ceiling – never again fight against the Affordable Care Act, gay marriage, voting rights and use that as a reason to shut down the government.”
