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ANNAPOLIS, Md., July 10, 2008
– Patriotism runs high at Chick and Ruth's Delly,
a mainstay along the Maryland capital's Main
Street. Ted Levitt, the deli's owner, starts
each morning leading patrons as they recite the
Pledge of Allegiance.
A huge flag hovers high
over the lunch counter, and yellow-and-orange
walls are covered with photos of troops in
uniform.
Now, Levitt has a new addition: a fully restored
1931 Buick, airbrushed with the faces of 43
heroes who have served the country in the armed
forces or as police officers, firefighters and
other first responders. (photo on left) |
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Levitt hopes to use his labor of love,
which he's named “Faces of Valor USA,” to raise money for
scholarships and financial assistance for or in honor of
those wounded or killed while performing their duty.
The red, white and blue car took two
and a half years to restore and made its debut appearance
during Annapolis' Fourth of July Parade. Now Levitt is
lining up events where he can showcase the car to raise
funds to help those who have sacrificed for their country
and the families some of them left behind.
Levitt said he got the idea to personalize his project after
the parents of Marine Capt. Ben Sammis stopped into his deli
to tell him that their son had been killed conducting
helicopter rescues in Iraq. Sammis graduated from The
Citadel in South Carolina, but met Levitt when he frequented
Chick and Ruth's Delly while attending a U.S. Naval Academy
program.
Devastated to hear of his death, Levitt asked Beth and Steve
Sammis for permission to use their son's face on his car.
Levitt took the project farther, ultimately choosing 43
people to depict on his car and bring faces to the concepts
of sacrifice and service. In addition to 15 firefighters
killed in New York during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the
Faces of Valor project highlights troops who have served in
operations from the Vietnam War to the war in Iraq.
Levitt knows all but the New York firefighters personally,
from his cousin, Army Chief Warrant Officer Stewart
Goldberg, who was killed when his helicopter was shot down
in Vietnam in July 1969, to Master Sgt. Karl Allen, a local
businessman who retired from the reserve components after
three deployments.
The face of Army Capt. D.J. Skelton, a Chick and Ruth's
Delly patron, appears with his left eye closed; he lost it
during a rocket-propelled-grenade attack while serving with
25th Infantry Division in Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004.
But Levitt said he intentionally chose to use not only faces
of those wounded or killed in the line of duty.
“This is a tribute, not a memorial,” he said of the Faces of
Valor project. “A lot of people think you have to have been
killed to be honored, but that's not the point here. What
matters is that these people put their lives on the line
every day to protect us. It's because of them that we get to
live the lives we live.”
Levitt said he wants people who see the car to focus on each
face and recognize the sacrifices so many people make so
Americans can live in safety and enjoy freedoms some only
dream about.
“These are the men and women who allow us to live in
freedom, to do any kind of job we want and allow our
constitution to live on,” he said. “It's because of them
that we get to do what we do.”
At age 51, Levitt said, he remembers the protests and abuse
that awaited many Vietnam veterans when they returned from
that war, and said he wants to ensure that never happens to
today's returning troops.
“They need to be treated as heroes,” he said. “And for those
who need help, they need to know that they will be taken
care of. We owe them that.” |
