U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs CMV - News Update

Staff Sgt. Conrad Robinson followed one of his grandfathers into the Army, but what he shared with few colleagues before he died was that his other one was “the Genius” of soul music, Ray Charles. [From Stars and Stripes]

As it turns out, not everybody was kung fu fighting. But Johnny Birch was – at least a self-taught version – that kept getting him in trouble. Looking back, he said if it wasn’t for martial arts – the real stuff he eventually learned – he’d probably be dead. [From VAntage Point]

“We have to be able to disperse. We can’t all be sitting on big bases and being big targets,” Pacific Air Forces commander Gen. Charles Q. Brown said. “The ability to move around…is important.” [From Stars and Stripes]

Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Air Force Veteran Deloris “Dee” Moton Quaranta, who served 20 years and continues to support women Veterans. Deloris “Dee” Moton Quaranta’s military career started as an administrative personnel in the Office of the Comptroller at Hurlburt Field, Florida. [From VAntage Point]

Former slave and Civil War Veteran Reddy Gray died on this day in 1922, when he was 79 years old. He was buried in Baltimore’s Loudon Park National Cemetery–the first VA burial site included in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. [From VAntage Point]

Kenneth Higashi sat at attention, only his use of a wheelchair keeping him from rising to receive France’s highest civil and military distinction, the Legion of Honor, before grateful family, friends and neighbors. Higashi, 97, a second-generation Japanese-American man from Spearfish, sat stoically as Guillaume Lacroix, consul general of France for the Midwest, pinned the Chevalier De La Legion D’Honneur on his sweater on behalf of the French Republic. [From Army Times]