Birdsong, Grady Thane: - Grady Thane Birdsong was raised in Kansas and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1966. After serving two combat tours in the Northern I Corps region of Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in 1968 and along the DMZ in 1969, he enjoyed a successful career traveling the world as an executive in engineering, marketing, and business development in the telecommunications/data, information technology, and the optical/fiber systems industries. Grady is the author of A Fortunate Passage: Two Families' Journey into the Heartland, which received two EVVY awards from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association.