Veteran Bradford H. Richey celebrated his 90th birthday on Veterans Day. As usual, many of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren piled in their cars and made the trip down to Santa Fe from Los Lunas to enjoy a birthday lunch with him.

This year for his Veterans Day birthday, his friend Helen Cowell also joined in the fun. Everybody was busy, setting the table full of KFC chicken and a chocolate birthday cake with long, colorful candles and blue cream cheese frosting oozing out of the middle.

"They're pretty scattered," Richey said about his grandchildren, "but I like for them to come together."

"Grandpa — he's one of the nicest people I've ever encountered in my life," said Janeane Atyani.

Richey was already living in New Mexico because of his involvement with the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1940s when he was "caught by the draft" to serve in the 20th Armored Division. He was married to the late Frances Martinez, and the couple had a 3-month-old baby named Lewis when he went off to basic training at Fort Knox, Ky. From Fort Knox, he went to Camp Campbell, Ky., and was finally sent overseas from Boston.

"I went overseas to Europe, and I went from France all the way to Austria," Richey said. Whenever he'd have any vacation or leave, he'd head back to Santa Fe to visit his family. The visits were somewhat sad, Richey said, because baby Lewis didn't recognize him at first.

"I was kind of a stranger," Richey said. "The first couple of days when I came home, he wouldn't have anything to do with me, and when he got used to me I had to go back."

But after three years, he was home for good. He said he returned to civilian life without a hitch.

"I went back when I got out and started looking for my old job back, and they gave it to me," Richey said. "Then shortly I started to work at the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos." He and his late wife had two more children — James Richey and Francella Kelley.

Richey doesn't generally celebrate Veterans Day, other than his birthday dinner, but his granddaughter Brandie Drummond said he's patriotic. This year, a large American flag was perched in his yard on the side of his house.

In his spare time, Richey likes to tend to his flowers and make all his grandchildren peanut brittle and his fudge, which is famous in the family.

"He's a great gardener," Cowell said. "He has a green thumb."

"Grandpa makes the best homemade fudge," Drummond said. "He makes amazing fudge in a sheet and lets the grandkids cut it."

Many years ago, he patented "adobe anchors," which shaped adobes to be used to build houses.

"If there's one thing I want anybody to know about my grandfather, is what a sweet, honest and self-sacrificing man he is," Atyani said. "He's a true American through and through. We just want to honor him."

Contact Ana Maria Trujillo at 986-3084 or atrujillo@sfnewmexican.com.