In 1991, Conrado joined the VFW as a Life Member when stationed at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty). When he moved to the area in 2011, he found that he lived right around the corner from Post 1503. He stopped in one day to find Tim Brown, Tom Williams, Tom Levitt, and John Dodge in the canteen. They asked if he wanted to transfer his membership, and he has been part of Post 1503 since then.   Conrado has been instrumental in making the Army Birthday Ball a fixture at the post. After completing the necessary organizational tasks and paperwork for having the ball, he has been the core organizer for the event for the past nine years. Conrado also volunteers to help with the post cookouts, Buddy Poppy sales, and other ceremonial events. Additionally, he has been a prolific recruiter, signing up 125 members to be part of Post 1503.

Born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, Conrado was a middle child out of six siblings. His father was a Navy veteran, serving multiple tours in Vietnam on the gun boats. His mother raised the children and worked as a caregiver for a senior woman. Conrado and his siblings had many neighborhood and school friends, and they loved visiting the local roller skating rink together.

Conrado started his schooling at Westhaven Elementary. He loved his physical education classes, which later turned into a passion for football in high school. He played the positions of offensive guard and nose guard, although he frequently found himself getting tackled due to his small stature at the time.

Although his father encouraged all his children to consider a career in the military—especially the Navy—Conrado wanted to go to college at Norfolk State University to earn his degree first. He was accepted and started his major in Industrial Education. (He later received his master’s degree in management from Webster University in 1997.)

In April of 1982, Conrado joined the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. This group was known for their social action and community service outreach, especially in support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. They organized many fundraisers to support the local community and the hospital.

After his second year was completed at Norfolk State University, Conrado decided to see about the possibility of joining the military, so he spent that summer completing basic training for the Army National Guard at Fort McClellan in Alabama. He found that he liked it, so the following summer he attended Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Bliss in Texas. His spent his third year in college during the summer at Advanced Camp at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Conrado had originally hoped to take part in the Simultaneous Membership Program (SMP), in which students are part of the college’s ROTC program and the National Guard at the same time. However, they did not have a slot open for him, so they gave him the option of switching from the National Guard to the college’s ROTC program. As this would no longer require him to spend his weekends at National Guard training and would eventually earn him the rank of a Second Lieutenant in the Army, Conrado decided to go this route instead. He commissioned in December of 1983, a year before his graduation. This allowed him to put his contract on hold until he graduated.

Once he completed his degree, Conrado headed to Fort Lee (now Fort Gregg-Adams) in Virginia for Officer Basic Course (OBC). There, he was a Second Lieutenant Quartermaster, completing his classes and field exercises in the "coldest place ever.” As he had participated in training during his college years, he was able to complete the tasks without much difficulty.

His first duty station was Fort Hunter Liggett in Monterey, California. He spent two years there as a logistics officer. He was responsible for signing out approximately $500,000 of equipment repairs on a daily basis, as the logistics team was responsible for the inventory, repair, and field placements for the tanks.

From there, he went to Camp Casey in the northern part of South Korea as part of the 2nd Infantry Division. He spent a year there as a First Lieutenant working with the Command Installation Division for logistics, training, and troop movement.

With his time in Korea complete, Conrado returned to Fort Lee to train in the Officer Advanced Course. At Rigger School, he learned how to pack parachutes and completed several solo jumps—although he preferred to keep his eyes closed!

He then received orders to Fort Bragg, the post where he would spend almost 15 years of his military career during back-and-forth transitions. There, he completed several more jumps.

In 1991, Conrado was deployed for Desert Storm. He spent nine months there, first in Saudi Arabia and then Iraq. The logistics team was responsible for the "Red Ball Express 2,” a reference to the successful WWII truck convoy system.

Conrado became a company commander in 1993 when he was deployed to Somalia. He witnessed the infamous Black Hawk Down incident, which was later depicted in the film of the same name. He was in the breezeway and could see the helicopter flying low before it was shot down. Although this military presence in Somalia had originally been part of a peacekeeping operation, there was tremendous violence and bloodshed around them during his six months there.

He returned to Fort Bragg and then Fort Lee between 2000-2003 as the G-3 for Quartermaster School operations. He was quite busy working for three two-star generals. (One year, he only received only two days off due to the demands of the operations.)

He also met the woman who would become his wife, Dr. Phyllis D. Morgan. He was deeply impressed when he met her, as she was in her last six months of earning her nursing PhD from Hampton University. (She would go on to be the first individual who would ever earn this degree from the Hampton program and the first in the world to acquire this degree from an HBCU. She would go on to complete her post-doctorate work at Johns Hopkins University. Today, she is a faculty member at Walden University for the Master of Science in Nursing program.) The pair dated for a year before getting married and welcomed their daughter, Cayla J. Morgan, a year later.

From 2003-2007, Conrado was a Logistics Support Element officer. In 2005, he was deployed to Iraq where he served as the Battalion Commander. He received the Bronze Star for Action in Combat. He would keep this role when he returned stateside, and he was promoted from a Lieutenant Colonel to a Colonel.

In 2008, he was part of the G-4 Army Logistics at Fort Belvoir before transitioning to the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. at Fort McNair. There, he was responsible for everything from providing daily briefings for the top Navy and Marine Corps presidents to organizing visits for heads of state and presidents. (He oversaw visits for former President Bush, former President Obama, and then-Vice President Biden.)

Conrado moved to the front gate at Fort McNair in 2010 as the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Army Center of Military History. He was tasked with the logistics for building the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir. Today, his name is part of the Circle of Distinction at the museum. He also promoted the efforts to posthumously award Charles Young the rank of Brigadier General. Brigadier General Young had been unjustly forced to retire as an African American officer in WWI so that he would be ineligible to command White officers. Today, Brigadier General Charles Young is one of the outstanding military veterans honored at this museum.

Finally, Conrado retired in June of 2014 as a "full bird” (O-6) Colonel. He enjoyed a wonderful retirement ceremony with friends, family, and his military peers.

After his retirement, he quickly got back to work. He founded Conrado’s International, Inc. in 1996, a distributor of oil and gas licensed in Virginia. With his background in logistics, he was able to secure several contracts in the D.C. metro area.

As a strong life member of his fraternity, Conrado has served as the Third District Representative for Virginia and Washington, D.C., supporting 43 chapters and 2,500 members. He is an advisor and life member of the non-profit mentoring group The ROCKS, Inc., which provides support for military officers.

Conrado also enjoys time with his family. He is also very proud of his daughter, Cayla, who is attending Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.

In the future, Conrado hopes to earn his PhD in Educational Leadership, serve as the Grand Basileus (International President) for Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., snag a multi-million dollar contract, and own his own building to lease out for corporate meetings and events. He also looks forward to traveling to the upcoming national fraternity conferences.

• When Conrado was younger, he was rather skinny and short. He grew 6-7 inches after graduating from high school. He considers that he might have attempted a career as a professional football player with the Dallas Cowboys if he had known that he would grow so much later.
• Although Westhaven Elementary had been desegregated relatively peacefully shortly before he started there, Conrado remembers classmates and their older brothers egging his bus. His family also had to enter Woodworth through the back door and dress very nicely for the bank, as many areas were still segregated and openly discriminatory toward African American individuals in Portsmouth, Virginia.
• Despite his father hoping that all his children would join a branch of service, Conrado was the only one who went into the military.
• Conrado is in the Army ROTC Hall of Fame at Norfolk State University
• A fan of Soul Train, Conrado decided that he would stand in line to be able to dance in 1987 - 1988. Although he was told that the line was too long to let everyone in, his patience was rewarded when the remaining fans were ushered through the doors. He did not have to stand in line once he put his fraternity jacket on, which provided him expedited entry.
• As Conrado was the only African American officer at Fort Hunter Liggett, California, and could not fraternize with his subordinates, he sometimes drove 1-2 hours to visit with other officers at Fort Ord, California.
• Conrado has completed about 15 plane jumps as part of his required training, but he didn’t want to have to do any of them! He remembers closing his eyes before every jump. One of the soldiers would say, "Go, Sir! Go!” They had to literally kick him out of the plane. When he hit the ground, he would start singing cadence as thanks for landing safely. Although the jumpers were supposed to be quiet, he didn’t mind if he was chastised for singing after feeling his boots on the ground.
• It was during a trip to Walmart that Conrado first met Phyllis. As he and his mother share the same birthday, they were there to shop for party decorations. When Conrado first spotted her, he told his friend that he would marry her someday. He casually followed her in the store before striking up a conversation. After learning her name and being deeply impressed by her educational pursuits, he invited her to the joint birthday party. She declined, but they chatted a bit more in the checkout line. As Conrado walked to the car with his groceries, she pulled up in her white Mercedes-Benz with her phone number. She told him to give her a call—which he gladly did!
• Having spent so much time at Fort Bragg, Conrado says he has been named the unofficial mayor of the town of Fayetteville. He also has been given the title of the unofficial mayor of Dumfries, although official mayor, Derrick Wood, is one of his personal friends.
• As Conrado has been awarded with 60 fraternity and community awards and 25 military awards—including the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit and a Bronze Star—he has a room in his house dedicated to displaying the fruits of his hard work and service.
• Conrado is very close with his mother. For 44 years, he has ensured that a portion of his pension goes to support her. Once a month, he makes the 2 ½ hour drive to Portsmouth to visit her for a few hours before making the drive back later that night. Her home is still the gathering place for the siblings for family events.