Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 124, No. 125 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
May 26, 2015
Tuesday
www.rdrnews.com
Deceased soldier’s dog tags returned
By Jared Tucker Multimedia Journalist
Thieves stole just about everything Basil Robinson had stored in his two storage sheds in Roswell when he moved to Albuquerque to be closer to the VA hospital. His family thought they’d never see his military ID tags again. Until a few years later, when two Good Samaritans came across them in a trash dumpster while removing scrap metal. With help from a Facebook group, those tags are back in the hands of Robinson’s family one day after the word went out
over social media. Venus and James Wooddell were removing scrap metal from a dumpster in the 3000 block of North Main Street near a construction site when Venus found Robinson’s tags. Venus knew they didn’t belong there. ”I just didn’t want to see them thrown away,” she said. So with the help of her daughter Tina, who took to social media to find either Robinson or his family, she located Basil’s brother, Jimmy Robinson. “I got a phone message from a friend who said I needed to check my Face-
book page,” Robinson said. That’s when he found Tina’s message saying she had his brother’s “dog tags” and wanted to return them. “People never cease to amaze you,” Robinson said. “When I realized it was Memorial Day weekend, that just made a whole world of difference.” The Wooddells were able to meet up with Basil’s father and return the tags Sunday. Basil’s father, Jim Robinson Sr., said his son moved to Albuquerque in 2010 to be closer to the VA hospital, and put the
bulk of his belongings into two storage sheds. Thieves broke the locks and cleaned him out. “After he passed away I went over there ... I went around to the other one and it was empty,” the elder Robinson said. The Wooddell family said they were just doing the right thing by returning the tags, and never intended to make the news. “We are glad we gave a blessing to the family,” Wooddell said. Basil was born May 26, 1969, in Roswell and graduated from Dexter High School in 1987,
according to his brother. He was a very intelligent and quiet man, and would always fully embrace whatever sparked his interest, Jimmy said. At 13 years old, Basil decided he wanted to learn about amateur, or “ham,” radio so after finding out everything he had to do to get a license, he stayed up all night studying Morse code. “He took the test the next day and passed it, after studying only one night,” Robinson said. Basil joined the U.S. Navy after graduating high school, and served for 12 years as a hos-
pital corpsman. He was stationed at Balboa Navy Hospital in San Diego, California, before being discharged, according to his brother. He died in February 2014 from heart and other complications resulting from serving in Operation Desert Storm, according to family members. “He saw a lot of action,” his father said. He was awarded a number of medals for his service in Desert Storm, Robinson Sr. said. The medals were also among the property stolen along with See TAGS, Page A3
‘It is the soldier’ Katy Ross Story and Photos Michael Trujillo, pictured above left, a 24-year veteran, was one of three guest speakers at the Memorial Day ceremony at the General Douglas McBride Veterans Cemetery Monday. The ceremony included the Posting of the Colors by the Roswell Veterans Honor Guard, place-
ment of four memorial wreaths, a commander’s address, music by Tom Blake and the playing of “Silver Taps.” In his speech, Trujillo provided a powerful piece by Charles M. Province, a veteran of the U.S. Army. It reads: “It is the soldier, not the minister, who has given us freedom of religion. It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not
the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to protest. It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial. It is the soldier, not the politician, who has given us the right to vote. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who
allows the protester to burn the flag.” Bob Thompson, pictured top right, is a veteran of the Marine Corps. He played the bagpipes to honor veterans who have served. The four wreaths in the background pay homage to them. From the left, the American Legion Auxiliary wreath, the Military Order of Purple Heart Auxiliary wreath, the Disabled
American Veteran Auxiliary wreath and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary wreath. Below right: Nanette Giacco, front, pays her respects by placing her hand over her heart at the Memorial Day ceremony. Below left: Two members of the Roswell Veterans Honor Guard participate in the Posting of the Colors.
Some Clinton UNM political science graduate emails hint at plans to work in immigration law political trouble WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton received information on her private email account about the deadly attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi that was later classified “secret” at the request of the FBI, underscoring lingering questions about how responsibly she handled sensitive information on a home server. The nearly 900 pages of her correspondence released Friday are only a sliver of the more than 55,000 pages of emails Clinton has turned
over to the State Department, which had its plan to release them next January rejected this week by a federal judge. Instead, the judge ordered the agency to conduct a “rolling production” of the records. Along with a Republican-led House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks, the slow drip of emails will likely keep the issue of how Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomSee CLINTON, Page A3 Today’s Forecast
HIGH 88 LOW 56
ALBUQUERQUE — Learning a new language can be challenging, but attempting to learn a new language while studying at a university more than 1,000 miles away from home is even more so. Like so many other students, Barbara Gomez Aguinaga has a lot of support from her family in Jalisco, Mexico, but that doesn’t make being away from home any easier. Gomez Aguinaga, a political science major who will graduate this semester, said she will be the second person in her
family to graduate from college. She is following in the footsteps of her brother, Mauricio Gomez, who has also been an inspiration for her. Gomez Aguinaga said there were many times when she thought she wanted to throw in the towel. Her first semester was the hardest, she said. With Spanish as her first language, she found it difficult to learn new concepts in English. “I have to find a way See LAW, Page A3
Submitted Photo
Barbara Gomez Aguinaga, right, with her mother Maria de los Angeles Aguinaga Gomez.
Index
Today’s Obituaries Page B4
• Jessica Gonzales • Maxine Morrison Machen
Classifieds...........B7 Comics..................B6 Financial..............B5 General........ A2, B5
Horoscopes.........A8
Opinion.................A4
Lotteries. ............A2
Sports. ................B1
Nation..................B4
Weather...............A8