Representative Maney Welcomes Acting Navy Secretary Cao

Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao paused before Saturday night’s EOD Memorial Ball to visit a statue of Lenah Higbee, the first female recipient of the Navy Cross, at the Women Veterans Monuments at Veterans’ Park on Okaloosa Island.

• Cao, dressed for the ball at the adjacent Destin-Fort Walton Beach Convention Center, stopped at the park with state Rep. Patt Maney, a retired Army brigadier general, NWFMOA member and personal friend, and Okaloosa County Commissioner Carolyn Ketchel, who spearheaded the effort to create the park. Ketchel said Cao had just learned of the Higbee statue.

  The Lenah Higbee statue stands among 12 bronze sculptures honoring women who have served in the U.S. military in heroic ways. Cao, a former Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal diving officer, had returned to Eglin Air Force Base earlier that day to deliver the keynote at the 57th annual EOD Memorial Ceremony, the same school he graduated from on Sept. 13, 2001. He also keynoted the 58th EOD Memorial Ball that evening.