UNIONDALE, NY / ACCESS Newswire / December 9, 2025 / Marquis Who's Who honors G A Redding for distinguished military service. This recognition highlights his career in the U.S. Army, where he advanced senior leadership positions.
Military Roles
Mr. Redding's military service included roles such as information officer and armed forces accredited combat photographer for the U.S. Army in Vietnam and executive assistant for the American Forces Information Service, the overarching body of the American Forces Radio and Television Service. He later served as chief of the Audiovisual Resources and Policy Divisions for the Department of Defense.
Career Perspective
Captain Redding's military service for the U.S. Army in Vietnam, where he provided daily updates to the media, often accompanying them into the field, from My Lai to the DMZ, on more than 20 combat missions, becoming the only U.S. servicemember (based on togetherweserved.com's database) to earn the Republic of Vietnam Air Service Medal. On August 11, 1972, he documented the last combat unit's departure and the last time the U.S. flag was lowered at a firebase. In leaving that event, he was the last soldier out. His handwritten daily journal with more than 400 photos was published in Word and are archived at the U.S. Army Museum.
As executive assistant, American Forces Information Service (AFIS), he drafted Congressional testimony to secure approval and funding to create the American Forces Radio and Television Service Satellite Network. The AFRTS SATNET provides news, sports, and entertainment to Service members overseas.
Major Redding, based on his Vietnam experience with the media, was selected as the press officer for the Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai, implementing President Carter's Camp David Accords. He managed VIP and media visits, over 200 individuals, for the 11 military contingents. He maintained a daily journal providing text and photo documentation including the historic flag raising event returning Sinai to Egypt, May 10, 1982.
Returning stateside in 1983 to the U.S. Army Audiovisual Center, he reorganized Army Combat Camera operations and staffing as gender neutral; other Services followed. A year later was reassigned back to AFIS as chief audiovisual policy for the Defense Department and in 1988 procured Datapoint's MINX desktop video teleconferencing system for the office of the Secretary of Defense's Public Affairs Office and AFIS. This was DoD's first such purchase. In that assignment, Lieutenant Colonel Redding, responding to increased photo digitization in 1990, transferred $200,000 to the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), established the Joint Photographic Experts Group. The Group included data specialists from industry - Microsoft, Apple, Kodak, Pioneer, etc. Data specifications were agreed to in 1992, each vendor vying for intellectual property rights. Mr. Redding, now retired, informed the Group that, since DoD funded this effort, .jpg specifications would be in the public domain and available for free, unlike Adobe's recently released .pdf format.
The Oncology Department, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, asked Mr. Redding to assist in evaluating radiographic imaging (x-rays) vis-à-vis .jpg imaging. In a series of tests, .jpg prevailed over film with the bonus of embedding metadata files and electronic transmission. Later, Gulf War medical activities used digital imaging for MEDEVAC, enabling hospital-based physicians to plan needed operations. Today, medical imaging is all digital. In addition to warfighting applications, Consumer electronics quickly went digital as resolution improved GA worked with the National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) to apply digital TV tech, e.g. HDTV.
Mr. Redding's reputation as a program manager caught the attention of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), subsequently retaining him to develop and launch training programs for President Clinton's www.dna.gov initiative. He led courseware developed by NIJ contractors for lab techs, law enforcement, lawyers, forensic researchers and others in that domain. He also was DoD's respondent to Clinton's President's Technology Initiative (PTI) to connect every Department of Defense Education Activity school to the information superhighway.
Reflections and Contributions
Looking back on his Army career, Mr. Redding explains the military is not necessarily rigid: "It can be what you want it to be under the old Army adage, ‘Be all you can be.' You can guide your own career depending on what you volunteer for. I often took on jobs nobody else wanted."
One of Mr. Redding's more impactful projects after the military was with the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative. He was responsible for publishing much of the Department of Defense's documentation on distance learning, drafting reports to Congress and signing off on major policies. Notably, he published SCORM 4.0 more than 20 years ago, a foundational standard that remains in use today. His work was recognized by the Corporation for National Center for Research Initiatives (CNRI). Working with CNRI, he developed a schema for implementing CNRI's Digital Object Architecture; Handle.Net Registry for assigning, managing and resolving persistent identifiers for digital objects and other Internet resources within the Defense Department. In Mr. Redding's words, "Think of this as a searchable Dewey Decimal System."
Values Learned in a Military Family
Mr. Redding came from a military family, affording him a holistic perspective on living overseas and stateside, as well as the virtues of tolerance and discipline. He had drive, dedication and a strong work ethic. These attributes enabled him to succeed in a wide variety of challenges.
Educationally, Mr. Redding holds a Master of Business Administration from the Indiana State University Scott College of Business. He also earned a Master of Science in radio-television from Butler University and a Bachelor of Science in mass communication from the University of Denver. His military schooling, coupled with his academic degree programs, complemented his expertise in public affairs, strategic communication and organizational leadership.
Mentorship and Professional Growth
During Mr. Redding's military career, colleagues often reached out to him for support and guidance. "People tended to come to me for advice, even those who didn't work for me," he says. Within military organizations and the federal government, he was a sought-after resource for distance learning, receiving Hall of Fame recognition from Defense Information School (DINFOS) in 2021; the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) Hall of Fame in 2009; the Federal Government Distance Learning Association (FGDLA) in 2011; and the only non-government FGDLA Eagle awardee in 2012.
Leadership in the Private Sector
After retiring from active duty, Mr. Redding applied his leadership and communication skills to civilian positions. He was an adjunct research staff member for the Institute for Defense Analyses, where, for over 15 years, he focused on distance learning technologies and applications. He was also the director of the ADL CoLab Hub in Alexandria under the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL-I). Moreover, he represented the DoD in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, identifying defense education STEM programs that could be made available to K-12 schools.
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