License plate bill would honor slain soldiers

"DISCOVERY BAY — Kevin Graves says he wishes he had never met his good friend Mike Anderson.
Graves, a Discovery Bay resident, joined the ranks of California's tens of thousands of Gold Star families July 25, 2006, when his son, Spc. Joseph Graves, was killed by an improvised explosive device in an ambush in Iraq. Graves had raised Joey, who was 21 at the time of his death, in Discovery Bay as a single parent.
'It's a fraternity that none of us asked to be a part of,' Kevin Graves said Thursday.
For more than a year he and Modesto's Anderson, whose son Cpl. Michael Anderson Jr. was killed in Iraq in 2004, have been working to honor the families who have lost loved ones fighting in America's military conflicts.
Following the example of other states, Graves and Anderson are lobbying the California Legislature to pass a bill, SB1455, creating a Gold Star Family California license plate. The bill will be heard in the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing on Tuesday. Their attempt to pass a bill last session did not make it to the committee level."

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