California School District Refuses To Give Vietnam Veteran His Diploma After 50 Years

[douglas9]

The bullet busted through his boot and pierced his heel. Fifty years later, he remembers how badly it burned.

Still, he was able to spot the enemy and give coordinates to two Cobra helicopters and the infantry. It was April 1969 in a firefight outside My Tho in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam.

Ken Weiner, a Purple Heart and Air Medal with Valor winner, was 18 then. He still doesn’t sleep all the way through at night. “I get nervous,” said Weiner, who lives in Murrieta.

He is still fighting.

His battle today is for his pride, and his opponent is the Long Beach Unified School District.


https://taskandpurpose.com/california-vietnam-veteran-diploma/

[3Hotdogs]

1. My father was a WW II veteran.

He was orphaned at age 12 and left school at the 7th grade. He went from foster home to foster home and then into the army. A couple of years later, WW II.

Years later, he wanted a job promotion that required a high school diploma. He went to the local high school, Millburn, New Jersey. He told the principal the problem and asked what he had to do to get a diploma.

The principal told him his "life experiences" were sufficient to have earned a diploma.

Thank you , Mr. Faddis.

That's how it should be done.

[exboyfil]

2. Of course the comments on the story were racist

LBUSD not only should have awarded his diploma, but even had a ceremony to celebrate this distinguished alumnus.

[Basic LA]

3. I got my GED High School diploma in the service in 1963.

I dropped out of high school at 16, then enlisted when I turned 17 in 1963. I wasn't sent to Vietnam until '67. Later I understand they instituted new policies that made it much more difficult to take & pass the GED High School equivalency exam.