A 100-year-old veteran of World Warfare II, the Korean Warfare and the Vietnam Warfare thought he was going to a celebration for his a centesimal birthday and to honor his contributions to the College of Maryland International Campus, his alma mater.
As a substitute, Jack Milton this week acquired the shock of a lifetime: his long-overdue commencement ceremony.
“I’ve had many ceremonies all through my life, happily, to have fun many events, however this must be the tops,” Milton advised Fox 5 DC.
“I really feel like that is the finale of an extended journey in schooling — and once more, I maintain utilizing the phrase appreciative, however I can’t consider every other phrase,” he added.
Milton, 100, enrolled on the College of Maryland International Campus within the Sixties whereas he was working on the Pentagon.
On the time, the college was known as College of Maryland, College Faculty.
Then, and now, the college caters to non-traditional faculty college students, together with veterans, and affords each in-person and distance studying.
Milton was a navy pilot for 31 years.
He amassed greater than 12,000 flying hours, mentioned a 2021 article from Achiever, the College of Maryland International Campus journal.
Throughout his profession within the Air Drive, Milton was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and flew fight missions in Vietnam.
Milton had earned sufficient credit for his bachelor of arts diploma, and was planning on strolling the stage at commencement in 1966.
However earlier than that would occur, he was deployed to Vietnam.
It had at all times irked him that he by no means formally acquired his diploma, he mentioned.
“On my strategy to Southeast Asia, I had many ideas about not being there to see my fellow graduates,” Milton mentioned to Fox 5 DC.
President Gregory Fowler, PhD, of the College of Maryland International Campus mentioned it was an honor to current Milton along with his diploma and commencement cap — a number of a long time after it was purported to have occurred.
“I hereby confer upon John L. Milton the diploma of bachelor of arts with all of the rights and privileges thereto and pertaining. Congratulations,” mentioned Fowler.
After he returned from Vietnam, Milton, alongside along with his spouse, Symantha Milton, remained concerned within the College of Maryland International Campus neighborhood.
They particularly supported packages for energetic navy and veterans enrolled on the faculty.
In 2010, the Miltons established the John L. and Symantha Milton Scholarship Fund, which helps one other College of Maryland International Campus scholarship fund particularly for volunteer caregivers of injured navy servicemembers, mentioned Achiever.
Fox Information Digital reached out to the College of Maryland International Campus for added remark.
Supply hyperlink
