A 100-year-old veteran of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War thought he was going to a celebration for his 100th birthday and to honor his contributions to the University of Maryland Global Campus, his alma mater, Fox News reported.
Instead, Jack Milton this week received the surprise of a lifetime: his long-overdue graduation ceremony.
"I’ve had many ceremonies throughout my life, fortunately, to celebrate many occasions, but this has to be the tops," Milton told Fox 5 DC.
"I feel like this is the final of a long journey in education — and again, I keep using the word appreciative, but I can’t think of any other word," he added.
Milton, 100, enrolled at the University of Maryland Global Campus in the 1960s while he was working at the Pentagon. At the time, the school was called University of Maryland, University College.
Jack Milton, front and center, finally had a graduation ceremony from the University of Maryland Global Campus on Tuesday, April 30. He missed his original ceremony in the 1960s because he was called to serve in Vietnam.
Then, and now, the school caters to non-traditional college students, including veterans, and offers both in-person and distance learning.
Milton was a military pilot for 31 years. He amassed more than 12,000 flying hours, said a 2021 article from Achiever, the University of Maryland Global Campus magazine.
Milton had earned enough credits for his bachelor of arts diploma, and was planning on walking the stage at graduation in 1966.
But before that could happen, he was deployed to Vietnam.
It had always irked him that he never formally received his diploma, he said.
In 2010, the Miltons established the John L. and Symantha Milton Scholarship Fund, which supports another University of Maryland Global Campus scholarship fund specifically for volunteer caregivers of injured military servicemembers, said Achiever.
