Many Vietnam veterans faced a less-than-welcoming reception upon returning from the battlefield. One local veteran simply summed up his return as “lousy.”
“People were yelling at you, screaming at you and spitting at you when I came home,” said Robert Lynch, a Guilderland resident and Vietnam veteran. “One of my friends got spit at in the airport.”
Lynch, though, was somewhat prepared for the treatment, because at base camp before departure he was told he would be sent home in uniform and should “expect to be treated like dirt.”
“We were called baby killers and things like that,” Lynch said.
That treatment was opposite to what the 69-year-old veteran received Tuesday, May 28, at a Guilderland Board of Education meeting where he received two standing ovations. Lynch was there for something many people experience decades earlier: receiving a high school diploma.
He admitted he didn’t expect for the diploma ceremony to move him as much as it did. After returning to his seat, with his diploma in hand, he wiped a tear off his face.
“I thought it was very nice,” he said. “Over 25 people walked up congratulated me. I was shocked.”
About two years ago, Lynch found out about the state’s Operation Recognition program, which allows veterans to earn high school diplomas if they didn’t graduate from high school. The state Education Law allows World War II, Korea and Vietnam veterans who left school to apply. Veterans must be a state resident with a satisfactory discharge and provide certain documentation.
In February, he contacted the school district about receiving a diploma.
“I just felt like it was something I missed and something I figured I do, because I wanted it,” he said.
Guilderland High School Principal Thomas Lutsic said he was honored to present Lynch his diploma and commended him for his service.
“One of the greatest things I do as a high school principal is to watch our students graduate and walk across the stage, and I really didn’t think there was much else that could surpass that,” Lutsic said, “but tonight is such an event.”
Board of Education President Colleen O’Connell thanked Lynch for his service.
“It seems to me quite fitting that the day after Memorial Day we are honoring and recognizing Mr. Robert Lynch for his service to our country,” O’Connell said. “Your efforts kept all of us present free.”
Lynch served from December of 1966 to November 1968, after being drafted shortly after getting married. He said he didn’t serve in the “backwoods” of Vietnam, and recalled going into town one night with his friend.
“We were in downtown of one of the cities and a Vietnamese kid came around the corner and threw a grenade at a friend of mine,” he said.
Lynch’s friend quickly reached for his service revolver and shot the child, who Lynch estimated was around 8 or 9. The child didn’t die from the shot, he said.
Lynch recalled having rockets shot at him by the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive.
“In Vietnam, no matter where you were, the communists came out and shot rockets at you and tried to dislodge people from living there,” he said.
After the meeting, Lynch clarified he didn’t leave school to enter the service, but was actually kicked out from school after pulling a prank on the principal.
Lynch said the school’s principal disciplined a friend, so they decided to get even with him. This retribution involved placing the principal’s Volkswagen on the school’s roof using wood boards to roll it up using a pulley system. The school was located in Albany on Elm Street.
He earned his GED after leaving high school, but still yearned for his diploma all these years later. The state requirements allow for the diploma to be awarded even if qualified veterans have earned their GED.
For several years, Lynch kept in touch with a few people he served with, but over time he lost touch with some. Fifty-eight thousand American soldiers serving in Vietnam never made it home.
“I do know a few people from Albany that were drafted when I was and a couple of them never came home,” he said.