By Ian Thompson

Army veteran Nicanor Rios was still in high school in 1967 when he got his draft notice.

The Fairfield man offered to volunteer the moment he graduated if the military was willing to let him finish, but the military wasn’t interested.

Within a couple of months he was flown to Vietnam to serve a year-long tour with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade as a rifleman.

Now, 51 years after he was patrolling the jungles of Vietnam, Rios and six other local veterans finally got the high school diplomas they misses out on when they joined the military.

“It feels great,” Rios said of the diploma he now holds.

The ceremony, which took place Thursday afternoon at the Solano County Office of Education, was the central part of a gathering that also honored local Vietnam veterans.

Source: Vietnam, Korean War vets from Solano get long-delayed high school diplomas