Joe Meza should have graduated 50 years ago. Instead, he went to war.

Meza, now 72, was an 18-year-old student at Wall High School in his junior year when he was drafted to fight in Vietnam.

“There’s seven of us in the family, and I was going to be the first one [to graduate],” Meza said, his voice cracking with emotion. “But Uncle Sam had a different idea.”

Meza’s younger brother was the only child in his family to graduate until Meza received his diploma in a small ceremony in the high school gym on September 17.

“It makes a lot of difference,” he said. “To me, it does.”

Last April, knowing how important it was to him, a representative from the Department of Veterans Affairs in San Angelo called high school principal Ryan Snowden to ask how Meza might receive an honorary diploma.

“I knew I’d seen something about it,” Snowden said. “Actually, my grandpa in Brady had done the same thing after World War II. Brady awarded him an honorary diploma three or four years before he died. So I knew it was possible.”

Snowden got to work researching the requirements soon after he got the call. He looked in the school board policy and found a provision for honorary diplomas for veterans.

“As long as they were on track to graduate and were honorably discharged, you can give them a diploma,” Snowden said. “That began the process, and I’m so glad we could do it.”

When Meza was drafted, he went from Abilene to Dallas, and then Dallas to California, where he spent six months at a base there. Next, he spent two weeks in New York before flying to Frankfurt, Germany. 

“When I was drafted, they gave me a radio and told me I was going to learn Morse Code,” Meza said, smiling. “I can’t hardly spell, let alone learn Morse Code!”

He spent 19 months in Frankfurt, waiting to go fight in Vietnam, but his company dissolved before he was ever sent. At that point, Meza was asked if he wanted to volunteer to go to Vietnam. He declined.

Instead, he returned to the Wall-area ranch where his family lived. He went to work at the Coca-Cola bottling company at night, the same place he worked nights when he was a student. After that, he went to work for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Later, he returned to Coke where he worked for more than 21 years before retiring.

Even though he didn’t officially graduate, Meza attended last spring’s WHS class of 2021 graduation where his would-be class was honored for their 50-year anniversary.

“I told them,” Meza recalled, his voice cracking again. “While y’all were here graduating [50 years ago], you had a diploma in one hand and your cap in the other one. Me? I was overseas. I had an M-16 in one hand and a radio in the other.”

Now, at long last, there’s a diploma in Meza’s hand, too.

Staff writer Jake Slaven contributed to this story.