{"id":610,"date":"2014-06-30T15:30:46","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T22:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/?p=610"},"modified":"2019-04-12T21:16:19","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T04:16:19","slug":"george-hulka-graduates-at-100-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/?p=610","title":{"rendered":"George Hulka Graduates at 100 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more--><a href=\"http:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/100-year-old.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-611 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/100-year-old.jpg\" alt=\"100 year old\" width=\"250\" height=\"179\" \/><\/a>A 100-year-old man in upstate New York is finally getting his high school diploma this weekend along with his 19-year-old great-grandson.<\/p>\n<p>George Hulka Jr., of Saratoga Springs, is an Army veteran of World War II. He made it as far as eighth grade at his one-room schoolhouse in the 1920s. He left to work on the family\u2019s dairy farm.<\/p>\n<p>He was drafted ahead of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and fought as a rifleman in the 9th Division, nicknamed the \u201cOld Reliables,\u201d from North Africa to Germany. He received a bronze star for his service, but he never finished school.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Today Hulka is recovering from a broken leg at The Wesley Community nursing home.<\/p>\n<p>On June 28, his great-grandson Devin Stark will pick up Hulka\u2019s diploma, along with his own, at his graduation ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>The Schuylerville School District is giving him an honorary diploma as part of a state program, \u201cOperation Recognition,\u201d which allows World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans to receive diplomas despite not finishing school.<\/p>\n<p>During the war, Hulka fought in Algeria-French Morocco, Tunisia, and Sicily before he landed on Utah Beach on D-Day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was hell,&#8221; Hulka told the\u00a0Albany Times Union. &#8220;I got out of a landing craft and ran like hell, ducking and jumping over bodies and all the things that go with war.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He fought through northern France into central Europe and the Rhineland. During that time he contracted malaria and lost some of his hearing when a bomb exploded nearby.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just kept going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He returned to New York and started a family. His wife of 64 years, Shirley Hulka, died in 2010. The couple had four children together.<\/p>\n<p>Today his great-grandson lives on the farm where he grew up.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a very amazing man for what he did,&#8221; Stark said.<\/p>\n<p>Hulka, who turned 100 in April 2014, is one of six veterans to receive a diploma from Schuylerville schools.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-living-legends","category-past-notoriety","wpcat-8-id","wpcat-4-id","wpcat-6-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4542,"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/4542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dropoutnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}