Graduate’s Walkout Over Military Sash Ban Touches Some Nerves

In 2016, just as Zachary Field was about to graduate from Orchard Park High School and get ready to join the Army, he called his father, David, with some troubling news: The school was not going to let him wear his military sash over his gown.

David Field was not happy and shared his displeasure with school officials
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“I told them two years ago unless they do something about this it was going to blow up on them,” Field said.

He was right.

Dillon Donovan, a member of the school’s class of 2018, left Orchard Park’s graduation ceremony Saturday after school staff would not let him wear his yellow U.S. Marine Corps sash over his maroon gown. He is leaving for boot camp next month.

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