Will Graduation Dream Come True?

Steven Kiernan, 17, has two dreams: One is to become a Marine, and the other is to wear his Marine dress-blue uniform to his high school graduation.

Kiernan is close to achieving the first. He has finished all but the final days of the grueling 12-week boot camp in San Diego.

But his goal of wearing his uniform to Petaluma High School’s graduation on June 11 appears thwarted.

The principal of the Northern California school notified Kiernan’s parents that school rules require that all graduates wear the traditional cap and gown.

Jim Kiernan, Steven’s father, plans to appeal the decision to the Petaluma school board at its meeting Tuesday.

“The Marine Corps has traditions, but I guess the school district has traditions too, and the different traditions have collided,” he said in a telephone interview.

Jim Kiernan, who works for a vineyard management company, said he was not so much angered by the decision as he was puzzled. Other graduates, he said, will be honored for their achievements, by wearing adornments on their caps or having their names read aloud.

“Finishing boot camp is my son’s achievement, and I think he deserves to be honored too,” Jim Kiernan said. He’s a member of another school board in Sonoma County and says he knows that school boards can overrule principals.

In similar cases this spring involving young Marines returning to their high school graduations in Illinois and Wisconsin, school officials lifted the no-uniforms rule.

Steven finished his course work early at Petaluma High so he could start boot camp. His parents, somewhat reluctantly, signed his enlistment papers.

Principal Mike Simpson said he sympathized with Steven and respects his decision to enlist. Simpson’s father was a Marine who saw combat in World War II.

Still, Simpson said, rules are rules.

“The intent of a graduation ceremony is not to individualize, but to show that all the graduates are part of the same class,” he said. “If we do differentiate, it’s because of academic achievements.”

The phone call last week to the Kiernans, after hearing of Steven’s desire to wear his dress blues, was not easy to make, Simpson said. He said he remembers talking to Steven when he was taking a metal shop class. The youth was wearing a Marine T-shirt, Simpson said.

“He’s a great kid, and we’re all proud of him,” Simpson said.

Once the story of the dress-blue controversy was reported in a local paper, the reaction of ex-Marines was swift and predictable.

The Kiernans were swamped by offers of support. Simpson received numerous e-mails.

“Most were primarily civil, but a couple were borderline and some were downright nasty,” Simpson said.

Simpson said that although wearing dress blues at the graduation ceremony is not permissible, nothing would prevent Steven from wearing it at an all-night party to be held afterward at a nearby school.

Jim Kiernan appreciates Simpson’s concern but feels an exception could be made, particularly at a time when his son and other recruits could be sent to a war zone.

Steven is set to graduate from boot camp June 1. He has finished the most punishing part of training, a 54-hour exercise called the Crucible in which recruits are taken to the hills of Camp Pendleton and pushed to the limits of their physical and emotional endurance.

After finishing the Crucible, he wrote to his parents that, “ain’t nothing stopping me now” from becoming a Marine. In the same letter, he restated his desire to wear his dress blues to graduation.

“It’s all he’s ever talked about -- becoming a Marine,” his father said.