SCHENECTADY — Sullivan Alois has done a lot in his 82 years.
The Schenectady native is a distinguished combat veteran who has traveled the world and stumbled upon a career in education shortly after graduating from the University at Buffalo in the early 1960s. The city school district there was desperate for teachers at the time, and Alois figured teaching for a year would be a good way to pay for his first trip to Europe, so he signed up.
“My mother always said I was born with sand in my shoes,” Alois said this week, as he recapped decades of travel alongside his wife Dianne that has taken him to 55 countries across six continents, and saw him hitchhike through Europe on three separate occasions.
Among the countries that Alois — or “Van” as his friend and family affectionately call him — has been to are the Dominican Republic and Vietnam, where he was deployed during two stints in the U.S. military between 1964 and 1966, and 1968 and 1969, respectively.
Alois enlisted in the military shortly after returning from his first trip to Europe at a time when fears over the spread of communism were at a high and the U.S. was engaged in a prolonged war in Vietnam.
“I figured I was going to get drafted, so I joined,” Alois said.
Alois would later receive a number of awards for his service, including two Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars for meritorious service in a combat zone, which he displays in a shadow box in his living room near a series of fully-stocked wall-to-floor bookshelves.
Alois has also received the Army Commendation Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Air Medal for Valor, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, and the Combat Infantryman’s/Parachute Badges.
On Saturday, Alois, the father of three daughters who has three grandchildren, received one more honor: A special proclamation recognizing his contributions handed to him by Schenectady County lawmakers as part of the county’s Honor-A-Veteran initiative.
The initiative began in 2017 as a way to honor veterans both living and posthumously who were either born or currently reside in the county, according to Gary Hughes, a District 2 representative.
Those honored are selected by a special committee after a nomination process. Alois was the 16th veteran to receive the recognition during a ceremony at St. Luke’s Church on State Street after being nominate by a member of VFW Post 357, where he has had a presence for years.
“He’s just a great guy. Very down to earth and an honest individual with a lot of integrity,” said Chuck Shannon, the commander of Post 357. “In my opinion, when he has that to offer, he can help just about anybody.”
Shannon said he first met Alois in 1975 when he was a student at Mont Pleasant High School and Alosis was a science teacher. The two never met in the classroom, but Shannon said that Alois was popular among all students at the time.
But a career in education was a complete accident, Alois admitted this week.
He said science was always an interest, but he stumbled upon teaching after college when he was looking for a way to fund his first of many trips to Europe over the years. He chose to stick with the profession because it afforded him the schedule to travel, which he fully took advantage of.
“I backed into it. If you told me I would have been a teacher, I would have laughed you out of the room. I’d want to know what you were drinking and smoking if you thought I was ever going to be a teacher,” Alois said.
But he quickly fell in love with the profession and would retire as a principal with the Schenectady City School District in 2010 following a decadeslong career.
“I went into a profession that I really could embrace,” Alois said.
During his tenure with the district, Alois organized a number of community cleanup events and sought to advance initiatives surrounding equity, according to Hughes, who worked alongside Alois as a member of the district’s school board.
“Van is just one of those people that always stood out to me as being in education for the kids as a role model to share his knowledge to lift them up as well and be a voice for all kids in the district,” Hughes said. “He was a very strong advocate for equity.”
But before he committed himself to teaching, Alois joined the military in 1964, following in the footsteps of his uncles, who served in World War II.
He was part of the 82nd Airborne Division and deployed to the Dominican Republic as part of Operation Power Pack, a short-lived civil war the U.S. became involved in after communist supporters overthrew a democratically elected president on the Caribbean island.
Alois was shot in the arm while serving and was later awarded his first Purple Heart. He left the military shortly after and began teaching science again at the Schenectady City School District.
But over the next two years, Alois said he began talking with Vietnam veterans and learned about how the Vietnamese people were fighting hard to free themselves from communist rule.
So, he did what few others would, but what he thought was necessary: He contacted the Pentagon and asked to be deployed to Vietnam for a year so he could fight in the war.
“I told them I wanted to go to Vietnam, I wanted another paratrooper assignment and I wanted my rank back, because I got out as a first lieutenant,” Alois said. “To make a long story short, they said yes.”
Alois was deployed with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in 1968, where he received special forces training and became a member of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam and worked to train Vietnamese to fight in the war.
During this time, he was shot in the foot while in a helicopter and had a toe amputated. Alois referred to the wound as a “blessing” as he recounted his time in an amputee ward at a military field hospital surrounded by soldiers with missing limbs.
“There was a chapter of my life where there were good times and bad times and sad times,” Alois said. “But you just got to move on. I can’t have a poor-me attitude, because a lot of people suffered a lot more than I did.”
Alois retired as a captain in the military in May 1969.
But it was while sharing his memories of traveling that Alois seemed the happiest.
He rattled off stories about navigating language barriers as he hitchhiked across Europe, and shared memories of traveling through India, Israel and countries throughout South America.
At one point, Alois mentioned owning eight Corvettes while recounting a trip down Route 66. He still owns one of the classic cars, a white 62, he bought in San Francisco in 1975 and drove cross country. It’s parked in his garage, but he still takes it out for the occasional spin while completing errands whenever the weather permits.
“My wife says if I go out for milk, I’ll go to the next county to get it,” Alois said.
Nowadays, Alois is mostly a homebody, spending most of his time visiting friends or traveling down state to visit his grandchildren. He hasn’t left the country since 2009, when he took a return trip to Vietnam.
Asked why he choose to stay in Schenectady after years of travel, Alois was quick to respond.
“There’s not place like home,” he said.
Contact reporter Chad Arnold at: [email protected] or by calling 518-395-3120.
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