YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea — Americans, South Koreans, Japanese, French and Italians. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. Civilian contractors and family members. Teens and retirees.

All of these groups were represented during the University of Maryland University College-Asia commencement ceremony Sunday at Seoul American High School.

“I cannot imagine what some of you have gone through” to earn diplomas, commencement speaker Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, told more than 70 graduates. “Yours is a story of great perseverance.”

Hill, top U.S. envoy working on the North Korean nuclear threat, spoke of the U.S. military community’s role in South Korea. “You know the importance of what you do,“ he said.

Dr. Joseph J. Arden, UMUC Overseas Military Programs vice president, asked the candidates for degrees, college staff and audience members to stand when he referenced the year they first attended a class or worked for the college. The last person to stand — one of Sunday’s graduates — took his first class at University of Maryland in the mid-1960s.

Robert B. Laughlin, president of the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, also spoke Sunday.

“I’m one of the few academics you’ll ever meet to have served in the Armed Forces,” said the 1998 Nobel laureate. He said from serving with the U.S. Army, including a tour in Germany, he “learned a lot” — mainly, how difficult it is to be a student and a soldier. Even without a family, he was unable to focus on his studies while serving his country, he said — and “I have to confess that I tried really hard.”

Laughlin said the graduates’ work on their degrees, while making ends meet, caring for families and doing their jobs, was honorable. “Could one of you win the Nobel prize?” he asked. “Why not?”

Dr. Gary T. Hunt, UMUC-Asia’s Korea director, said the average graduate was 34 and took 13 years to earn a bachelor’s degree. The youngest to earn a degree was 19; the oldest, 58.

He talked about a graduate who earned a degree after 40 years of study, those who earned degrees totally through distance education, a soldier who took a break to lead troops in Iraq and two children of embassy personnel.

He pointed out that three of Sunday’s graduates came from K-16, Seoul Air Base, a tiny airfield south of Seoul. No one had graduated from K-16 for years, he said, but six of Col. David J. Abramowitz’s 17th Aviation Brigade soldiers earned degrees in the past year.

"We have emphasized education," Abramowitz stated via e-mail Sunday evening. “I was so proud of these soldiers from K-16.” He also thanked the education office for doing a great job with his soldiers.

Hunt also asked Maurice Damion and Agnes D. Kirkman-Bey to stand. The husband and wife, active-duty soldiers, earned degrees Sunday.

After the ceremony, Maurice called the degree “a long time coming.” He said he took his first college class in 1989. Little things, like Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom occasionally got in the way of classes, said the 21-year veteran.

They have two girls, whom they mentor so they’ll be able to go straight to college instead of “doing it the way we did,” the 41st Signal Battalion soldier said.

“It was tough, demanding, but most importantly, rewarding,” he said of earning the degree.