All seven-year-old Adam Stinnett wanted to do was follow in the footsteps of his big brother Justin, a soldier who served in Afghanistan. So Stinnett, who hopes to one day join the army to “change the world,” had his mom give him a typical military-style “high and tight” haircut.
The only problem? The Tennessee elementary school he attends wouldn’t let him keep it. Officials told him to go home and shave it off because it was too much of a “distraction”:
Adam’s mother Amy says she told the school the haircut was not a mohawk, that it was a military haircut. “Well, we’re not a military school and that it has to be cut or he cannot return to school until it is,” was the response Amy says was given to her by the school.
“It broke my heart. It pretty much crushed a seven-year-old’s dreams” Amy stated.
According to the local school director, the McMinnville district doesn’t prohibit such military haircuts, but that “it’s up to each school to determine if a haircut is distracting.” Ironically enough, Stinnett’s Bobby Ray Memorial Elementary School was named after a soldier who died while fighting in the Vietnam War.
“The school should be ashamed of themselves. Is the way I feel. They have shamed a lot of military personnel,” Amy told Fox 17 News.