BRENTWOOD, Calif. – Liberty High School graduate Harland Fletcher was illegally blocked by school officials from participating in last Friday’s graduation ceremony for wearing his U.S. Army uniform, rather than a cap and gown.

Both the principal and vice principal at Liberty High refused to allow Fletcher to wear his U.S. Army Reserve uniform at the graduation ceremony despite repeated assurances from his counselor that the uniform was appropriate for the occasion, KTVU reports.

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“I was really disappointed,” said Fletcher, who opted to sit out the ceremony over the issue. “I felt disrespected.”

Fletcher completed basic training between his junior and senior years, and as a reserve medic on his 17th birthday. When he arrived in his dress blues for graduation on Friday, he was told that if he did not change into a cap and gown he “can pick up the diploma in the office on Monday,” the student told the news site.

Fletcher told CBS San Francisco he tried to explain why he couldn’t simply cover up his uniform with a cap and gown, but school officials didn’t care.

“They said they had an extra cap and gown and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that. That’s defacing the uniform. That’s against the uniform policy,” he said, pointing to the Code of Military Justice.

If Fletcher would have complied with school officials’ demands, he could have faced a military court martial, the news site reports.

Fletcher’s father, Bill Fletcher, wasn’t happy about the situation.

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Bill Fletcher told KTVU he’s “tired of service members and vets being quietly and systematically denied rights by establishments that should know, respect and aide by the laws enacted on all our behalf.”

The controversy apparently convinced district officials to brush up on state law, which specifically allows students enlisted in the military to wear their uniforms at graduation.

“After reading AB 1463; 2009 STAT. Chapter 296 It has become clear that Harland Fletcher may have the right to wear his US Army Dress Uniform at his graduation and on behalf of the Liberty Union High School District I publicly apologize to him and his family for this Incident,” superintendent Eric Volta wrote in a prepared statement to the “Liberty Community.”

And despite Fletcher’s conversations with his counselor leading up to graduation, Volta alleged school officials were not given adequate advanced notice of his plans.

“No slight was meant to Harland nor to the US Army,” the superintendent wrote. “In fact with a little prior notification, I’m sure that Principal Walsh and the site administration would have come to this conclusion before the ceremony. Principal Walsh and the District do support the armed forces as exemplified by his recognition of graduating seniors that have chosen the military for their post-graduate plans during the graduation ceremony.”

Fletcher, who’s now heading to Advanced Individual Training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, told CBS San Francisco the apology isn’t good enough.

“I honestly feel like you can apologize all you really want, but in the moment you should’ve already known,” he said.