TOWN OF MANLIUS –  Though more accustomed to giving than receiving, Manlius VFW Post 7872 Commander Paul Hrynio said he was “honored” to accept the Distinguished Veteran of the Year award during this year’s Veterans Day observance at the Onondaga County War Memorial.
Hrynio started his military career after enlisting in the United States Army and entering the field artillery branch amid the Gulf War. His influences to join the armed forces were his father, who served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, and his grandfather, a World War II Army veteran.
“I just thought it was my duty to serve,” Hrynio said.
He joined the Manlius Veterans of Foreign Wars post in 1995 and went on to become a combat engineer and drill sergeant.
In 2004, Hrynio was part of the search and rescue team that recovered the body of a head Honduran missionary whose plane had crashed on a return trip from El Salvador. In return for the effort, which involved scaling and descending a mountainside, the Honduran Embassy presented Hrynio with a Citation Award for exemplary service.
He later transferred to the 174th Attack Wing in Syracuse, and to secure a job in the “outside world,” he built up skills as an electrician in the civil engineer unit.
Hrynio was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, and upon sustaining injuries he medically retired in April 2018 after 27 years in the military.
He makes it his mission now to give those who served either in combat or stateside the recognition he sees as overdue.
With the Manlius VFW, he has participated in more than a dozen centenarian salutes put on by Honor Flight Syracuse. He also makes weekly visits to Clear Path For Veterans in Chittenango and assists Feed Our Vets in New York Mills.
“It’s my passion to do these things for all veterans because God had other plans for me,” Hrynio said at last week’s Veterans Day ceremony. “While I was in Afghanistan in 2010, a 46-pound artillery round landed 50 feet in front of me. However, it didn’t explode. If it did, I wouldn’t be here talking to you today.”
Hrynio also follows the maxim that “knowledge is power.”
Whenever and wherever he can, he seeks to inform military veterans of the exemptions and discounts allowed to them while making sure that presentations keep proper flag etiquette. At recruitment events, he tells the story of the buddy poppies as a memorial flower.
“I try to educate people militarily from the stuff that I’ve learned through my 27 years because it’s deep in my soul,” Hrynio said. “It’s my passion.”
At the Friday observance ceremony, Hrynio helped with firing detail, the presentation of the colors and the escorting of Gold Star Mothers. He also rang the Memorial Hall bell 11 times to make a commitment to peace and commemorate soldiers and civilians injured or lost to warfare.
Later that afternoon, the Manlius VFW took part in war monument ceremonies in downtown Syracuse and at Brookdale Manlius.
Aside from covering 38 VFW posts from Pulaski to Binghamton to Rochester as District 5 Commander, Hrynio is also an adjutant on the Onondaga County Veterans Council, a contributor to the Onondaga County Veterans Advisory Board and a member of American Legion Post 787 in Cicero.