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Friday, September 29, 2000



Isle WWII vets
may get a break
(and a diploma)

Many went into military service
and did not get to finish high school


By Crystal Kua
Star-Bulletin

Mutsuo Tanaka was about 17 years old at Farrington High School when he was drafted into the Army in 1945.

After he was discharged four years later, he ended up working to support his family and didn't finish high school, opting instead to go to trade school. "I had to learn some kind of trade."

So Tanaka never received his high school diploma.

Tanaka, now 73 and living in Mississippi, says there are many World War II veterans like him -- especially volunteers of the celebrated 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team -- who never completed high school because of the war.

"When they came back, they didn't have time to go to school anymore," Tanaka said via telephone.

Tanaka recently wrote to state schools Superintendent Paul LeMahieu inquiring if Hawaii had a program similar to those in Mississippi and other states that honors World World II veterans by allowing them to receive their high school diplomas if they weren't able to complete high school because of the war.

Members of a Board of Education committee said yesterday that starting a program here is a good idea.

"It's good. It makes sense," said board member Denise Matsumoto, chairwoman of the Regular Education Committee. "There are people all over Hawaii like that."

Matsumoto said the Department of Education would develop procedures for such a program and hopes to get something in place by Veterans Day in November.

Matsumoto said she had an uncle who served during World War II and wasn't able to get his diploma after the war.

Board member Keith Sakata asked whether such an honor could be extended to veterans of other wars. The department will also look into that.

Although he made the request, Tanaka said he's not sure he would qualify.

Tanaka received his draft notice in February 1945 during the war but he was able to get a deferment to the end of summer. He officially entered the military about a week after VJ Day -- the end of the war.

The program in Mississippi enables those who served between Dec. 7, 1941, and Dec. 31, 1946, and who were honorably discharged to be eligible.

If those criteria are used, Tanaka would get his diploma, but he's not worried about that.

"If I don't qualify, it don't matter to me -- as long as the other people get it," Tanaka said. "That would be nice for the veterans."



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