3 WWII veterans graduate

All three men said they will treasure their diplomas all the more because of the wait.
By MARY GRZEBIENIAK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
HERMITAGE -- World War II loomed on the horizon. Teen-age boys traded literature and lockers, football games and class plays for military uniforms and European battlefields.
On Monday, three of those boys finally got the high school diplomas they sacrificed years ago to serve their country.
Applauding them were high school students who have a new appreciation of soldiers in the wake of Sept. 11, though they may never understand what it was like to be in high school in the 1940s.
David Cusick, Howard Hobaugh and Edward Krichko, all of Hermitage, received their diplomas from Eric Trosch, Hickory High School principal.
All three said afterward they will treasure the diplomas all the more for waiting so long to receive them.
Quit school: Cusick said he quit Hickory High at 18, just two English literature credits short of graduation. He saw the war coming and "wanted to do a few things" before he volunteered for the service, where he served as a first pharmaceutical mate second class in the Marines.
After the war, he said, the lack of a diploma bothered him. He obtained the necessary literature books from the school district and tried to study them on his own, but he gave up, saying they were "the most boring thing I ever saw," and too difficult to plow through alone.
Cusick said the diploma will be one of his most prized possessions.
Much meaning: Hobaugh, who was a high school student in Armstrong County, said he, too, realized he would be called to the military and quit high school before being drafted shortly afterward. He said that though he did earn a GED, his new diploma "means an awful lot" to him, more he thinks, than "those who got it at the right time."
Hobaugh was a corporal in what was the Army Air Force, serving as a mechanic on airplanes and engines.
Drafted in school: Krichko, who was drafted during his senior year at Hickory, said school officials were supposed to give him a diploma but never did.
A private first class in the Army's 286th Joint Assault Signal Corps, he went to work at Westinghouse after the war, and he was there more than 40 years.
Krichko said he will take his diploma home, "put it on the wall and look at it."
Change in law: Superintendent Karen Ionta said the event was made possible by a change in state law in June, 2001, when then-Gov. Tom Ridge signed "Operation Recognition," a law that allows Pennsylvania school districts to award diplomas to honorably discharged World War II veterans.
Giving the keynote address Monday was Maj. Grey Berrier, of the National Guard's 107th Field Artillery based in New Castle.
He told the group of about 800 high-schoolers and local veterans that the three diploma recipients represent "what has been called in America our greatest generation."
He said veterans have paid for American Constitutional rights with their "blood, sweat and tears."
"Freedom isn't free," he said. "It comes with a price." He said students who don't know what to say to veterans should simply say thank you.
He added, "Take the time to talk to them. Let them know you appreciate their service."
Patriotic music: The program included patriotic selections from the Hickory High School bands and Chamber Singers. Second-graders from Artman Elementary, dressed in sailor outfits, also sang "We Love the USA." The color guard from the Hermitage VFW took part.
Mrs. Ionta said after the program that the district would like to offer the program every year and invited other veterans who did not receive diplomas to contact the school district.