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KUPONO DIPLOMA PROGRAM

People who did not graduate from a public high school in Hawaii due to military service in World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War, or because they were internees in a relocation camp during World War II, can apply for honorary diplomas from the state Department of Education.

Family members may apply for a diploma to be awarded posthumously.

Applications are available online at doe.k12.hi.us/kuponodiploma, or may be requested by e-mail at doe_info@notes.k12.hi.us or by calling (808) 586-3232.

Applications may be submitted at any time during the year.

WAILUKU - It was a long walk for 82-year-old John Han to the graduation stage.

The Kula resident received his diploma Saturday - 63 years after he had once expected to graduate with the Maui High School Class of 1946.

Han dropped out of school in his junior year to enlist in the U.S. Army and wound up serving as a translator in Korea after the surrender of Japan ended World War II. He received his diploma under the state Department of Education's Kupono Diploma program, which awards honorary diplomas to people whose schooling was interrupted for military service in World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War, or due to internment in relocation camps during World War II.

Han said it was a great feeling to be getting his diploma after so many years of having to explain why he never finished his formal education.

"I know what I had to go through whenever they asked me if I graduated from high school," he said. "I don't have to shy away from any questions now."

Han was a regular high-school kid during the early-war years - he played football and loved fishing with his friends. As soon as they were old enough, most of his friends left school to join the Army. Han wanted to enlist with his buddies. But at 17 years old, he was too young.

"I couldn't lie about my age, so I had to go back to school," he said.

One year later, the combination of finally being of age and then a clash with a strict teacher was all the nudge he needed. Han dropped out of school and joined the Army. Within a few weeks, he was on a ship bound for Texas and basic training. It was 1945.

Seventeen weeks into his training, an officer approached Han and offered him a chance to receive intensive language instruction in order to become a Korean language interpreter. Had he stayed with his unit, he would have been shipped to Southeast Asia as an infantryman fighting in the jungle to drive the Japanese out of the Philippines, which the Axis power had occupied for almost the entirety of the war. Han chose to accept the assignment as an interpreter.

After the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and effectively put an end the war in August of 1945, Han was shipped to Korea, where he served as a translator in a hospital.

He later served in the office of a brigadier general. His boss offered him a promotion, if he would agree to commit to three more years of service. But Han took the advice of his local Korean friends.

"They told me I should go home, because a war was going to come. And sure enough," he said. The Korean War began June 25, 1950.

Back on Maui, Han immediately enrolled at Maui High School to complete his education.

"They wanted me to play football again!" he said. "But I was 21 already."

One of his new classmates - who was two years his junior - caught his eye and later became his wife. John and Elizabeth Han have been married 60 years.

But two months shy of what would have been his graduation in 1948, Han was offered a job with Hawaiian Tel. With so many men recently returning from the war and looking for employment, he said, he wasn't in a position to turn it down. So he quit school to start working.

"It wasn't easy to get a job in those days," Elizabeth Han recalled.

The couple have five children, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild. One son is an Air Force veteran, and a grandson served in Iraq with the Army National Guard and is now a military recruiter.

Han said he thought he would never get his high school diploma, but when the couple learned about the Department of Education's program for veterans, Elizabeth Han gathered together his discharge papers and other documents, and he applied.

"Before we knew it, the DOE called," she said.

Elizabeth Han said her husband expected to simply receive his diploma in the mail and was reluctant to walk the stage in graduation ceremonies. But he changed his mind after attending a grandson's graduation from King Kekaulike High School.

"He said, 'OK, we'll do it,' " she said.

Even though her husband had a successful career without graduating from high school, and he attends Class of 1946 reunions, Elizabeth Han said she knew the diploma was meaningful to him.

"I think it's just a satisfaction," she said.

* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.