Holloway, along with 14 other veterans of World War II and the Korean War, were finally handed their honorary sheepskins on April 16 at a special ceremony at the Santa Clara County Office of Education. The 15 veterans had their high school education cut short when they enlisted in the military, and when they returned home, various reasons prevented them from completing their education.

The education office's program, called "Operation Graduate," was launched in November. The program is offered to veterans and Japanese-American citizens who were unable to finish high school because of military service or internment during World War II and the Korean War.

"It was quite an honor to finally get my diploma," said Holloway a couple days later from the Almaden Expressway machine shop that he's run for 31 years.

Holloway attended Gilroy High School but joined the Navy late in World War II. He was discharged as a Seaman 2nd Class and returned to Gilroy High School but spent only six weeks in class. He felt too out of place as a man in his early 20s trying to learn in a school filled with teenagers—the maturity gap was too wide. So he asked the vice principal if he could finish his high school education without attending classes.

The vice principal told him that the only course he needed to complete to earn his diploma was in U.S. history, and he could take a correspondence course through UC-Berkeley.

Holloway sent for the materials, studied for six weeks, and took his final exam without the benefit of textbooks, even though it was an open-book test.

"I wanted to be fair to myself, make sure I had the knowledge I needed," Holloway said.

He passed with a top grade and went to the vice principal asking if he could graduate with the other seniors that June. The vice principal, Holloway said, changed his story and told him no, saying he also needed to pass courses in math and English.

"Tell you what," he told the vice principal defiantly. "I'm going to succeed in my life without my high school diploma. I'll struggle, but I'll succeed, and I'll make something of myself. So you can take your diploma and keep it. I don't want it."

"So all these years I've educated myself, and I still am," he said proudly. But he always looked back and wondered, "What if ..."

Right out of the service he wanted to be a cabinetmaker. He spent only four hours in a cabinet workshop before realizing cabinetmaking would be bad for his health.

"It didn't have a dust collector system; the dust was so heavy in there I got to the point I could hardly breath," he said.

He quit that same day.

He had the support of his wife, Jane, whom he had married in 1947 and who did have a high school degree. Holloway's lack of a diploma was not an issue with his wife.

That year they moved to Willow Glen from Gilroy. They lived on Guadalupe Avenue for 11 years and later moved to Clark Way.

He became a self-taught machinist in 1949, working 48-hour weeks, and also took night classes four nights a week at the now-defunct San Jose Technical School.

"I watched Willow Glen grow," he said. "In the '40s, '50s and the early part of the '60s, Willow Glen was a quieter town, but the whole area of San Jose has grown tremendously."

He also watched his three sons grow up in Willow Glen. Dennis, 53, Andrew, 50, and Matthew, 40, each attended Willow Glen High School, and Holloway attended each of their graduation ceremonies.

"Oh, I felt very happy for them," he said.

Now Operation Graduate has provided a sense of closure for Holloway, and he hopes no one has to cut short their high school education.

His advice to those serving in the military: "Go back to school and get your diploma," he said without hesitation. "Don't follow my example. I figure in today's society, if you do not have a formal education it'll set you back. It's going to come to a time when even a college diploma is not going to be sufficient" to get employment. "Pretty soon you'll need a master's degree to get a job. The more formal education you can get, the better off your life will be."

There wasn't such an emphasis on formal education in his youth, he recalls.

"I think today's society, as far as education is concerned, is much different than it was" in the 1940s.

"You could get a job almost anyplace, whether you had a high school diploma or not—it didn't mean that much," he says. "But in the future a formal education is going to mean more to young people to get employed or even to get along in life."

For more information about Operation Graduate, contact the Santa Clara County Office of Education by writing to 1290 Ridder Park Drive, calling 408.453.6500 or visiting www.sccoe.org/operationgraduate/.