Friday, October 1, 2021
It’s never too late: Ninety-six-year-old World War II veteran earns high school diploma
SOUTH BEND – Mishawaka native and U.S. Navy veteran Robert Plasschaert received his high school diploma this summer in a small ceremony surrounded by family and friends. But unlike most high school grads, Plasschaert wasn’t busy making plans to attend college or enter the workforce. At the 96-years-old, Plasschaert was accomplishing a goal he never thought possible.
Looking Back
As news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor reached the airwaves in Mishawaka, Indiana, a 15-year-old Plasschaert and his friends listened to the radio broadcast in horror inside Bonnie Doon’s Ice Cream Shop. The USS Arizona descended to its watery grave and the young men were filled with a patriotic fervor. They raced to the local military recruiter’s office determined to join the fight.
“Entering WWII was a big thing for all of us young guys, we were fired up,” said Plasschaert. “None of us were old enough to join the military, except one, and wouldn’t you know it, he was assigned stateside during the entire course of the war and never saw a bit of action.”
Emotions were running high after the attack on Pearl Harbor and many young Americans were motivated to join the war effort. Plasschaert had to wait two more years before he was able to join the U.S. Navy. He eagerly left high school in the middle of his junior year and became one of the first radio operators on board the newly commissioned destroyer USS Samuel S. Miles, nicknamed the “Sad Sack Sammy.”
During Robert’s time on “Sammy,” his crew and he protected ships in the Marshall Islands, sunk a Japanese submarine, guarded Iwo Jima invasion forces and provided cover for Okinawa bombers. They only suffered one casualty during their tour when one of the gunners on the ship was killed in a kamikaze attack. The ship’s crew was nicknamed “the Miracle Boys,” and earned a reputation for escaping harm while seemingly caught in desperate battles where many others lost their lives. The destroyer acted as bait so often they even managed to fool Japanese ship crews into backing down from aggression.
“We ran into the Japanese Navy once as we turned the corner around an island. We turned the ship around and they started after us, chasing us for a while, even gaining on us,” Plasschaert remembered. “But they suddenly slowed their pursuit and began to turn around. We realized it was because they thought our ship was leading them into a trap. But truth was, we were all alone and it was just as well they turn around because we would’ve stood against them by ourselves if they had continued.”
Plasschaert’s tour of duty ended in 1946 when he received news his father had perished in a car accident. He returned home to provide and care for his mother and sister. Plasschaert received an honorable discharge from the Navy and made his way back home to Mishawaka.
“I had to go right to work. It was more important,” he said. “If you were a good worker, you could get a better job than someone with an education in those days and I was a hard worker.”
He went to work immediately, taking up his father’s job in the Major Brothers Meat Packing Company in South Bend. While many of his high school classmates returned from the war and went back to high school, Plasschaert’s family counted on him to earn a living.
“I came out of a working-class immigrant community. Becoming a salesman was like graduating to a higher class in society. I worked myself to a more independent position and worked at the gas company for a long time. Later, I got married and went into business for myself. I did well, but just never got that diploma,” Plasschaert recalled.
A Way Forward
Close family friend and neighbor, Mary McDermott said Plasschaert would often comment about how it bothered him he never got his high school diploma despite all the life experiences he had. So, McDermott contacted the Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs to see how about how Plasschaert might obtain it.
McDermott discovered a state program with the Indiana Department of Education that rewards veterans with their high school diploma if they left to join the military or were drafted. The two agencies worked together to verify Plasschaert’s eligibility and then worked with Mishawaka High School to issue his diploma. Seventy-eight years after leaving school, Plasschaert received his high school diploma.
“Bob’s family and I were able to surprise him with it,” said McDermott . “He was quiet at first, had to comprehend what it meant and how special it was. He told everybody about it for a long time after we gave it to him.”
“I was shocked. I never thought I’d get my diploma,” Plasschaert said. “It was really wonderful.”
“Everybody here was perfectly pleased to make this happen,” said John Ross, the principal at Mishawaka High School. “This is the first time we have issued a high school diploma in a case like this, and it was really nice to honor him as we did.”
Now, Plasschaert says he has accomplished everything he wanted to in life – and more.
“Even at my age, I have my high school diploma. It really is never too late.”