Bill Awards High School Diplomas To WWII Veterans

HARTFORD — The state legislature has approved a bill which will allow local boards of education to award high school diplomas to World War II veterans who left school early to enlist in the military and did not complete their education following their return from the war.

The state Senate approved the bill April 28. The House approved the bill earlier this week. It now goes to Governor John Rowland for his promised signature. The effective date of the bill is Memorial Day.

More than 238,000 Connecticut residents served in the military during World War II.

Lt Gov Jodi Reil first introduced the bill in a February press conference attended by Veterans Affairs Commissioner Eugene Migliaro and Colleen Fenn, a Ledyard seventh grader who wrote to the Lt Governor asking her support of the proposal. Fenn was seeking to honor her maternal grandfather, World War II veteran Hudson C. Pelton, Jr, of Old Saybrook. Mr Pelton left Windsor High School prior to his graduation to enlist in the military.

A number of legislators on both sides of the aisle, including Sen Tom Gaffey, D-Meriden, and John Stripp, R-135 District.

Connecticut would join eight other states in awarding diplomas to World War II veterans under a program nationally known as “Operation Recognition.” The program awards diplomas to those veterans who were honorably discharged and had served between September 16, 1940, and December 31, 1946. The program requires that those veterans attended some part of high school in the years 1937 to 1946. Diplomas may be awarded posthumously.