World War II Veteran to Get College Degree This Week

DES PLAINES, IL - A World War II veteran who survived the battle of Okinawa will be the oldest graduate during Tuesday’s commencement at Oakton Community College.

Fred Seidel, 89 will add a Certificate in Facilities Energy Systems Technology to an already packed list of life accomplishments.

Seidel, a Skokie resident, was a signalman in the U.S. Navy. starting in 1943 and then aboard a ship that sailed to Okinawa at the time of the famous battle fought there in 1945. According to an Oakton news release, Seidel was called to take over for the quartermaster and watched a kamikaze aircraft “Crash full speed into the deck of his ship.”

“I remember watching the plane coming in, but the next thing I remember was two months later being in San Francisco,” Seidel said. “I learned a few years ago what happened to me. Some fellow crew members found me floating in the water, put a life jacket on me and saved my life.”

Eight of the sailors on board the ship died that day and 60 others were injured.

After the war, Seidel returned to Chicago and has been part of an electricians union for 70 years. He’s studied elevators, coaxial communications, LAN, fiber optics, facilities management engineering and energy systems.

He has also been the chief electrician at the Commonwealth Edison Building and Continental Bank building in Chicago.

On Tuesday, he’ll add yet another degree.

“I love to keep my mind active and to meet the younger students and faculty at Oakton,” he said. “I am always learning about new technologies.”

As the folks at Oakton put it, Seidel’s career “took him from Morse code and signal flags to fiber optic communications.”