Texas Man Finally Gets High School Diploma 71 Years After Getting Drafted Into WWII

ORANGE, TX — It's been said the longer you wait to go to college after high school graduation, the harder it gets. But sometimes, there's a compelling reason for the delay and equally compelling reasons why some enroll later in life.

Abner Simon fits the bill on both fronts. At 18 and still in his senior year of high school, he was called to service in the South Pacific theater of WWII, as detailed in a report by Inside Edition.

"They didn’t care that I was in school,” Simon, now 89, told InsideEdition.com. But in the intervening years, well after the war and the passage of so many years, Simon longed to earn his long-delayed high school diploma by attending his graduation.

"I always missed graduating from high school," he said wistfully. "I don't know why. I just did."

Last week, Simon got his wish — 71 years after getting drafted in World War II.

With the aid of a cane and donning the traditional cap and gown, he walked slowly into the Orangefield High School gymnasium to the strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" playing in the background. Reaching the podium, he was handed his diploma by the school principal.

At graduation, Simon proved himself to be the big man on campus, the most popular kid in school. Some of his fellow graduates a bit younger than him jumped at the chance to have their pictures taken with him.

“I was blown away, honey,” Simon said later. “I was just floored. Oh me. It was just amazing. I was really graduating at last.”

Simon never did see combat, he told Inside Edition. As he wrapped up boot camp training, the two atomic bombs ordered to be dropped by President Harry Truman on Hiroshima and Nagasaki definitively ended the conflict.

“They called me up and told me turn in my M-1," Simon recalled. "I gave my M-1 back and said ‘Why?’ They said ‘You’re going home.’ Hot diggity dog! I was going home!”

After the war, Simon returned to Texas to work on oil ships in Port Arthur. In 1949, he received a calling to become a preacher, which he's done ever since. He now lives in Richmond, Virginia, where he serves as associate pastor at the Clover Hill Baptist Church.

But he'll soon be returning to the Lone Star State. The newly minted grad has been invited back to Orangefield High School, in the easternmost city in Texas, to speak to the 2017 graduating class.