92-year-old Kaua‘i veteran received high school diploma last month – decades after making secret sacrifice

One month has passed since Kaua‘i High School held its 2024 commencement ceremony – but at least one graduate, 92-year-old veteran and ‘Ele‘ele resident Stanley Masao Oshima, is still beaming.

“After all these years … I have something that can prove I did,” Stanley said, his eyes twinkling as he tapped his diploma protected in a plastic sheath. “After all these years, all of a sudden: ‘Hey, you graduate high school.’ What!”

Stanley’s self-effacing remarks belie the true import of his achievement, one reached so late in life as a result of a profoundly selfless act he made in secret some 70 years ago.

Stanley was born on April 22, 1932, in Puhi on the East Side of the Garden Isle, the eldest of seven sons between Maui-born Hideichi and Japan-born Akiko Oshima. He left Kaua‘i High School in 1948 to help his father support their family as carpenters employed by the Grove Farm plantation.

In 1950 – again to support his family – an 18-year-old Stanley enlisted in the US Army to send home, as he recalls, $99 per month. He was honorably discharged three years later, a combat veteran of the Korean War who achieved the rank of master sergeant and received several decorations including the Croix de Guerre with silver star, a French award also bestowed upon members of that country’s military allies.

Famous recipients of the Croix de Guerre include US military leaders Douglas MacArthur and George S. Patton; oceanographer, underwater filmmaker and coinventor of the Aqua-Lung Jacques Cousteau; and Nobel Prize-winning writer Samuel Beckett, who penned the iconic two-act drama “Waiting for Godot,” among many other individuals.

Stanley, who was paid $175.08 upon his separation from the Army, also brought home a body and psyche ravaged by conflict. His left arm, hip and hand were torn by grenade shrapnel that still pains him to this day, and in the years following Stanley’s service, post-traumatic stress disorder exhibited itself through alcoholism and nightmares. His children would awaken to their father, believing himself in combat, yelling at them to get down.

Years later, one of Stanley’s daughters, Kathy Oshima-Jennings, helped her father through counseling to address his trauma. During this period, Stanley made a startling admission.

“I will never forget this statement from him … The reason he had to join the military was because his family didn’t expect him to come back and they needed the life insurance money,” Oshima-Jennings said. “The biggest, I guess, hurt that he carried was when his parents told him, ‘You got to join the military’ … They figured, ‘He’s not gonna come back.’”

Stanley’s nearest brother in age, Thomas Tsutomu Oshima, also served in Korea. The two returned home determined the family’s third-eldest – a mathematics and electronics prodigy named William – would not be subject to what they had endured.

“They came back and told my dad … ‘You’re not going to go to war and you’re not going to work in the sugarcane fields,’” said William’s son, San Diego resident Randall Oshima.

Stanley altered the course of his own life to achieve this promise. He deferred his opportunity to continue his education under the GI Bill and sent William to a university on the US mainland in his place.

Stanley, whose hearing has become severely impaired due to his wartime experience, has never spoken about the decision he made and did not comment when asked. William told no one either, and the secret only recently came to light when Randall discovered a note among William’s personal effects, following his father’s death at the age of 87 on Dec. 1, 2023.

The brothers’ reticence is a mystery among their surviving family members.

“We’re touched to the bone, all of us,” Randall said of his uncle’s act. “Not just me and my sisters and my mom, but the brother-in-laws and my sons were there [at Stanley’s commencement ceremony.]”

Randall deems Stanley, who belonged to Company K in the 23rd Infantry Regiment of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division, a war hero.

“I was in tears thinking he was 19, winning that medal alone. I have twin 19-year-olds and I was in tears just thinking – I cannot imagine my sons doing that, being gone, being that brave,” Randall said of Stanley’s Croix de Guerre. “Living for others – you would hope you would have that kind of courage. But you know, I don’t know. He did.”

An official order, issued by French ground forces in Korea, details the basis of Stanley’s selection for the Croix de Guerre in one block of text:

An excellent non-commissioned officer, particularly distinguished himself during the night of October 6, 1951, during a night movement followed by an attack against hill 728. Proceeding in front of his company, Sergeant OSHIMA did not hesitate to reconnoitre himself the paths leading to enemy positions. Returning to the forward elements of his company, he assigned their positions for the assault against hill 728, and without regard to his personal safety directed them until their positions were consolidated and an enemy counter-attack repulsed. All during this action Sergeant OSHIMA manifested a devotion to duty and aggressiveness completely disregarding all danger.

Stanley’s actions on Hill 728 occurred days prior to the conclusion of the monthlong Battle of Heartbreak Ridge. The 2nd Division suffered over 3,700 casualties, nearly half of whom belonged to Stanley’s 23rd Infantry Regiment and its attached French battalion, according to an account published by the US Army Center of Military History. The account reports the Americans inflicted an estimated 25,000 casualties on enemy forces in and around Heartbreak Ridge.

William attended the Milwaukee School of Engineering in Wisconsin alongside several other young Japanese-American men born and raised in Hawai‘i. He would travel 250 miles to visit his Kaua‘i High School sweetheart, Janet Kunioka, who attended Fort Wayne Bible College in Indiana. There William gained an abiding Christian faith: An old note, written by William himself, reveals he was “born again” on March 22, 1956, “in Wayne Tanaka’s dorm.”

William graduated from Milwaukee School of Engineering in Wisconsin to embark on a 46-year career in the aerospace industry. His employers included Lockheed, for whom he developed top secret satellite technology related to defense. (The Oshima household’s neighbors, according to Randall, were periodically questioned by military personnel to ensure William’s lips were sealed. When William retired after nearly half a century of employment, he was escorted from his office by security guards.)

Following the Korean War, Stanley raised his own family on O‘ahu, spending 46 years as a commercial painter whose projects included the Neal S. Blaisdell Center in downtown Honolulu and the Līhu‘e Airport runway on Kaua‘i.

Oshima-Jennings worked with Kaua‘i High School Principal Marlene Leary to secure a honorary diploma for her father this past spring.

“It was very emotional, even to this day,” Oshima-Jennings, who still lives on O‘ahu, said of the commencement ceremony held May 24 at Vidinha Stadium in Līhu‘e. “I was able to fulfill one of his final bucket list [items] … He’s slowing down.”

Stanley is not one for pomp and circumstance. Oshima-Jennings describes him as a humble man who only participated in the graduation proceedings for his family’s sake, although he certainly yearned for a diploma.

“He lived his life very quiet, simple. The only thing he would tell me in passing was, ‘Well, I wish I could get my high school degree,’ as we were graduating and the grandkids were graduating,” she said. “I never thought of it, and so it was a product of a conversation with Randy … They wanted to do something on their dad’s behalf.”

Stanley now rests easy knowing he is among 25 Oshima family members – including surviving brothers Paul and Arthur and deceased brothers William, Thomas, Roy and Jerry – to graduate from Kaua‘i High School since Hideichi and Akiko moved to the Garden Isle many decades ago.

A diploma is a worthy coda. As Oshima-Jennings wrote to Principal Leary: “Instead of the commencement of a future life, this would be the past due thank you he has earned for living the life of a truly good man.”