By Paul J. Condra
I don't deserve anything like this, Al Schreiber said in his soft throaty voice. But I wouldn't exchange it for anything.
Schreiber, a World War II veteran, was awarded an honorary high school diploma through a state law called Operation Recognition, which was passed by the governor in October of 2000. The program, popular in dozens of states, seeks to award diplomas to veterans whose war service interfered with their education.
It's a very exciting program, said East Rockaway school superintendent Arnie Dodge, who arranged for the diploma to be given to Schreiber after he was contacted by the veteran's daughter, Ann Giammarino.
Giammarino said she saw an article in the newspaper about veterans in Suffolk County who had been awarded diplomas, and decided she wanted the same for her father.
My father always wanted a diploma, she said. But after the war, he got married ... I mean I have a child and forget about it.
But finding the one who could award the diploma wasn't so easy.
I must have made 25 phone calls, nobody knows about this law, she said.
After ping-ponging around state offices, she finally spoke with somebody in Albany who told her to contact her father's high school, but the Jamaica school no longer exists. She did the next best thing, which was contact Dodge at the East Rockaway schools, where she and her family were students.
It made it easier that Dr. Dodge knew about it, she said. All she had to do was give him her father's discharge papers.
Schreiber said he enlisted in 1943, at age 20, when he was drafted by the U.S. Army. His prior school experiences had been rife with truancy, Schreiber explains, from getting held back from high school, to being asked to leave trade school, where he was building model airplanes.
He then worked as a butcher in Brooklyn and Queens, a job he enjoyed and speaks about with enthusiasm.
When he joined the army, he traveled to bases across the country, and was trained for the medical corps. He was stationed in the Pacific and in Europe and still remembers his trip to England aboard the Queen Mary.
Though he never saw combat, he arrived in France on the first Victory in Europe Day, on May 8, 1945.
I was one of the lucky ones, he said.
When he returned to the United States, he said, he didn't want to go back into the butcher business because of all the math he would have to do keeping track of orders. Instead, he worked in a factory, then found a job at American Airlines.
I was one of the last ones without a high school diploma they hired, he said.
He tried briefly to earn his high school diploma from home, but had gotten married and started raising a family and wasn't able to finish.
Now, at 78, Schreiber, who at 20 was willing to fight the Germans for his country, has earned a high school diploma.
At the ceremony at the Rhame Avenue Elementary School on Tuesday night, many of Schreiber's family members were in attendance, including his son, Thomas; and his daughter, Ann, with her husband, John, and their daughter, Nicole.
Schreiber was given his diploma by East Rockaway board member Salvatore Scrimenti, who said such recognition was long overdue.
In addition, Denis J. Motherway, commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3350, presented Schreiber with a Medal of Honor and a free year membership to the veterans post.
Also in attendance was Councilman Anthony Santino, who, at the sight of Schreiber's tears, said to him: I finally feel like somebody has been appropriately thanked for their work. You made my night.
Schreiber drew a standing ovation from the crowd and later he stood wiping tears from his eyes while his daughter pinned the VFW Medal of Honor to his lapel.
Schreiber said in an interview that he wished to thank the doctors who gave him a pacemaker this year. He had just gotten out of the hospital on Monday after a serious episode he would not have survived without the electronic heart monitoring device. He also explained how he felt when he heard he was going to receive a diploma:
I felt like the Wizard of Oz, like the scarecrow, and Dr. Dodge, he is the Wizard, he's going to give me my brain, he said.
