Billy Kepner never liked school very much, so he ran away and joined the Marines at 16. Then he got in the Army, lost half his jaw and won a D.S.C. as a Third Division infantryman in World War I; joined the Air Corps after the war. In 1934 he plummeted from 60,613 feet in a stratosphere balloon, coolly waited for the bag to get low enough so that he could breathe when he parachuted. In World War II, Billy Kepner became chief of the Eighth Air Force Fighter Command. He is now deputy commander for air in Operations Crossroads (the Bikini atom test, postponed last week—see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).
This week Major General William E. Kepner, 53, will finally get his diploma from Kokomo (Ind.) High School.
Thirty-two other veterans of World War II who left Kokomo before they finished school will get diplomas too. School Superintendent C. V. Haworth, winking a bit at the rules, figures that the knowledge the boys picked up at war is at least the equivalent of a high-school education.
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