They say the best things in life are worth waiting for.
Weldon Edward McClane knows this first hand. He's waited 80 years to graduate high school.
When McClane was 16 years old, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor -- an attack that changed the course of history and McClane's life.
"I dropped out of school and tried to get in the Navy," McClane said. "I was too young."
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
He would eventually be drafted into the Army and was among those in the Greatest Generation who landed on the beachheads of Normandy.
"I went on the second wave on D-Day," McClane said. "Then it wasn't long after that I got hit."
Wounded in battle, the high school dropout earned a Purple Heart, then went back to join his unit.
"My sergeant, when he saw me, he said, 'what the hell did you come back here for?'" McClane recalled. "I told him, 'somebody had to show you how to build bridges.'"
McClane is one of the last surviving members of the 297th U.S. Army Combat Engineers, and easily the oldest to graduate from Sadler-Southmayd High School this year.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
"He's pretty amazing," McClane's son, Mike McClane, said.
McClane graduated high school on his 98th birthday, the same weekend as his great-granddaughter's high school graduation.
