As a Ukrainian child growing up in occupied territory during and after World War II, Nicholas Krawciw dreamed of going to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
"When I was a youngster at the end of WWII, (American soldiers on occupation duty) formed us into Boy Scout troops ... sort of a voluntary thing. They ran YMCA camps for us," he said.
"For four years I was involved in listening to a lot of the stories that they told us."
Between 1945 and 1949, the young Krawciw, pronounced crouch-ew, hiked and camped and learned songs like "You Are My Sunshine" at a displaced persons camp in Bavaria, Germany. He also heard, time and again, about West Point.
"I made up my mind early, even before we got to America. 'If we get to America, I'm going to go to West Point,' " he recalled in a recent interview at his Tulsa home.
His family immigrated in 1949, and 10 years later he graduated with the academy's class of 1959.