After years speaking to students, Montreal WWII vet hears back from them on his 100th birthday

Jewish WWII veteran turns 100 WWII veteran Willie Glaser will get cards, a video and even bagpipers for his 100th birthday, plus a plaque at the Hebrew Foundation School.

Montreal — Distancing may seem to make parties impossible, especially in winter, but people found a way for Willie Glaser.

Glaser, who turned 100 on Friday, fought for Canada in World War II and now lives in a retirement home in Saint-Laurent.

On the front steps, he celebrated -- and he also got  a pile of cards and a virtual party from students at the Hebrew Foundation School.

Glaser has been dropping into the school for more than a decade to talk about his life, his time during the war, and the family members he lost in the Holocaust.

"The students? They can learn so much from a book," said Stuart Cohen, a teacher at the school. "But to learn from a man, to hear from a man with his stories, it’s something that they leave with feeling inspired."

For Glaser's part, even after a life filled with ups and downs and even heroism -- he was a teenager who fled his home in 1939, ending up in Quebec after the war -- the pile of birthday cards ended up meaning a lot to him, too.

"Now I am beginning to feel, with all this happening, a little sense that I have accomplished something in my life," he said.

Watch the video above to see the full report on Glaser's milestone and his life story.