DANVERS — Bert Russell was looking forward to his senior year at Beverly High School and another season of playing football and hockey for his school.
But the year was 1950, the dawn of the Korean War, and one after another, Russell's friends were enlisting in the Marines and heading overseas to join the battle.
"I felt they could use somebody else, too," he said.
Russell dropped out of school, joined the Marines and spent 18 months on the front lines in Korea, at one point getting hit by shrapnel in his right arm.
Russell earned two Purple Hearts and a letter of commendation for his service. But it was a piece of paper he never did receive — his high school diploma — that always caused him regret.
That all changed yesterday when Russell was awarded an honorary Beverly High School diploma during a small ceremony at the Danversport Yacht Club.
The diploma was presented by Joe DiAngelo, a retired Beverly police officer who works at Beverly High and helped Russell's friends acquire the diploma, signed by Superintendent James Hayes, Principal Sean Gallagher and School Committee President Annemarie Cesa.
Russell, who at age 77 still has the strong jaw and rugged bearing of a Marine, said the diploma came as a "complete shock."
"This is really an honor," he said. "I've had awards given to me, but nothing like this."
The idea for the diploma grew out of a conversation Russell had with Mike Chouinard, who like Russell is a member of the Marine Corps League of the North Shore, which meets every month in Peabody.
Russell mentioned to Chouinard that he always regretted not receiving his diploma. That set in motion a chain of events that led to yesterday's event. Chouinard's wife, Vickie, called her sister, Roberta DiAngelo, who told her husband, Joe.
Joe DiAngelo got the approval from Gallagher, and the school ordered the exact kind of diploma for Russell that is awarded to all graduates.
Russell said he felt he deserved a diploma because of his military service and the fact that he earned his general equivalency diploma while he was in the Marines. Whenever he was sent back from the front lines in Korea, he would take a test with the goal of acquiring his GED.
"I averaged a 4.0 all the way through the Marine Corps," he said.
Years ago, he went to Beverly High School and asked for a diploma but was turned down.
"I didn't push it," he said. "There were more important things in my life."
Russell spent 26 years as a Danvers police officer. He and his wife of 57 years, Priscilla, who was at yesterday's ceremony, were high school sweethearts and raised five children.
As Russell accepted the diploma on the patio behind the Danversport Yacht Club, with the sun shining off the water in the background, Russell shook hands with Chouinard and thanked him for filling the void in his life.
"I'm glad I saw it before I died," he said.
Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or by e-mail at pleighton@salemnews.com.
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