LONGMONT, Colo. An auditorium is filled with students on their feet, high school freshmen enthusiastically clapping, some with tears in their eyes.
Across the building, on the stage, is a graduate accepting his high school diploma in a wheelchair.
“Speechless. I don’t know what to say,” the graduate said. “It’s amazing.”
This is a moment that should have happened 70 years ago.
When Henry “Hank” Werner was supposed to be graduating high school in 1944, the 17-year-old was instead completing basic training for the U.S. Army, and preparing to ship off to serve in World War II.
“I was the oldest at 17, I was the oldest man in Highland,” Werner said. “All my friends who were 17 or older were gone. They had all enlisted or been drafted. And I was there alone.”
His father wanted Werner to stay through June for his graduation, after which he had an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York.
Werner couldn’t wait. He had already been working as a blackout officer in town since he was 14, riding his bike through neighborhoods during air raids, making sure all the homes had turned out their lights.
Along with neighborhood pals, he searched scrap yards for metal to aid in the fight.
Two months before donning his cap and gown, Werner chose instead to don the uniform of an enlisted soldier, at age 17, with permission from his father.
“I didn’t think I could handle West Point, to be honest with you,” Werner said, smiling.
Within seven years of joining the Army, Werner had risen to the top-most enlisted rank in the service, sergeant major.
“I don’t regret that I enlisted in the Army,” Werner said.
His deployment took him to Germany, where he was stationed at the Quartermaster Supply Depot in Geissen. In 1948, he helped in the Berlin Airlift, where at times, trucks were being loaded and departing every six minutes to supply the western zone of Berlin, which was blockaded by the Soviet Union. More than 200 tons of supplies went to Berlin from the depot during the airlift.
After the war, Werner returned stateside, where he worked at IBM for 30 years.
Although he was now a decorated soldier, there was one decoration he had never received.
“When I was in the service, I didn’t receive a diploma,” he said. “I took a GED class and received a certificate to that effect, that’s the only diploma I had received.”
That was seven decades ago.
On Monday, during freshman orientation at Silver Creek High School, his daughter Carrie Adams, a teacher at the school, stood up with him as he was given the one award that had eluded him.
The diploma ceremony was a surprise.
“Speechless. I didn’t know what to say or how to accept it. It was wonderful,” Werner said.
And the freshmen in the crowd stood and cheered, as Werner waved, his hands shaking just a bit as they clutched his Highland High School diploma.
