Framed photographs and certificates tile the wall behind Alvaton senior Richard Burnette’s desk. His honorable discharge from the Army shares the wall with his wedding certificate. His diploma from John Marshall High School hangs with his daughter’s from the State University of New York, Purchase, and his son’s from Penn State.

Burnette, a 72-year-old history major, aims to put his own college diploma on the wall soon.

“The main purpose is to get that sheepskin,” he said.

Western isn’t the first place Burnette has pursued a degree. He attended Lynchburg College and the University of Virginia in his 20s. But he grew restless with his academic indecision.

“I was so sick and tired and blue of education. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. I was taking a pre-law course, and it was garbage,” Burnette said. “I said ‘I’ve got to get the hell out of here; this is not for me.’”

Burnette joined the U.S. Army and was deployed to an Army Security Agency field station at Chitose, in Hokkaido, Japan, to transcribe Morse code messages intercepted from Russia, China and North Korea.

Burnette tried out for the base’s baseball team, the Chitose Bears. He was selected for shortstop and traveled throughout Japan and South Korea, eventually landing the All-Army Japan shortstop position.

“We had the life of Riley, just traveling all over the place and seeing these pretty girls, and drinking and having a ball and playing baseball,” he said.

Tension existed between the athletes and some of the cadre, especially the military police.

“We were jocks,” Burnette said. “We didn’t pay any attention to those guys. All the sergeants and the big shots who were over me were so miffed that I was never there for the work.”

One night, while he was carousing with some teammates in town, a group of MPs entered the bar.

“I said ‘Uh-oh, here’s trouble,’” he said. The men approached a woman Burnette was with and asked, “What time tonight?” After a squabble with the woman, Burnette left.

“I was so angry. I just went a few more places and had a few more drinks and got stupid drunk.”

He missed the last bus back to camp, and walked through Chitose toward the base.

Some MPs saw him in town after curfew.

“They said ‘Stop, Burnette! We know it’s you! We’re going to shoot!’” he recalled.

Burnette ran. He dodged into a house and jumped out the window on the other side.

“I landed, and this vicious dog was after me, but I was able to crawl over a fence to escape,” Burnette said.

He knew there was only one entrance to the base, and that the MPs would be there waiting for him. But he also knew that only a chain link fence and two strands of barbed wire separated his barracks from the Japanese base. He approached the Japanese guard, who was wary of an American showing up at his gate at 4 a.m.

“I say, in my best Japanese, ‘Would you please, kindly let me go through and – see that fourth Quonset hut down there? That’s where I live. If I go through our gate, I’m going to lose my rank.’”

Burnette doesn’t know what made the guard let him through, but he shouted a string of “Arigatos” over his shoulder as he jumped the fence.

He made it back to his barracks with time to shower and shave before he fell out.

“They said ‘Burnette,’ and I said ‘Here, sir!’ and there was silence,” Burnette said. “To this day, they never figured out how I got back into camp and evaded the MPs.”

Reach Eileen Ryan at diversions@chherald.com.