Terra enlisted in June 1954, just six weeks before he would have graduated.

"The Navy sounded more interesting," says the 68-year-old Willow Glen resident. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably do the same thing. It was a very good opportunity for me. I lived with my parents, and I'd never been out on my own before."

After his discharge in November 1957, Terra returned to his native San Jose and started driving a truck. He never had much interest in finishing high school until recently, when a friend told him about Operation Graduate. The Santa Clara County Office of Education launched Operation Graduate in November 2002 to honor veterans who didn't finish high school because they were serving in the military during World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars. The program is also for Japanese-Americans who were in internment camps during WWII.

Terra, who will receive his diploma in an Aug. 10 Operation Graduate ceremony, had to be convinced.

"Why do I need my high school diploma now?" he asked his friend, who kept pressing the issue.

"One day I said, 'I'm tired of making excuses,' " Terra says, adding that even now, his family is more excited about the ceremony than he is. "My granddaughter can't get over the fact that she's going to her grandfather's graduation."

Despite his reticence, Terra says Operation Graduate is a good way to honor vets for their service and to help them close a chapter in their lives.

"When we were young back in the '50s, we didn't care about school," adds Beverly Terra, his wife of 46 years. "You look back and say, 'Why didn't I do this?' "

While Terra says his military record is unremarkable—"No Purple Hearts or anything"—his time in the service was memorable in that he was hospitalized for a year during his tour of duty. After boot camp, Terra was assigned to a troop transport and shipped out to Korea. Once he was stateside again, he was diagnosed with jaundice and hepatitis and spent six months in the hospital. He recovered and was assigned to a destroyer, but his jaundice recurred, sending him back to the hospital for another six months.

"I've seen pictures," his wife says. "He got fat as a butterball from doing nothing."

When he was aboard his ship, Terra traveled to ports of call all over the world.

"I got to see a lot I'd probably never have been able to in my lifetime," he recalls. "On one mission we were at sea for three months, then they sent us to Australia for two weeks R&R."

As a couple, the Terras say they travel less frequently now than they did before Anthony retired five years ago.

"We took 12 cruises before and only one since," Beverly says. "Now we have the money but not the time."

The Terras both volunteer with the Italian Men's Club. Anthony is a club officer and a regular caller at the Monday bingo nights at the local Elks Club. He says his club duties keep him busier than he expected to be in retirement.

"I never thought I'd be doing this, but I like the club and I like the people in it," Terra says.

Terra chose not to reenlist in the Navy after being passed over for training that would have advanced his career.

"The military gives people more to choose from now," he says, adding that his nephew parlayed his Air Force training into a career in electronics. "He went through lots of schooling to learn all that."