Harold Terens and his fiancee Jeanne Swerlin kissed and held hands like high school sweethearts as they discussed their upcoming wedding in France, a country that Harold, a World War II veteran, first visited as a 20-year-old U.S. Army Air Forces corporal shortly after D-Day.
Harold will be honored in June by the French as part of the 80th anniversary celebration of their country's liberation from the Nazis. Then he plans to marry the 96-year-old Jeanne in a town near the beaches where U.S. troops landed.
The couple, who are each widowed, grew up in New York City: her in Brooklyn, him in the Bronx. They laugh at how differently they experienced World War II. She was in high school and Harold enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year.