One-hundred-year-old WWII vet Harold Terens and his 96-year-old sweetheart Jeanne Swerlin proved it’s never too late for love as they tied the knot Saturday just inland from the beaches of Normandy.
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Terens, who lives with his new bride in Boca Raton, Florida, was awarded the French Legion of Honour by French President Emmanuel Macron in 2019. The wedding came just days after the world leaders and WWII veterans commemorated the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
The happy couple was as jubilant as love-struck teenagers:
Terens called it ″the best day of my life.″
On her way into the nuptials, the bubbly bride-to-be said: “It’s not just for young people, love, you know? We get butterflies. And we get a little action, also.″
The location was the elegant stone-worked town hall of Carentan, a key initial D-Day objective that saw ferocious fighting after the June 6, 1944, Allied landings that helped rid Europe of Adolf Hitler’s tyranny.
Like other towns and villages across the Normandy coast where nearly 160,000 Allied troops came ashore under fire on five code-named beaches, it’s an effervescent hub of remembrance and celebration on the 80th anniversary of the deeds and sacrifices of young men and women that day, festooned with flags and bunting and with veterans feted like rockstars.
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Watch the happy newlyweds:
I have to say, they both look amazing.
They even got to attend a French state dinner:
Terens knows France well, having served there as a young soldier.
The WWII veteran first visited France as a 20-year-old U.S. Army Air Forces corporal shortly after D-Day. Terens enlisted in 1942 and, after shipping to Britain, was attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter unit as their radio repair technician.
On D-Day, Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle. He said half his company’s pilots died that day. Terens himself went to France 12 days later, helping transport freshly captured Germans and just-freed American POWs to England. Following the Nazi surrender in May 1945, Terens again helped transport freed Allied prisoners to England before he shipped back to the U.S. a month later.
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“I waited 96 years to find the right man and now I have a wedding like only a queen and king can have,” Ms Swerlin said before the ceremony.
“I feel young again,” Terens said. “It’s the best time of my entire life.”
After the ceremony, they were even more excited and showed they’re not too old to get a little risqué:
“He’s the greatest kisser ever, you know?” she proudly declared before they embraced enthusiastically for TV cameras.
“All right ! That’s it for now !” Terens said as he came up for air.
To which she quickly quipped: “You mean there’s more later?”
They’re not the only elderly couple to find out that, as my colleague, Ward Clark writes, “Love is a strange thing, which sometimes strikes us unaware.”
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We wish them many years of happiness.