WWII veteran, 100, weds 96-yr-old bride on D-Day anniversary

It might have been the longest wait but on Saturday 100-year-old American World War II veteran Harold Terens married his 96-year-old fiancee in Normandy, just days after being honoured on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in northwestern France.

To the sounds of “I will always love you”, “Ave Maria” and bagpipes, Terens and his sweetheart Jeanne Swerlin said “I do” in the town of Carentan-les-Marais at a ceremony attended by dozens of guests, some wearing military uniforms.

To top off an extraordinary day, the newly wedded couple then attended the state banquet at the Elysee Palace in Paris thrown by President Emmanuel Macron in honour of visiting US leader Joe Biden.

“I waited 96 years to find the right man and now I have a wedding like only a queen and king can have,” Swerlin told AFP before the ceremony in Normandy. “I feel young again,” Terens said. “It’s the best time of my entire life.”

Terens and Swerlin, who live in Boca Raton, Florida, tied the knot after commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the June 6, 1944 Normandy landings.

After the war Terens married his first wife, Thelma, with whom he spent 70 years and raised three children until her death in 2018.

In 2021, a friend introduced him to Swerlin, a charismatic woman who had also been widowed, and the two have been inseparable ever since.

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