Their respective ages — he’s 100, she’s a youngster of just 96 — made their nuptials an almost double-century celebration.
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 was 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.
As the swing of Glenn Miller and other period tunes rang out on the streets, well-wishers – some in WWII-period clothes – were already lined up a good hour before the wedding, behind barriers outside the town hall, with a rousing pipe and drum band also on hand to serenade the happy couple.
After both declaring “oui” to vows read by Carentan’s mayor in English, the couple exchanged rings.
“With this ring, I thee wed,” Terens said.
She giggled and gasped, “Really?”
With champagne flutes in hand, they waved through an open window to the crowds outside.
“To everybody’s good health. And to peace in the world and the preservation of democracy all over the world and the end of the war in Ukraine and Gaza,” Terens said as he and his bride then clinked glasses and drank.
The WWII veteran first visited France as a 20-year-old US 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 US a month later.
Swerlin made it abundantly clear that her new centenarian husband doesn’t lack for rizz.
“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 quipped: “You mean there’s more later?”
