Happy 70th anniversary!My parents met while they were both stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia after WWII. He was a mechanic and she was a parachute rigger. They were married on December 28, 1945, beginning a whirlwind adventure of travel the likes of which neither one of them could have imagined. They lived in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Texas, Maryland, Germany, and Japan. The only place he went without her was Korea - twice.
After WWII my dad was sent to Japan during the Occupation. According to one of my mother's stories, a giant troop ship was converted for dependent use and hundreds of women and children were shipped to Japan to live with their GI husbands. The ship sailed from New York, through the Panama Canal, and ended up in Japan, over a month long. I do remember her saying she thought it would never end. She said all the babies were sick and crying the whole way, and she thought if she could ever get off that ship, she never wanted to see or hear another baby (but of course she did - my brother, John was born in Japan!)
While in Germany, they traveled around Europe and (according to the home movies) we went camping in the Alps, went to the Octoberfest in Germany, rode on a gondola in Venice, saw windmills and acres of tulips in Holland, and saw lots of castles and churches and beautiful countryside.
They retired the first time in 1964 after he had 23 years in the Army, moving here to the north Georgia mountains. After 20 years they moved again to sunny Florida for the rest of their years together.
