You know, this was years and years before in Times Square,
when I was celebrating the end of the war.
And a few drinks...
I didn't know who the hell I grabbed.
I knew she had the uniform.
We had been in the Pacific for two years.
Back in '45 now,
at that time of the war, we had just taken Okinawa–
that was going to take about six months
to get the American Army out of Europe,
get them all the way out there for the invasion of Japan.
So a few ships out there like the Sullivans–
we'd been out there for two years.
I guess they says, "Send them guys back to the States,"
So in July of '45, we get our orders to come home.
My youngest sister married a Navy guy here in Newport,
and he was from Long Island, New York, originally.
He says his parents were coming from Long Island up here to visit him,
and they brought their niece with them.
So I met the niece.
And I said, "Holy jeez, she's beautiful."
So I kept in touch with the niece by phone.
And now my leave was running out, and the war's still on.
So I said, "Well, I'll make reservations to fly out of New York."
I went to New York for the last few days of my leave,
and I met the niece.
It was my last day in New York.
We're in Radio City Music Hall.
And while the show is going on–
we're watching the Rockettes and the whole bit–
and all of a sudden, there was a hell of a commotion out on the streets.
And the people out on the streets are pounding on the doors of Radio City.
And in the theater we're wondering, "What the hell is going on outside there?"
So finally, they stop the show,
and they put the lights on, and they say, "The Japs have surrendered; the war is over."
Well, the people in the Radio City went wild.
We came down into Times Square–
there's a million people.
So my date and I, we go into Childs Bar,
and the bartender put all of the glasses up on the bar,
and he's pouring the booze.
And whatever he poured, you drank.
So we're coming down into Times Square, the war's over,
and boy, I'm telling you, Times Square was wild.
And I had quite a few drinks in me.
And I saw the nurse.
Now, let's go back five months in the war.
We're still back in the Pacific.
Just before we left out there,
the aircraft carrier, the Bunker Hill–she got hit.
She took a couple of suicide dive bombers.
Some of them planes on deck started exploding and burning up.
It was a hell of a fire.
And we was ordered to go alongside of her,
and there's a lot of men on the Bunker Hill.
They were trapped in the fires.
Well, they start jumping off the Bunker Hill,
and we picked up hundreds of them.
We met the hospital ship–the Solace was the name of the hospital ship–
and we're transferring the wounded onto the hospital ship.
And I saw what those nurses did that day,
to these guys and they're hurting,
and it's still in the back of my head.
So now back in Times Square when the war ends,
when I saw the nurse...
If that girl did not have a nurse's uniform on,
I never would have done that.
It's what I remembered out there, and that's what did it.
Of course, after it was over, I went my way,
and the nurse went her way–thought nothing of it.
And one day, this guy Francis Silvia–he's deceased today–
but Francis Silvia called me up one day,
and he says, "Where the hell were you the day the war ended?"
And I said, "I was in Times Square the moment the war ended."
He said, "I know goddamn well you was."
I said, "How the hell do you know where I was?
You're asking me where I was."
He says, "Well I got a Life magazine here,
and there's a picture of a sailor grabbing a nurse."
And he says, "I know it's you!"
I said, "You're kidding me!"
He says, "I know it's you," and I said, "Well, bring the magazine over to the house."
And he brings the Life magazine, and I looked at it.
And my first reaction, what I saw, was the hands, the first thing.
I said, "Goddamn, that is me."
I hadn't remembered nothing about the kiss
and the excitement of Times Square–it was a few years.
And I looked at it and looked at it, and then I began to study it.
And then I found my initials tattooed on my right arm.
It's in the photo.
And I knew it was me. I could see the face: I knew it was me.