Thanks for the additional info. I might point out that late last night I made an adding mistake; it was 53 years later that Stan Levine met Phil Roettinger for the second time here in my store. It was late when I was counting the decades on my fingers.
I remember the day it happened because I had met Stan Levine in January of 1995 or '96 when he came down with his wife. He was what we call a "snowbird" here, someone coming down to escape the winter up North. We got talking over the next few days when he would come in for coffee in the mornings and I found out he had been a Marine, and that he had landed at Tarawa, Iwo, and Okinawa. Obviously, I started going out of my way to talk to him -- just like I went out of my way to talk to Phil Roettinger each day when HE came in. It never really dawned on me that they actually might know each other. I mean, it was a big war, wasn't it?
Anyway, a week or two went by and neither Roettinger or Levine were ever in the store at the same time, but one morning Phil came in and ordered his chocolate chip Ice Cream and went and sat in the corner table near the window. I came out of my little office and sat with him and we were talking about something or other and Stan Levine came into the store. I said "hello" to him, and he stopped and looked at us and then walked over to the counter and ordered a coffee. The girls took their time getting him his coffee -- he must have ordered a cappuccino or something -- and then Stan came back to our table.
"Excuse me," he said, "but your name isn't Roettinger is it?" Big Phil looked up from the table (Phil ALWAYS wore a W.W.II/50's era O.D. Marine Corps cover every day) and then stood up and extended his hand.
"Yes," said Phil, "have we met?"
"We met on Henderson Field," said Stan, shaking hands with Phil. In a second or two they both were slapping each other on the back and grinning like children and I was pretty much forgotten and who can blame them? They sat down together and started to catch up on their lives. I hung around eavesdropping, bringing more coffee and Ice Cream to keep them there talking (and I didn't charge them either). It was an electric moment.
I remember, as a young boy, being with my father when he met a man in a wheelchair who had been in the same Bren Carrier crew and had been wounded in the fighting for Caen in some small town several hours from where we lived. The look that came over my father's face, seeing someone else who had "been there" at the same time and with him, and the way my dad's manner changed when talking to the man as if he was talking to someone "special". Both Phil and Stan Levine had that same manner with each other sitting there at that table that day.
It was just a special moment. Sorry I screwed up on the math on the number of years, though, I should try to be more precise.
Cheers!
Cal