WWII SOLDIER REUNITES WITH HIS FIRST LOVE 75 YEARS LATER, PROVING LOVE OUTLIVES TIME
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For most people, first love becomes a distant memory faded by time, buried underneath marriages, careers, and the countless memories that make up a lifetime. For one World War II soldier, it waited.
He was 98 years old when he saw her again, in the same country where the war had torn them apart. This is their story.
A Normandy Trip Opens a Door No One Expected
In 2019, Forever Young Veterans was preparing to take aging World War II Veterans back to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
K.T. Robbins, a U.S. Army Veteran who had served in France during the war, wasn’t on the original roster.
Then, on the same day, another Veteran had to withdraw for health reasons when the phone rang. A woman had seen a Facebook post about the trip.
“My neighbor was there,” she said. “And he would really love to go back.”
There was a palpable pause.
“You’re not going to believe this,” replied Diane Hight, who founded the organization. “But we just had a cancellation.”
Minutes later, the woman called back. This time from next door.
When Diane spoke with Robbins directly, he didn’t hesitate.
“I would love to go,” he said, his voice breaking.
A Photograph From the War That Never Lost Its Power
Before the group departed, Robbins attended a Forever Young Veterans meeting to meet the others traveling to Normandy.
That night, he brought a photograph.
It showed a young French woman during WWII, bright and unguarded, wearing short shorts and a crop top. The kind of photograph that survives battlefields, borders, and decades.
During the war, Robbins was stationed in a small French village for several months. He had a very unique job. His unit operated a mobile bakery, baking bread and delivering it to depots across the region.
Her family welcomed him in. They fed him. Washed his clothes. Let him sit at their table. When he could, he left extra rations behind; quiet gestures in a time shaped by hunger and uncertainty.
He remembered everything.
Her name.
Her parents’ names.
The village.
The house.
Then the war ended. And life took them in different directions.
The Question That Changed an International Story
As the Normandy trip in 2019 approached, Diane coordinated with French media, who initially planned coverage around another D-Day Veteran.
Almost as an aside, she asked a question.
“One of our veterans had a girlfriend during the war,” she said. “Is there any chance you could look into finding her?”
Less than 12 hours later, they did.
They found her.
She was alive.
Within days, the focus shifted. French television and American media documented the experience. David Muir and ABC News picked up the story.
In 2019, Robbins was 98 years old. The team decided not to tell K.T. about the reunion, wanting to preserve the authenticity of his experience revisiting Normandy. Knowing beforehand might have made him focus only on meeting her again.
When First Love Walked Back Into the Room at Age 98
After the official D-Day commemorations in Normandy, the surprise of a lifetime was quietly set into motion. Robbins boarded a train to the town where his first love now lived in a senior care facility.
When the door opened, he saw her. He said her name out loud.
“Jeannine Ganaye.”
Then he moved forward.
“I always loved you,” Robbins said, taking her into his arms. “You never got out of my heart.”
Then, language stopped mattering. They held each other. Kissed. Stayed close. At one point, Robbins reached into his pocket and pulled out the photograph, the same one he had carried with him since the war.
“This is you,” he said, placing it in her hands.
An interpreter stood nearby, but very little needed translating. She told him she had waited for him for five years after the war. She started learning English, believing he might return. But he never did.
He told her he had gone home, later married, and built a life. In those years, getting on a plane to France wasn’t a realistic option.
She was 92.
He was 98.
Time had taken many things. This wasn’t one of them.
“I love you, girl,” Robbins told her, a sentence that required no interpreter to understand.
No Shared Language, Only What Time Could Not Erase
After the Normandy anniversary trip in June 2019, K.T. joined the next Forever Young Veterans trip in September, visiting Belgium near Bastogne, where he had also fought during the Battle of the Bulge. This trip's location was actually closer to the part of France where Jeannine now lived.
They reunited again. They spent four uninterrupted days together.
“They told us they had the time of their lives. They laughed. They were madly in love,” Diane said later.
“It was just the sweetest love story.”
When Love Crossed Languages And Made the World Smile
As the story spread, Robbins was invited to make a guest appearance on The Huckabee Show, hosted by Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee asked the question on many people's minds.
“K.T., how did you and Jeannine communicate?” he asked. “She spoke French, and you speak English.”
Robbins smiled and said,
“A kiss is a kiss in every language.”
In case Huckabee wasn’t convinced, K.T. playfully added, “We made out.”
The audience laughed. The moment landed perfectly, and somehow, it explained everything.
The World May Have Closed, But Their Love Didn’t
COVID separated them again. They stayed connected through Zoom and handwritten letters. After being reunited, Jeannine invited K.T. to move to France.
“I’m too old now,” he told her. But they kept in touch.
Breaking the hearts of admirers all over the world, who fell in love with their story, Jeannine contracted COVID and died in December 2020.
Why This Love Story Traveled the World
The story didn’t stop in Normandy. It spread across continents, was discussed internationally by Prince Harry, was written about by John Mayer, and inspired songs and tributes. A French film studio explored adapting it, but her family declined, choosing privacy instead.
Today, Robbins is 104 years old.
He still lives independently, looked after by loving neighbors. Still mows his own lawn. He still carries her with him.
For Diane, this story isn’t an outlier. It’s a pattern she has watched repeat itself over more than two decades as she has brought aging Veterans back to the places that shaped them forever.
“These moments can’t be planned,” she said. “You can’t orchestrate them.”
She founded Forever Young Veterans after watching her own father come home from World War II changed, carrying wounds no one knew how to name at the time. He struggled. So did the family around him.
“If I can bring joy to these veterans,” Diane said, “I know firsthand that the healing doesn’t stop with them. It heals their families, too.”
She’s seen it happen.
Children describe fathers who come home lighter. More present. Grandchildren meet a version of their grandfather they’ve never known. Conversations open where silence once lived.
What her work has revealed is this: healing doesn’t move in straight lines. It travels outward, across households, across generations. And sometimes, against every reasonable expectation, it finds its way all the way back to first love.
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BY NATALIE OLIVERIO
Veteran & Senior Contributor, Military News at VeteranLife
Navy Veteran
Natalie Oliverio is a Navy Veteran, journalist, and entrepreneur whose reporting brings clarity, compassion, and credibility to stories that matter most to military families. With more than 100 published articles, she has become a trusted voice on defense policy, family life, and issues shaping the...
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Natalie Oliverio is a Navy Veteran, journalist, and entrepreneur whose reporting brings clarity, compassion, and credibility to stories that matter most to military families. With more than 100 published articles, she has become a trusted voice on defense policy, family life, and issues shaping the...
