VJ Day Kiss: Give the Man His Due
You’d be hard pressed to find a more icongraphic World War II photo than this one of a sailor locking lips with a nurse on V-J Day. Eighty-year-old Houston resident Glenn McDuffie has claimed for many years that he’s the lucky man in the photo. Now a forensic artist from the Houston Police Department, Lois Gibson, says McDuffie is telling the truth.
Gibson, according to the 2005 Guiness Book, has helped police to nail more suspects than any other forensic artist in the business. She posed McDuffie in his uniform and measured various parts of his body and features, comparing them to enlarged versions of the famous Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph. Her conclusion? McDuffie is the man in the picture.
Life magazine, however, isn’t buying it. Eisenstaedt didn’t bother to get the identity of the sailor and Life execs maintain the story of the famous photo will forever remain a mystery.
My opinion? Life is being hard-as . . . well, you get the idea. This old man has lung cancer. He’s gone through three wives, played a little semi-professional baseball, put in time with the Postal Service. He wants the world to know he’s the young sailor in the photo that day and I think he deserves his due. I mean really? Would a guy be likely to forget a lip lock like this one? And what is there to be gained from lying all these years?
For the article from the Washington Post, click here.
V-J Day, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Glenn McDuffie, Lois Gibson, WWII
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