Recycling another post here:
One of my favorite NPR stories — and very appropriate for Valentine's Day — is a March 2004 broadcast, about a World War II era love story, of two Nashville College students, Charles C. Winnia and V.J. Watkins. After three months of dating, Winnia went off to war and kept up a diary, which was only recently rediscovered. For, tragically, Lt. Winnia, like so many of our heroes, did not make it back from the war. His plane was shot down and his diary had rested in a friend's garage for decades. Then, through an unlikely chain of coincidences, researchers put the diary together with Ms. V.J. Watkins, who was still living in Nashville. I can't begin to do justice to this story — it's so moving, and it's a story of love lasting for decades.
Here's a sample, though: "You never married," asked the NPR interviewer? Watkins said something like, "No, but that wasn't entirely because of Charles. That would sound like an impossible deathless romance. … Well, I was never 100% sure, but if he'd come back and had been serious about the thing, we might have gotten together…." So maybe it was because of Charles after all; in fact, after listening to the story, I suspect it was because of Charles. Another story of the reach of love — and the tragic effects of war — across decades. Best line — though not the most moving one, from Ms. Watkins' interview, "I neglected my Vanderbilt studies grievously" (with the grievously pronounced in a most southern fashion.) It's the perfect Valentine's Day story and extremely moving. Listen to it at the NPR website.