Veteran celebrates love of wife, country at Fayetteville ceremony

Jerome Allen was among several veterans honored Thursday for his service and sacrifice and, for him, congratulations were also in order.

At Highland House Rehabilitation and Healthcare, Allen was not only celebrating the love of freedom and home, but a love for his wife on their 76th wedding anniversary.

Allen and his wife, Estelle, were married on May 24, 1942.

“It was a very good day. I’d been after this girl for years to marry me,” Allen said.

Three months later, he’d leave his love back home in South Carolina, heading off to war. He was deployed to a tiny island in the Pacific, surrounded by bleached coral.

“Many a time, I sat under the moonlight on that island and wrote letters to her because it was so bright from the moon and that coral rock,” Allen said.

Allen was in the Air Force and put bombs on B-29s. Three years of moonlit nights passed on that island before it was August 1945 and one of his pilot buddies, Col. Paul Tibbits, was given a mission.

“He flew over this town, dropped his bomb and it blew the town completely off the map. Nothing was left of it,” Allen said.

When the B-29 bomber known as the Enola Gay returned to Tinian Island, another pilot offered to take Allen to see the apocalypse.

“I said ‘No, I’m going to take their word for it because I’m going home now. This is over and I’m going home,’” Allen said.

Allen returned home to his wife, who still sat by his side Thursday afternoon at Highland House as he and more than a dozen other veterans received a certificate, a pin and a handshake.

“I wouldn’t change none of it, because I love her from the bottom of my heart and always have,” Allen said.

Pruitt Health Hospice organized Thursday’s ceremony to say thank you to the veterans who live at Highland House. Sen. Wesley Meredith, a veteran himself, visited from Raleigh to salute them.

Allen said of his service, “I would do it again, absolutely.”