A witness to a kiss

Gloria Bullard had a walk-on part in history, said Andy Newman in The New York Times. The retired nurse, 84, was in the crowd at Times Square on V-J Day in 1945. “It was so exciting,” Bullard recalls of that day, “Horns, church bells, all kinds of noises. My sleeves were torn from all the hugging and kissing.’’ Walking through the crowd, she stopped in her tracks when she spotted a sailor dipping a nurse in the middle of the street. “I just saw him grabbing her and then bending over and kissing her. I got the impression that she was enjoying it.” That kiss, captured by Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, would become one of the most iconic photos of the war era. Bullard could never prove she was there, until recently, when another photo of the kiss, taken by photographer Victor Jorgensen, showed Bullard’s face in the crowd of bystanders. “I was right there,” she says. She’d like people to know she wasn’t merely watching. Everyone was so happy, she says, that strangers were smooching each other. “I got kissed a least a dozen times. It was a beautiful, beautiful day.’’

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up