Robert Vermillion - Anzio Diary

Soldiers of the press. This week, Anzio Diary. This is Robert Permillion, United Press correspondent in Italy. It's my job to tell you people at home what's going on here on the beachhead at Anzio.

It may sound funny to start telling you what things are like with something as unwall like as a wedding, but it was a part of the ludicrous hodgepodge of war. And to those of us at the beachhead, it was a very touching event.

If you've ever hitchhiked on a foggy highway back in the States, you've seen a pair of headlights approaching through the darkness. You get what I mean. It's a mighty black business on those few square miles in Italy, and a boy and a girl getting married in the midst of it was like seeing a couple of hundred dreams come true.

Every one of the boys carries around a favorite dream in his pocket. Maybe it's a snapshot, maybe a letter. All those pictures and letters were rolled up into one. When the wheezy old organ they managed to dig up, started playing the old familiar strains.

Just playing getting married for the battle going on is no easy business. You couldn't be sure the German bombers wouldn't be over any minute. I was not surprised with Jane. Oh, you know, when I was a little girl, I always thought that I'd be married when the Magnolia came out in our backyard.

Mother used to tell me what she'd do to grandma's wedding dress to make it do. You'll be a beautiful bride, honey, even without the magnolia. What do you mean? I wouldn't trade all the magnolia and old days in the world for this.