Charlie and Terrie on their wedding day — 15 August 1971

Charles “Charlie” Eesley and Terrie Lee in their wedding portrait, 15 August 1971, at the First Congregational Church in Marietta, Ohio — Charlie in a black tuxedo with a yellow boutonnière, Terrie in a high-necked lace gown and veil, holding a bouquet of yellow and orange flowers.

This photograph is the resolution of the whole Vietnam letters correspondence. Across the spring of 1971 the letters circle one question over and over — whether Terrie would come to Hawaii, whether her parents would allow it, whether they would marry around the R&R, what it would cost. Charlie came home from Vietnam in June 1971; two months later they were married at the church in Marietta. The countdown that paces the late letters — 136 days, 101, 88, 81, 43 — ends here.