Happy Veterans Day, Glenn & Edith

GLENN McDUFFIE AND EDITH SHAIN: THEN AND NOW

As iconic images go, there are few more powerful than Alfred Eisenstaedt's Life magazine cover photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse on V-J Day in Times Square.

And like many famous photographs, controversy has surrounded Eisenstaedt's photograph over the last 63 years. The legendary photojournalist was never able to confirm the identity of the sailor before he died in 1995, but did declare that he believed Edith Shain, who is now 90, to be the woman.

Several men have claimed to be the sailor.

That dispute was sort of settled last year when a forensic artist said that Glenn McDuffie, an 81-year-old Houston resident, was the sailor, although Carl Muscarello, an 89-year-old retired cop who lives in Florida, still insists that it was he who put Shain in the famous liplock amidst the spontaneous celebration over the end of the Pacific war.

Meanwhile, Shain has flown to New York from Los Angeles for a reunion with the Navy.

She went to see the musical revival of "'South Pacific'' and posed for pictures, being hoisted off her feet on stage by five of the actors in Navy whites. And then today she will serve as grand marshal of the city's Veterans Day parade and ride at the head of a contingent of World War II veterans.

More here.