By the time U.S. Army Cpl. Robert Henderson and his fellow soldiers pressed into Germany from Belgium, the war in Europe had ended.

It was not long before Christmas 1945. Berlin had fallen to the Soviets earlier that year and the Allies had secured Germany's unconditional surrender shortly thereafter, but that didn't mean everyone immediately went home. Henderson and his anti-aircraft artillery unit of about 100 men still had their boots on foreign soil as part of the occupying force.

Although they were no longer marching headlong into war, that didn't mean everyone made it home safely.

Turns out that boredom among GIs in their down time was almost as dangerous to their ranks as Hitler's Luftwaffe, to hear Henderson and his wife, Polly, tell it.

"Oh, yes, he saw some of his buddies killed," she says, "but it was their fault."

Boys will be boys

The Hendersons, life-long Huntersville and Long Creek residents, are regular visitors to the Angels & Sparrows Soup Kitchen in Huntersville. They go not because they need to, but because they've become close friends with the kitchen's proprietor and lead angel, Sandy Tilley. They also truly enjoy the company of others and sharing stories.

And the now-85-year-old Cpl. Henderson has some whoppers to share.

"We had some good guys," he says of his wartime cohorts, "but we had a lot of guys that liked to drink, and when they drank, they went a little crazy."

Which might explain the incident with the loaded handgun, or the guy who climbed a tree only to get electrocuted. Maybe even the penchant of one particular soldier to play with unexploded ordnance.

The way he tells it, Henderson says it was just another day of killing time while the clock wound down on his European hitch. Just a few days after the aforementioned unintentional — but not necessarily surprising — discharge of a firearm a fellow soldier was toying with, Henderson and a few others were walking through a railroad yard that had been all but obliterated by Allied bombs.

He says one of the men came upon a very large and very intact explosive device, and decided it would be a good idea to try and blow it up.

"I said, 'If you're gonna set that thing off, you let the rest of us get up yonder on the other side of that hill,'" says Henderson. So the small group took cover not long before the ordnance came to life.

Henderson says he remembers the young soldier thinking it was just hilarious to wire it up and set it off, which perhaps is what gave him the confidence to try it a second time with a device the group found in a field just beyond the rail yard.

The same soldier began to tinker with the bomb and wire it up for ignition.

"He was there working on that thing, and that thing went off," Henderson says. He and his other buddies were so close to the explosion that he says it took them a good 10 minutes before the dust settled and they could get up to investigate what happened.

"We finally got up, and found the only thing left of him was a small piece that come off his shoe," he says. After word was sent for help and officials from his unit finally arrived, they asked where the presumed injured soldier was.

"He's gone," Henderson replied. "Blowed him all to pieces."

Henderson says there were eventually some remains of the soldier they were able to find, and they buried him in Germany.

Already rattled by that incident, not long after it was several close calls in one day as a driver in a truck convoy that finally pushed Henderson's buttons. He'd decided he'd pushed his luck about as far as he dared. After getting out of the truck to check on another driver with whom he'd had a near-collision, Henderson made the pecking order of things very clear to his passenger.

"When I started to get back in the truck, I didn't get in the driver's side," he says. "I got over on the other side. ... I said, 'You're not getting in here, you're gonna drive.' He said, 'No, I'm not.' I said, 'Yes, you are, because if you don't we're both gonna have to walk.' I bet I was 15 minutes to finally getting him in the notion of doing it."

Divine intervention?

Henderson says there's really only one way to explain all the tight scrapes he escaped from — a few at the hands of enemy bombers and some at the hands of his own comrades in arms.

"What I always thought about was that the Lord was looking out for me," he says with all confidence. "I knew that my mother and my family was praying for me. I knew that my church (Huntersville Presbyterian) was praying for me."

Polly nods in agreement, and a grin begins to spread across her face.

"He knew I was home waiting for him, and that he better get home," she says.

They were married about 10 months after Henderson came back stateside in April 1946, but not before he had a little explaining to do about a certain love letter, addressed to a certain someone else.

"He was dating me, and everyone else, too," says Polly, who adds his age has not slowed him down and his flirtatious ways are on full display at the soup kitchen.

"While he was overseas, he wrote to Dorothy Washam," she says, "but (the mailman) dropped that letter in our mailbox. Well I didn't notice who it was addressed to and I opened it. It said, 'My dearest Dorothy ...'"

"I was in trouble right then, I tell you," Henderson says without a lick of shame. The trouble must not have been too bad, though, as the Hendersons will celebrate 65 years of marriage next year.

Living, loving legacy

As highly anticipated and long-awaited as it was, his homecoming was bittersweet. Henderson's father, whose already fragile health had taken a turn for the worse just weeks before he was discharged, died shortly after his return.

Echoing the sentiments of an entire generation of young volunteers who served their country during World War II in the skies and on battlefields and seas across the globe, Henderson is very pragmatic in his assessment of what it meant to go to war.

"When I was in service, I just did what I was supposed to do," he says simply. "It's what we all did."

And his return to civilian life was, well, just another day in a life. At 21 years old, he came home, found work mixing mortar for 35 cents an hour, got married and built a three-room house for his new bride on land given to them by her father.

Their decades-long union has created a legacy of service. Across two subsequent generations, the Henderson children and grandchildren have worn or are wearing the uniforms of all five service branches.

"I'm proud of all my family," Polly says.

But beyond the steady stream of service flowing through the Henderson line, what's more prevalent is the obvious legacy of love they've nurtured over time. It's expressed in their humor with each other, the way they help each other finish a sentence, even the way Polly straightens his collar to have his picture taken or gently pats his hand if he begins to repeat one of his stories.

And it's clear they still fully enjoy each other's company, especially the time they spend with friends at the Huntersville soup kitchen.

"We love to come here," Polly says. "I think we've made more friends by coming. In fact, I've got a boyfriend and you don't even know it," she pokes at Henderson, who already has a reputation at the kitchen as an unabashed flirt.

Henderson hears her, but doesn't even flinch at the prospect. The confidence of a 65-year marriage allows a man that.

"I'm not gonna let nobody have her," he says, "at least not as long as I can help it."