Her Wedding Dress Made From Husband's Parachute-- Part 5: Her Photo Saved Gerald's Life

As Gerald Bonsonto, a medic and paratrooper assigned to the 307th Medics of the 82nd Airborne Division, saw duty around Europe and Africa, Aida worked in a shoe factory, first piecing together athletic shoes then sewing aviation lit bags for the Army.

One day, while on the job, she received a call from her future mother-in-law, asking her to come quickly.  Gerald had been shot in the chest while parachuting over Sainte-Mere-Eglise, which would become the first town liberated after the D-Day invasion.

A German sniper's bullet grazed Gerald's heart and lodges in his back, she says.  She believes "my picture saved his life."

Before he left for duty, she'd given Gerald a photo of herself that was taken at her brother's wedding.  He'd kept the picture, which had a metal, mirror-like backing in his chest pocket.  The photo was shredded by the bullet, but Aida kept it, an it is now buried with her husband.

Quite the Story.  --GreGEn