In the famous photograph of the sailor kissing the nurse on VJ Day in Times Square, it's hard to take your eyes off the handsome sailor, lip-locked with the beautiful young lady.

But peel your glare away for a moment and look to your left, and you'll see 85-year-old Jim Pickens of Mishawaka.

"I'm the one in the blues,” Jim says. People every so often have seen the picture and they say, 'Is that you?'"

Jim joined the Navy in March 1945 as a draftee and soon found himself in Connecticut at an officers training school. Jim stuttered at the time and that was enough to disqualify him from becoming an office.

"The speech teacher turned me into the commanding officer and they decided that I wouldn't make a good officer, so they sent me down to Seagate which was a hospital on Coney Island."

And that's how Jim got to New York. On one particular summer day - August 14, 1945 - Jim was enjoying the sights and sounds of Times Square.

"It was a pleasant day for me and it's a thrill to be there with a million people. I didn't pay much attention until I saw the photographer and then I saw the sailor kissing the girl and that's why I'm smiling in the picture,” says Jim.

Jim's wife, Willa, of 60 years teases that Jim wishes he was doing the kissing.

"I think he was more restrained than that!” Willa jokes and giggles.

In which Jim responds with more laughter, “I didn’t know her back then!”

"It's exciting and it's interesting to me and I just think it's terrific,” Willa shares about the memories of the picture.

Jim says he doesn't remember how he first discovered his appearance in the photograph, but it was soon after it was taken. He thought about buying an original from the photographer, but he says it cost $1,500 dollars, so the copies are just fine.

"Pictures like this become famous after they happen. I just happen to be there when it happened," says Jim. "One of those things that happen in your life time and you really don't realize the importance of it."

Willa and Jim enjoy this trip down memory lane, but Jim says although being part of such a famous picture is quite a thrill, that moment can’t compare to meeting and kissing his own wife.