When John Banvard, 100, met Gerard "Jerry" Nadeau, 72, in 1993, neither of them had been openly gay.

"When we met, we were sort of in the closet, and I'd never had a real relationship. Now, we've been together almost 25 years," Jerry tells John during a StoryCorps interview.

Both are veterans, having served in World War II (John) and Vietnam (Jerry), and when they moved into the veterans home together in Chula Vista, Calif., in 2010, Jerry says people there wondered what their relationship was.

"Well, when we got married, they knew what our relationship was," Jerry says, laughing.

The couple married in 2013, and John says he was surprised by the warm reception they received. "I was expecting we'd be ridiculed, and there was very little of that," he says.