AUBURN, Ala. (AP) — All it took was one look while at a local swimming pool in Germany for Ronald and Margret West to fall in love.

The Auburn couple celebrated their 60th anniversary on Nov. 3.

It all started in the late 1950s. Ronald had recently enlisted in the Army and had three options for his first duty station: Northern Japan, Hawaii or Europe. Without hesitation, the young soldier chose Europe.

After training at Fort Devens in Massachusetts, Ron was flown to Kassel, Germany. He monitored Russian radio traffic and translated Morse code from conversations.

In 1959, 24-year-old Ron locked eyes with 19-year-old Margret for the first time, and the connection was instant.

Margret worked as an international operator, which gave her the ability to speak both English and Italian fairly fluently. She had practiced speaking English since she was a schoolgirl.

So when she met Ron, there wasn’t a language barrier. Both were able to converse and enjoy every second of their dates.

“In Germany, we would go and visit old castles,” Margret said. “We were always together. We’d go around and see all of these neat places, but a lot of them were destroyed and half standing because of World War II.”

From ski trips to seeing the bullfights in Spain, the couple experienced many wonders of the world.

Most nights, Ron and Margret would go to local nightclubs with friends. These clubs are completely different from the ones today, she said.

“We would go have a drink, visit with friends and dance. What’s funny is there would be phones on the table. If you were interested in the person a couple tables down, you’d give them a call,” Margret said.

Margret’s family was hesitant to let their daughter be swept away by a U.S. soldier, but once they met him, everything changed.

“My parents didn’t want me to leave Germany, of course. My father was not all for it. One day, he went to the spa, and my mom invited Ron and me over,” she said. “When he came back, she said, ‘You’ve got to meet this young man.’ That’s how he was invited into my family.”

The couple decided to get married in April of 1961, and they respected Margret’s parents’ wishes to have the celebration in Germany.

“They wanted us to get married in Germany because a lot of my friends came over to America and got it done there,” Margret said. “My family wanted it done here.”

Ron had expected to come home a year later, but plans changed.

“I was due to come home in 1962, but then the Berlin Wall went up. Everybody got extended,” Ron said.

During the extension, Ron’s unit granted him a honeymoon cruise on the ocean liner SS America. The couple traveled around England and Ireland in April of 1962.

When the couple officially headed back to Ron’s home state of Texas, Margret braced herself for culture shock.

“It was a lot. I was young, and I loved this man. Ron lived in Llano, a small town not too far from Austin, and I remember walking there and seeing a lot of cactus,” Margret said. “Oh my goodness, I had never seen a cactus before. Never in my life, and they were everywhere.

“It was so hot, but everyone was so nice to me. Everything was so new and nice, but I got homesick a lot too.”

Ron laughed remembering all of the first sights his wife experienced on their first trip to America.

“She had never seen an armadillo and never seen a roadrunner,” Ron said.

The couple decided to wait a few years to have children as Ron finished his mathematics degree from the University of Houston. Next thing you know, he had begun a career with NASA.

“We decided, since Ron had a good job, we were going to stay in America to raise the children,” Margret said. “With the kids, I went home to Germany a lot with them when my parents were still around. I’m so thankful for that too because they remember them—not so much my mother but my dad.”

Ron worked on many projects including Apollo and America’s first space station, Skylab. He still has a space den dedicated to all of his work. Up on his wall, Ron even has a picture with Neil Armstrong.

He officially retired in 1997 as NASA’s Chief Information Officer.

Margret and Ron had two kids, Thomas and Rhonda. What surprised Margret was how expectations differed between America and Germany when it came to children. She was 25 years old when she had her son, and it was seen as a late start.

“In Germany after the war, barely anyone was having children anymore,” she said. “Most people here had children very young, like 21. It was so different.”

The couple lived in Texas for 30 years, found their way up to Virginia and now reside in Auburn.

“We retired, went back to Texas, built a really nice home and then everyone left,” Ron said.

Their son lives in Louisiana as an anesthesiologist, and their daughter wound up in Auburn after taking on real estate.

“Our daughter married a man in Alabama, and that’s how we ended up here,” Margret said with a laugh. “We are with the grandkids a lot. We go to baseball games, and we watched the kids grow up.”

In total, Ron and Margret have nine grandchildren ranging in age from 15 to 24.

Though Alabama was a new area for them, Ron knew about Auburn before the move in 2006.

“I knew quite a bit about Auburn University before I came here because I went to the University of Houston. In the ’60s, Houston was just building their football team,” he said. “The only teams that were good that would play us were in the Southeastern Conference. We played Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Auburn and even Alabama.”

At first, the move from Texas was hard for Margret as she left many longtime friends, but this changed after one year in Auburn. Now, she’s a member of the Campus Club of Auburn and has found her place on the Plains.

“Auburn has the feeling of a large city, but everyone acts as if it’s a small town,” Ron said. “People are very nice. When you move around a lot, you live in places where people aren’t that nice.”

Margret even says the local parks remind her of her hometown in Germany, and it’s one of her favorite parts of Auburn.

For young couples currently in the military, Margret offered firsthand advice.

“Fit in wherever you need to go and get with other military wives or husbands. It’s important to be active in the community,” Margret said.

For Ron, he decided to give a simple nugget of wisdom.

“In general, be honest and be consistent. That’s one of the most important things,” he said.