The Emotional Moment a WWII Vet Reads Long-Lost Love Letter

— -- A World War II veteran who was recently reunited with a love letter he wrote to his then-sweetheart more than 70 years ago broke down in tears while reading his own words.

Bill Moore was 20 years old in 1944 when he wrote a letter to a young woman named Bernadean that he met while on furlough during the war, not knowing that he would go on to marry her.

The letter was found in the sleeve of a record that was purchased by a stranger in a thrift shop. The stranger went on a search to reunite the letter with its author.

Moore, now 90, now lives in an assisted care facility in Aurora, Colorado. His daughter was contacted shortly before Valentine's Day this year by the person who unintentionally bought the letter, and Moore was overcome with emotion when he read it for the first time in 70 years.

"I was really surprised because I would have no way of knowing that it would show up in the way it did," he told ABC News' Denver affiliate, KMGH.

Moore was fighting in Patton's Third Army at the time and what he didn't know when he wrote that letter was that he would go on to marry the woman he called "my darling, lovable, alluring, Bernadean" and have three children together.

They were married for 63 years before she died in 2010.

"I loved her ... she loved me and that's all I can tell you is the heartache of not being with her all the time," he told KMGH.