These moments

There is this one moment when the world is standing still. This one moment that takes you 
the ability to speak, to move, even to breathe. I’m not sure if everyone knows these kind 
of moments. I didn’t until I fell in love with a soldier. I didn’t know so many things until I fell in 
love with a soldier. It’s hard. It’s so unbelievable hard. But in the end, it’s so worth it. I have 
been through hell. He has been through hell. And our relationship as well. No experience 
in the world can describe the love you share when you stole the heart of an infantry soldier.

I’ve had quite a few of these moments recently. It takes more than a couple of weeks to 
get back to a special limit of trust. 

One night, I asked him if we can make it work. He went of course we can. All these 
problems will just bring us closer. I wasn’t sure if I can believe him. 

The night before, we had another long talk about our relationship. No, it’s not stable yet. 
And we have probably been through more than we should have been. But they have been 
right. Military love is different. We want each other. More than we ever tried to imagine.

The one moment that is burned into my mind is when C. was standing in front of me, 
next to a wood, and me being angry about something that happened during the week. 
It was one of these moments that questioned our relationship. I went to see him after work, 
wearing a white short dress, my mind trying to prepare me for the worst again, to let him go, 
because all these little things that put a strain on us can’t be fixed anymore and there won’t 
be any hope for an “us”. 

It doesn’t sound like a nice moment. The second that made me silent was when he reached 
out his hand, showing me a little black box, asking me to take it. I hold on for a while, telling 
C. that I don’t want anything from him but a talk about everything. “Either you take it or it 
goes into the bushes” was his response. To avoid any arguments, I took the black box and 
put it away in my handbag. After we talked about things, he took the little box again. “Do you 
know what this is?” I shook my head. He opened the box and a silver medal with the bold 
letters “Afghanistan” was looking at me. 

The moment that makes the time stand still is the one when he gave me his Afghan medal
with the words “I wouldn’t get through it without you. This is what you make possible”.  

There are these very special moments you can just share with an infantry soldier. The
night before he went back home, C. took me out. He asked me if I’d mind a bit of a walk 
and I said no. Where he took me was a military training area with the information “don’t 
touch anything that looks not natural, because it will probably go off and blow your hands 
away”. How romantic! In the end, that evening was one of the most special evenings for 
us so far.

It’s hard, so very hard. But there are these moments that truly take your breath away.