“Take me on R&R, aye? Back to where we were before, or a similar place. Sea, sky, sun, and sex 24/7. Deal?'...'Make that 12/7 - getting old.”

“If I touched you, that’d be it.” Dan shook his head, “Damn, how the fuck am I going to make you understand?” Pleading, almost. “You are everything, don’t you get it? You are the Afghan mountains, the damned red dust, the endless sky. You were my home, and more often than not, also my reason. You are unlike all the others, unlike anyone I shag, because when I touch you, it’s not just a touch, it’s eleven years of heaven and hell.”

“Aye, that’s me. Rough tough squaddie with the intellectual depth of a shallow baby bath and the educational background of a hedgerow. Complicated? Yeah, right.” Dan laughed.Vadim laughed, too. “Sorry, but that just about nails it.” He grew more serious and whispered. “But you also have the heart of a tiger and the vastness of a mountain.”

“I think it sometimes takes me a while, but I end up making good decisions at some point. Pretty much when I have exhausted all other options.”

“Love can be like a commanding officer. It's unfair, random, cruel, but it gets you through the war, somehow, gets you where you have to be. (Vadim)”

“You broke me up there in the mountains. You cracked something in my head, I don’t know. I have never been obsessed with another person before or after. You just drilled your way in and since then, I’ve been yours. You got to a place that I didn’t know existed ... and all that has changed me, taken the stuff away I thought was true about me. In some weird, weird way, started something that turned me into more than a goodlooking bastard.”

“Wife, to him, was someone who stood for stability, forcoming home, for dealing with all the shit he wasn’t able to deal with. For providing a real life and not this insanity.”