The first train is already delayed, and I\u2019m waiting on a crowded platform in Germany, on a hot Friday in June. So many soldiers! I haven\u2019t seen that in a long time. Female soldiers, too. They stand alone and don\u2019t talk to anyone. They look serious. They\u2019re young. Faces with their whole lives ahead of them. The last time I saw such a large military presence was when I was a child: fighter jets roaring across the summer sky, tanks on the sparsely traveled highways of East Germany in the 1980s, the \u201cLied gegen die Neutronenbombe\u201d [Song Against the Neutron Bomb] in music class. I can\u2019t find a seat on the train and end up in the corridor, which isn\u2019t air-conditioned. I sit on the floor with two female soldiers surrounded by suitcases and backpacks. When the heat becomes almost unbearable, one of them says, \u201cIt\u2019s my job, after all, to put up with this.\u201d Images from war movies flash through my mind. My brain realizes, with a sense of unease, that these two young women could really end up in a trench. I reply, \u201cMine too!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A four-hour delay\u2014standing, sweating, trash-strewn aisles, lines of people waiting for free water at the onboard bistro. It seems we\u2019ve left our comfort zone. And everywhere, figures in camouflage squat on the floor. Their presence feels oppressive. And yet, at the same time, they seem so vulnerable as they crouch there, withdrawn into themselves. I don\u2019t know if something is brewing, but I don\u2019t want these young people to have to go through what my grandfather and all those soldiers went through\u2014and were never able to talk about. What I can do in this exceptional situation on an overheated train is to remain calm, friendly, and focused on human connection. And to be honest, quite a few people are doing just that in this \u201cpost-comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo <\/strong>Mihail Cioinica<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first train is already delayed, and I\u2019m waiting on a crowded platform in Germany, on a hot Friday in June. So many soldiers! I haven\u2019t seen that in a long time. Female soldiers, too. They stand alone and don\u2019t talk to anyone. They look serious. They\u2019re young. Faces with their whole lives ahead of them. The last time I saw such a large military presence was when I was a child: fighter jets roaring across the summer sky, tanks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9153,"featured_media":73539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8796],"tags":[11824,11825,8819],"class_list":["post-73698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-column","tag-ausgabe-31-32-2026-en","tag-english-issue-33-34-2026","tag-seeds"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73698"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73925,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73698\/revisions\/73925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}