The crowded bus, traveling continuously for over five hundred kilometers, left the young woman exhausted. Understanding the hardships his young wife faced on the long journey, every time he went to pick her up, her husband, Lieutenant Pham Sy Tung (a maritime officer on Coast Guard vessel 4038, Squadron 212, Regiment 21, Coast Guard Region 2), always brought a bottle of chilled fruit juice to give her as soon as she got off the bus. The gentle, warm embrace and happy smiles they shared made all the previous hardships and worries seem to vanish...

Over a year ago, during a visit home to Kong Chro town, Kong Chro district (Gia Lai province), Lieutenant Pham Sy Tung reunited with his close friend from high school. Seeing that Tung was still single, his friend offered to introduce him to a pretty, energetic office worker who particularly admired soldiers. Tung, in response to his friend's kind offer, thought to himself, "I'm a soldier, stationed hundreds of kilometers from home, spending all year at sea. Who knows if she'll understand or empathize with me?"

The couple Pham Sy Tung and Ha Ngoc Huong. Photo provided by the subjects.

But contrary to his expectations, the two young people hit it off right from their first meeting. The office worker was impressed by the witty, gallant, and composed soldier. The sailor, on the other hand, was smitten by the big, round eyes and the ever-present bright smile on his new friend's face. Over time, they gradually became close, caring for and sharing with each other all the joys and sorrows of work and life.

In his free time, Tung often told Huong about the long voyages he and his comrades undertook on patrols, inspections, and law enforcement at sea, filled with difficulties, hardships, and dangers; and about the trips he and his unit's officers and soldiers took with fishermen to the open sea to defend the waters, resolutely and persistently repelling foreign vessels encroaching on our country's territorial waters, firmly protecting the sacred sovereignty of our nation's seas and islands. Huong, in turn, shared her joy with Tung about his work trips to remote ethnic minority communities in the province; and the remarkable progress in administrative reform in her hometown, to which she had contributed.

The young couple's feelings for each other grew stronger over time. Not long after, during a leave of absence, in a corner of a park in the mountainous city of Pleiku, Tung gently pulled the office worker into his arms and whispered, "Will you be my girlfriend, a sailor?" In response, she rested her head on his chest and softly said, "I want you to wear this Coast Guard uniform on our wedding day. Because I've fallen in love with that uniform."

NGUYEN HONG SANG