In Search of a Blue Beret

(excerpt of a memoir I wrote for a Mills & Boon competition.)

‘Surely there wouldn’t be many people who’d reply to an ad like that’, Tracey thought as she browsed through the personal column in the Sunday paper. ‘It would probably be the last thing those soldiers in the Middle East wanted, and sure most of them must already have wives or girlfriends back home’.
By the time she’d finished scrolling the page, her attention was yet again drawn to the ad for the soldiers. The thoughts of a man in uniform always sent her heart racing but that only seemed to happen in the movies. Maybe her Richard Gere was out there waiting. ‘Suppose I have nothing to lose’ she thought, as she folded the newspaper and opened a note pad in front of her.
Before long, there was a large pile of crumpled paper on her bedside locker and she was still staring down at an empty page. Writing an introductory letter wasn’t as easy as she initially thought but she was going to give it a go. She knew she couldn’t come across as being desperate, but yet again she didn’t want to sound too forward.
As the clock beside her bed reached midnight, she finally put her pen down and sat back from her script. She had put together a seven-page letter, detailing herself and her hobbies. Although curious to know about the life of a soldier serving in South Lebanon she never asked directly in her letter, nor did she touch on fragile subjects like relationships or home life.
With a gentle spray of Miami Glow onto the yellow envelope, she placed it into her bag, to post it off next morning, destination The United Nations Base Post Office, Naquora, Israel. ‘Be just my luck that this gets lost in the postal system, before it even leaves Ireland’, she laughed to herself. With that she knocked off the bedside lamp and drifted off into a gentle slumber.
Thousands of miles from home and with nobody to share his sadness, Mark just sat in his room and cried. He had just found out that his girlfriend back home had miscarried their first child. He had always longed to be a father one day, but the hurt he felt was for the other news he’d received. After a routine phone call home he also learned that she had rekindled acquaintances with an old flame and they had set up home together in his absence. His trust in the female population died that night, along with his unborn child and once true love.
He soon found comfort in the cold cans of beer, sold in the army canteen, but knew this wasn’t the answer to his problems. Becoming reclusive soon brought the eye on him and everybody surmised he’d received a ‘Dear John…’ from back home. With the offer of an unbiased ear, from the medic sergeant, Mark shared his problem and got the reassurance that he needed. Life had its ups and downs but there was no button to press to put it on hold. It was a case of getting on with it.
The following day was a free day for him and hanging around an army camp wasn’t exactly exciting. So he decided to offer to do security for the post car, which would collect the many letters that had been sent from back home. ‘There you go, one and a half bags’, the corporal smiled as he handed out the large blue mail sacks, ‘Oh, and here’s a few pen pal letters that arrived too’. On the journey back to the camp he quickly scanned over the wad of envelopes that he’d placed in his pocket earlier. There were letters from all over Ireland, but one stood out from all the rest. The hand- writing was the like he’d never seen before. As the gates of the camp get even closer he quickly placed the envelope inside his shirt pocket and placed the remainder inside the half filled mailbag. As the car came to a stop outside the office, Mark jumped out and carried the post inside for sorting, before retiring to his room to further scrutinise the special envelope.
Three times Mark read the contents of the letter before deciding that its sender indee