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I can't really compare to your moment in Afghanistan, but I'll play.
I used to take rather intense fight courses in high school and into college, but I've not always been capable of defending myself. When I was a freshman in high school, I was skin and bones in a big way. I looked like half a q-tip (big dome), and I wasn't hard to push around. Neeways, a particular blonde caught my eye in my freshman english class. Cheerleader, blue eyes, great smile (with braces), and totally smart. Needless to say, I wanted to ask her out. Erin was that girl. Everyone was in love with her, and everyone was scared shitless of her older brother, Matt.
Matt was one of those kids who did varsity wrestling as a sophomore in order to rest between beating people mercilessly. We all suspected that he had somehow gotten his hands on steroids from a scientist that defected from the Eastern Bloc. He would literally ram his head into brick walls. He also loved his little sister dearly.
Maybe I'd seen one too many inspirational made-for-TV movies, or maybe I had eaten something that didn't agree with me, but I somehow found the fortitude to bashfully walk up to her desk while we were doing something like free time in class and ask if she'd like to join me at a dance. My heart was beating so hard that apparently the part of my brain that warns me about predators shut down for a few hours. I had been walking on air for about 2 hours when I realized that Matt was likely tracking me like a wounded deer.
This was my moment. "Fuck it" is as appropriate a name for it as anything, but my small balls grew three sizes that day. I found Matt, told him I was taking his sister to the dance, and I had the living shit beaten out of me for what seemed like weeks. He thought he could beat me into not dating his sister. He was wrong. A broken nose later and he figured out I wasn't giving in.
Booyah.
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