They had met through friends and had spent, at most, six hours together over the course of two evenings. In a few weeks, 1st Lt. Dan Berschinski was going to Afghanistan, where he would lead a platoon of 35 men. It was June 2009.

Later that night, he was walking back to his platoon’s position after a meeting with his company commander. It was a route through which dozens of soldiers had passed without incident. Dan stepped on the trigger of a buried bomb.

She expected that the New York Times or The Washington Post would do a story about Dan and the two soldiers killed the same day. “I distinctly remember telling people that it was going to be all over the news,” she said later. But there were no stories in the papers beyond a couple of small-town obituaries. Dan’s war was invisible.

“Dan lost his legs in Afghanistan, but he got me,” Rebecca kidded recently. They were sitting in Dan’s apartment, which has the temporary feel of a college dorm room. On the kitchen counter is a photo of his platoon, taken the day after Dan’s blown-up day.