Question: did you get any inspiration from the army?

Kristian Harder answered on 8 Nov 2013:

Oh yes, definitely. I’ve only been in the army for a year (plus a few brief voluntary training exercises over the following years until I left Germany), but I actually see this as my proper year of birth. 🙂
As a teenager, I was the typical science nerd, top of the class in school in almost every subject, but quite useless otherwise. I mean this in the sense that I was very shy, had no confidence in myself, was socially very awkward and so on. In the army, I was forced to do things I never thought I’d be physically capable of, and I liked it. It really changed my life. Afterwards, I pretty much continued with my original plan to become a particle physicist (though I did consider staying in the military for good), but in addition I did things like sports (mostly martial arts), international humanitarian aid (driving lorries full of emergency supplies into recent war zones and donations for poor people into Eastern Europe), became a first aider and assistant paramedic and many more things. So, yes, the army inspired large parts of what I am now, but:
None of what I got from the army had much relevance for my scientific career. If anything, I would have probably become a better scientist without distraction by the military. Well, sometimes I think the attitude that I got there helps me in science too, never to give up, to do whatever it takes, to know that I can work for two weeks with two hours of sleep per night if it’s important, and, above all, to know when I really need a break. 🙂 But overall I’d say army and science are two quite separate topics in my life.