This is the real NATO alliance.

        An alliance of love, in a time of war.

        It is the story of a young woman from Fort Thomas who joined the Air Force after high school and a young man from a German village who donned the uniform of his nation's military to serve the time required of all young German men.

        Julie Stulz and Martin Weckerlein. Two young people who grew up an ocean apart.

        In about seven weeks, they will stand at the altar of a 700-year-old church near Nuremberg, surrounded by friends and family from both sides of the Atlantic, and exchange marriage vows.

        “To say we are happy is to say the ocean is deep,” said Airman 1st Class Stulz.

        Their love began long before either donned a military uniform.

        Three years ago, Ms. Stulz was a student at Highlands High School who became a foreign exchange student in Germany.

        Martin Weckerlein was a former student at a boarding school in Germany who came back to help put on a school play. At a party at the school, the two met. They sat up and talked until 6 or 7 a.m., “realizing that we liked each other, a lot,” Ms. Stulz said.

        They became inseparable friends.

        After Ms. Stulz went home to Fort Thomas, her young German friend came to visit — they went to Kings Island, the Krohn Conservatory, Union Terminal.

        The next year, Ms. Stulz spent Christmas in Erlangen, Germany, with Mr. Weckerlein and his parents.

        “I remember telling Martin when we first met that I was going to join the Air Force and I hoped I'd be stationed in Germany,” Ms. Stulz said.

        As it turned out, she was. For the past year, Airman Stulz has been a military journalist, working in the public affairs office of Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern.

        Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Ramstein has been on a high state of security alert. It is the place where humanitarian food flights to Afghanistan originate; and it has been the place where injured American soldiers and the bodies of those who have died have returned.

        Once Ms. Stulz arrived at Ramstein, the romance picked up where it left off.

        Now, the young German soldier is in a military training program about six hours away by car. He holds a rank in the German Army comparable to a technical sergeant in the U.S. military and is a tank commander.

        Ms. Stulz's next assignment will be at Aviano Air Base in Italy, so the couple set a wedding date of April 6. About 25 friends and family from the Cincinnati area will fly to Germany for the wedding, including Ms. Stulz's mother, Tawana Thomas, a television personality in Northern Kentucky, and her father, Larry Stulz, who works at Wright-Paterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

        When Ms. Stulz transfers, her new husband will come along. His 10-month stint in the Bundeswehr will be over and he plans to go to school in Aviano.

        But now, at least since Sept. 11, he has spent much of his time on U.S. bases in Germany, where the German military has provided security support.

        “He'll call me and say, "I can't come see you this weekend. I'm busy defending America,'” Ms. Stulz said.

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