I had never told him how important it was for us to hug
him after the war.
Yesterday I did.
More than two years after, no longer a soldier, he says
he sometimes hears explosions all around him.
More than two years later, Lenny’s sons are in the army
and preparing for the army. We don’t know if the next war will be with Hamas in
Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon (or heaven forbid both). We don’t know when it
will happen. We do know that it will …
How many people understand what we go through? Can you?
This is what I wrote, then (August 11, 2014)….
“So tomorrow we can go see him and hug him” I
said. Lenny had woken me up to tell me that Haim had come home from Gaza
[Operation Protective Edge].
Haim is the son of one of Lenny’s childhood
friends. I’ve known Haim almost a decade. Lenny has known him since infancy. He
was always charismatic. Even as a small child. Haim has a friendly charm that
makes you smile and an exuberant personality that can’t be ignored.
He is a paratrooper and was one of the IDF
soldiers on the ground in Gaza. Now he had come home.
Haim is just a few years older than Lenny’s
sons and because of this Lenny had a visceral reaction to his life being in
danger on the frontline. He imagined more vividly than ever before what it will
be like to be in the position of a parent trying to go about his daily life,
choked with fear for his son’s life. Every news update, every rumor on social
media, every phone call and knock on the door could bring life shattering news:
your beloved is injured, or worse, dead. You cannot protect your child or take
the danger away. You are left behind, waiting, never knowing until the moment
he walks back in the door and you can, once again, wrap your arms around him
and hold him tight.
We went to see Haim the next day. It is hard
to explain in words but it had become really important to look at him, to hug
him. Maybe it was a need to see that he would be ok and in one piece. Too many
of our soldiers did not come home. Too many came home not whole – arms or legs
amputated, eyes damaged, hearing damaged…
Remembering the child, it was startling to
see the man standing in front of us. Young but no longer a boy, Gaza had
changed him.
Firstborn and the only boy, Haim had always
been the delight of his family. Now they all crowded around him, talking, not
really knowing what to say… excited. Watching them, it was like I was seeing
two different worlds collide. Haim was in the midst of his loving family but he
was also alone. None of them could ever know exactly what he went through in
Gaza, only the people who were there with him could really understand.
His mother talked about the horrible heat he
had to endure, the powder-like sand that got on and in everything, the
inability to take a shower or change clothes. These all were certainly
bothersome but they were the least of his worries. What is a sore and itching
body compared to coming home alive or getting killed?
Even his father, grandfather or other Israeli
men wouldn’t understand completely because the tactics used by the Hamas in
Gaza are different from what was in previous wars. This was not the battle of
soldiers meeting each other on a battlefield it wasn’t even like previously
seen urban combat. The enemy hid behind and amongst civilians, sending children
and mentally handicapped to shoot and throw grenades at soldiers. Women suicide
bombers were sent to explode themselves in order to kill soldiers. Regular
homes were weapons caches and launching pads for missiles. The Hamas hid in
their tunnels in attempt to ambush IDF soldiers, to kill and take hostages.
Everywhere they went, everything was booby trapped with explosives. Israel gave
the Gazans so much advance warning of where the IDF would be focusing their
efforts that it became easy for Hamas to prepare explosives in every place they
wanted to stop the IDF (tunnel entrances, weapons stores etc.).
Haim told us of bullets flying, RPG rockets
aimed at him and his fellow soldiers. He said: “It was like walking in to an
American action movie – only real.” He told us of how terrorists tried to
ambush them via one of their terror-tunnels (as they did when Hadar Goldin,
Benaya Sarel and Liel Gidoni were killed). “We stopped them [unlike those who
hadn’t managed to do so before it was too late],” said Haim. “We killed them.”
Haim said: “Gaza is full of miracles. We
experienced lots of miracles.” Most people think of miracles as something
spectacular that happens. He was talking about all the things that didn’t
happen. The bullets that didn’t hit them. The terrorists that failed in their
ambushes. The explosives, meant to kill them that simply didn’t explode.
He told us of a house they had to enter – the whole ceiling was
covered in gas balloons rigged to explode. They were meant to cause an
explosion that would have incinerated the building and all the soldiers inside.
But they didn’t explode. Haim and all the soldiers with him should have been
dead. But they weren’t.
Thank God for miracles!
Haim’s family all had their opinions about
the war with Hamas, what should and shouldn’t be done. Haim, the only one who
had actually been in Gaza this time around, remained silent. When asked
directly he said: “We successfully completed every task given to us. If now we
are asked to do more, we will.”
His mother visibly paled at the thought of
him having to go back but remained silent. She knew that he had only 48 hours
to be at home and that wherever he’ll be sent, it will be dangerous. If he has
to go back to Gaza, he will. If not, he will be sent to other, difficult and
risky tasks. He will go because it is his turn. In two years Lenny’s sons will
also go.
Each soldier has parents, brothers, sisters,
wives and children that worry themselves sick each time their beloved is called
up. No one wants to go to battle. In Israel it is necessary to do so because
the lives of all our people are threatened. We are not protecting political
strategic locations overseas. Our soldiers are protecting their own homes,
their mothers and fathers, their wives and children.
What does victory mean to you? This image, making the
rounds of Israeli social media, clearly shows what we fight for…
People who hate Israel look at IDF soldiers
as brutal tools of an aggressive nation. People who love Israel tend to see the
strength of our soldiers. Many know of their morality and decency. Few see the
gut wrenching pain of the parents (and wives) who send their beloved to protect
the nation, knowing he may never return. Few realize how much we need miracles
to bring them back home again…
How ironic that the Israeli people, widely
accused of war-mongering aggression, so deeply desire to see the day when we will
no longer have to fight.