by Izzy Ezagui
In the meantime, my baby sisters, Shoshi and Emunah, in Israel wandered shell-shocked, searching for their Tatty. My seventeen-year-old sister, Jasmine, was angry, lost, and tanking in school.
Thank God for Ian's robot heart. He was more of a brother than even my brothers-in-arms. One day, I'm on the bench in court, awaiting the jury's finding. And I'm recalling an incident when Ian pulled me in close, by the scruff of my neck. We were in some loud club in South Beach several months ago, both of us profoundly drunk. A few minutes before, we had passed a bachelorette party in a hotel lobby, and Ian literally pulled out a wad of hundreds and made it rain, just so the girls might talk to me. Now we're in this brothers’ huddle, forehead-to-forehead, no girls or bachelorettes in sight, and Ian is shouting over the music, forcefully, even angrily. “Izzy, your father's going home. You have my word. I'll sell the last shirt in my closet to keep him from prison. My very last penny, whatever it takes.”
I'm counting on my brother being right, as usual.
The jury finally files in. We all stand, awaiting their decision. Each “guilty” they call makes Phantom flare. I nearly buckle over right there, almost vomit over the banister and into the court. I watch the people at the prosecutor's table laugh and hug and celebrate the destruction of a good man right in front of them, with no regard for his family. I could kill someone right now.
But when I see my father standing there, upright, expression unchanged, I calm myself. He holds himself with the pride of a man who knows he's innocent. I know then he will overcome. That he'll survive the troubles ahead, troubles which are only just beginning.
They don't remand him into custody immediately. That'll happen in a few months or a year—the time it will take Uncle Sam to get his act together for sentencing. That's when the handcuffs, armed guards, and foot-chains will happen. For now, they lead him away to meet his lawyers, after which he'll continue on house arrest, far away from his wife and daughters. He looks up at me and gives me a weak smile. Crushing.
I book a flight back to Israel the next day. I can't bear to be around him. I'm as broken as my recently busted body can further break. For the next few weeks, I keep daydreaming about a scenario in which the judge will allow me to take on half of my father's sentence, to do half his time beside him so that we'd both be in and get out together having served his full sentence in half the span.
Before the case began, the government was offering my father a few deals in order to get a pretrial plea of guilty. Some of them were as low as six or seven years. The people who were advising my father urged me to push him toward taking such a deal. They said the government wins 90 percent of the time. They said instead of six or seven years he might end up with twenty or twenty-five. They said there is no way to come back from that long a sentence. They said our family would be destroyed by such a long sentence—but that six or seven years was short enough to survive. “He'll still be a youngish man.”
So I went to my father and begged him to take a deal. Begged him numerous times. He kept calmly repeating that he would do no such thing. Around the tenth time I tried to convince him, he burst out in very uncharacteristic anger. “Izzy—I'm not guilty! I'd rather spend my life in prison as an innocent, than walk around free as one who admitted to false guilt.”
I was so proud of his resolve, even though I was terrified. I went back to his advisors and told them, “I agree with my father.”
“You're making a huge mistake,” they said.
But it turns out we were right. The judge, who watched the entire case unfold, disregards the aggressive sentence the US Attorney's Office is recommending. In fact, Judge Block scoffs at the suggestion that Eliyahu Ezagui ought to go away for twenty-five years for what was clearly very bad judgment but with good intentions. In the end, he gets thirty-three months—lower than the minimum sentence for the crime for which he's convicted. He'll likely serve less, with time off for good behavior.
And he's going to a minimum security camp in Pensacola, Florida. Literally the opposite end of the state from Miami, where I'll be living after the conclusion of my service. But what's ten hours? I'm the only family my father will allow to visit in the nearly two years he serves. These visits are some of the most profoundly moving and memorable times I've spent with my father. I won't even share here the conversations we had. Suffice it to say, my father continues as my man of webs. In my eyes, no green jumpsuit with a number could ever diminish the length of my father's cape.
ARMS DEALER
“Yoav here. So this is the call you've been waiting for.”
Finally. It's been a year since the injury.
“Yes, sir. I'm ready. Really, really ready. I just ran across Jeru—”
“Good. Because I've gotten you a meeting next week at Givati HQ outside Be'er Sheva.” Givati is the infantry unit in which David Dan served as a lieutenant when he was my age, and where he earned his purple beret. “You'll be meeting the brigade commander, Moni Katz. You're going to have to impress him. He's not sure a one-armed soldier can survive in combat. The only one who's ever pulled off that kind of feat is Yakir Segev, and you know, that's a whole other story.”
I know, I know.
A week later, in February 2010, I'm on another bus, this time heading to Sde Teman near Be'er Sheva. The bus is extremely overcrowded, so I find myself leaning on the ledge before the last seat, where the engine releases terrible heat. As uncomfortable as the ninety-minute ride is without sitting on a proper seat, I'm determined not to ask another passenger to give up their spot for the “disabled” guy. If I'm really going to make it back to combat, I can't look at myself as disabled—and I can't have other people see me that way, either. I'm just the same as every other twenty-one-year-old.
But any twenty-one-year-old sitting across from a battalion commander and his assistant is bound to gulp a little. “So what are we doing here today?” says Katz. We're face-to-face at Givati HQ. The only furniture in his spacious office is the bare, wooden desk between us.
“I, uh, want to go back to combat, sir.”
It takes him so long to reply that I'm wondering whether I actually made my statement out loud. I'm dressed informally, jeans and a Haruv Battalion T-shirt.
“What makes you think you can do all the things a combat soldier has to do in battle?” I've answered this question a hundred times. But before I can answer this time, he says, “How are you going to do Pazastz'tot?”
A Pazastz'tah is a training exercise in which the soldier, holding his rifle in one hand, uses his other hand to either get down to the ground into a prone shooting position or get back up into a standing shooting position. It's a difficult maneuver, even with two arms, and drill sergeants make their soldiers repeat it literally ad nauseam.
Katz is clearly a man who appreciates a soldier who contemplates his answers before spouting off. So this is what I do, Ian Ash–style. And, after a while, this is what I say: “From the moment I got injured until today, everything I do I've had to relearn from scratch. Even the simplest things like buttoning a shirt, opening a bottle, and closing my belt were impossible at first. But after a while, I always found a solution. To everything. Every challenge. And I usually end up doing it just as well and as fast as before. Maybe better. So I believe the same thing will apply to combat. I understand it will be difficult at first, but not impossible. With time, I'll relearn.”
His assistant's writing notes, but Katz keeps his eyes on me. “Right.” He turns to his secretary and starts laundry-listing all the logistical details that need action and resolution before I can return. “Izzy, you'll be back in fatigues within the month.” It's clear to me this was all just perfunctory officialdom—Katz has already gotten the order from Galant to put me back into service. “That'll be all.”
I get up to leave. “Oh, and one more thing,” the brigade commander calls out as I reach the door.
“Sir?”
“If it ever strikes you again as a good idea to come to my base wearing your old unit's log
o, I will personally kick your ass. Understood?”
I can't tell if he's joking.
“Yes, sir.”
I have a lot to think about on the long bus ride home, so I'm happy to find myself sitting on an actual seat this time. Foremost on my mind is something I read somewhere: “You must be careful what you wish for. You might get it.” And there's another quote that comes to mind, this one from Kurt Vonnegut: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
December 27, 2009
Yoav,
I am e-mailing you to keep you updated on my progress.
I stopped taking all forms of medication. That means no pills, patches, or painkillers. This was initially against doctors’ orders simply because it is not an easy task to accomplish. The doctors are very impressed and can't believe I have done so. We can both agree that nothing stands before a man's will.
Sadly, this does not mean that all the phantom pain is gone. I am seeing a world-renowned specialist in N.Y. next month to deal with the pain. I have heard really good things about him and am hoping to see immediate results.
Once the pain is gone I will be heading to a company called “A Step Ahead.” They make prosthetics for the soldiers [who] come back from the war in Iraq. An organization has agreed to pay for my prosthetic. I explained to them my will to return to combat, and they agreed to help me [by making] a prosthetic that is capable of holding an M4, among other capabilities.
I hope all is well by you and that the UN isn't giving you too many problems.
Please send my warmest regards to your wife and kids.
(Feel free to reply in Hebrew)
Izzy
MY RIGHT-HAND MEN
No fireworks or parades mark my return to Givati, south of Be'er Sheva, in March 2010 (“Go straight to the end of the world, and make a left”). In fact, I'm not even going to have a second to celebrate. Moni Katz informs me I've got just a month to pass all the tests I had eight months to pass as a new recruit more than two years ago. He isn't rude about it, just matter-of-fact. Katz won't allow me to salute him—in fact, no officer, including General Galant, will let me salute them anymore. I think I'm supposed to take this as a sign of respect. Like we're equals or something. But it makes me uncomfortable. “One month, Izzy. Do or die. That includes the wall, the rope, marksmanship—everything.”
Day one, I'm introduced to two people who'll be my lifeline here—and my gatekeepers. Ofir is the base's lead fitness instructor. He's a tall, handsome, quite smiley lieutenant. He happens to hold the record for the fastest obstacle course run in Givati. He's a physical freak of nature—strong and fast with inhuman endurance. Avishag—“Shoogy”—is the base's lead shooting instructor, also a lieutenant. Short, dark, and very much “one of the guys,” she's beloved by everyone under her command. I can tell right away these two are natural leaders. I'll be working with them for two weeks each: Two weeks training on the obstacle course and the one-man drill with Ofir. Two weeks on the range with Shoogy. Then a final test, in front of Katz and whoever else he plans to drag along.
That first day, I go on a run with Ofir. “Not bad, not bad,” he says a few miles in. “Good pace. I'm surprised by your level of fitness. This might be easier than they prepped me for.” I'm smiling—but I don't have the breath to respond. He hasn't broken a sweat.
I'm rooming with two lovable stooges. The base's Krav Maga instructors, Efi and Dudi, are both deadly dudes, well-versed in snapping limbs and killing with their fists and kicks. But they're also both goofy as ball sacks. I decide that first night to share my dark sense of humor. So lots of one-armed jokes right off the bat. These two loons run with it. They come up with more amputee gags in one night than I ever will in a lifetime. I see Dudi, sporting eight-pack abs, likes to walk around in his tight underwear, farting away, and making little content sounds about it, as though rating the power of each release. And Efi is arguing with his girlfriend over the phone as he lies in bed, a nightly custom. Then they spend several hours in front of a small TV in the room, making grilled cheese sandwiches on a little press, yelling obscenities at the soccer players, and screaming whenever whoever scores a goal. They never once question the crazy, one-armed soldier who claims he's going to make it back to combat. I love them already.
On day two, Ofir lends me his combat vest, with its ammo and water weight. We hit the obstacle course, which is supposed to simulate operations under pressure. Having already served, I know I'll probably never have to do most of this stuff in combat, but I understand why they make us do it. IDF soldiers typically first attempt the course in the middle of basic training. Those who fail have to keep trying until they pass.
The exam begins with a five-hundred-meter sprint, before you reach a high wall. For many, the wall is their great nemesis. I didn't have any trouble two years ago, so I'm not expecting any now. There's also monkey bars, parallel bars, crawling under a low metallic grate, and a dozen other obstacles you have to master. In the middle, there's the rope. The rope you have to climb. After completing the last obstacle, if you have any gas left, you sprint four hundred meters to cross the finish line.
I'm more shocked than Ofir when I go hurtling over the two-meter (seven-foot) wall on my first try, with room to spare. “What the what,” he cries out. “Duuude…A Jew with mad hops.”
The parallel bars, on the other hand, take me a night of tossing and turning to figure out. The bars rest at about chest-height. I figure I can grab a hold of one of them, and jump/pull myself onto the other so that I'm seated on the thin rail. Then I'll scoot, scoot, scoot, scoot, until my butt cries for mercy. The next day, I get to check the parallel bars off the list. My ass raises the white flag, though, and I'll never again be able to sit quite the same way.
The rope is where things get hopeless. During this retraining, I can't make it more than a hand-length up the rope. To pass, I'll need to climb three meters—that's ten feet—and hit the beam at the top with my helmet. And that's after completing half the course, so I'll already be exhausted.
Obviously they're not about to offer me the Cripple Course. I would never ask for the booster seat, even if one existed and it was on offer. But that rope climb is going to be my Waterloo. I start to have nightmares about it. I wake up in a cold sweat with all my abdominal and oblique muscles cramped. One night the Stooges hear me, and they both switch on their lamps. “Dude,” says Efi. “You should call Yakir.” He means Yakir Segev, the one-armed commander. “Pretty sure he's got the rope-climbing record for Egoz—or was it all Golani?”
“No way,” I say.
“Yep,” says Dudi, taking the opportunity to switch the TV on and check the soccer scores. “Yakir's the fastest rope-climber. Like, in the entire IDF.”
“He came to visit me in rehab,” I tell them. “I've got his cell number. When I kept telling the general and all those politicos I was returning to combat, the first thing they all did was call Yakir.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah. Pretty sure his mission was to talk the crazy guy off the ledge.”
So, the next day, I call Yakir Segev. I go through a long diatribe about how amped I am, and how prepared, but this rope thing, it's going to be the death of me. Mrab, mrab, mrab…
When he first came to see me in rehab, he gave me thoughtful advice I'd used to get this far. He said, “Izzy, there are soldiers who are slow, or fat, or have horrible coordination. There are guys who are a terrible shot. No soldier's perfect. But the goal of any soldier is to do so well at all the tasks he's good at, that the bad things get sort of…suffocated…by all the good. See?” That all must be an expression. Right? I expected no less wisdom now.
Silence on the other end.
“Yakir?”
“I'm here. Listen, Izzy. You listening?”
“Yeah, hit me.” I await the sagacious nugget.
“Izzy. Just. Climb. The rope. Just fucking do it.”
Advice from a check-marked sneaker. But of course he's righ
t—it's exactly how I got it done the last time—why should now be any different?
“WHEN YOU LOSE A LIMB NO GIRL WANTS YOU ANYMORE”
A week before my first enlistment, February 2008. I'm reading Ron Leshem's novel, Beaufort, which was originally titled, Im Yesh Gan Eden (If There Is a Heaven). In the book, an IDF soldier loses his arm in the dangerous hills of Lebanon. Before the deadly mortar attack takes Ofir's hand, he gives the narrator a piece of his mind.
“Aren't you afraid?” [Ofir] asked, “at being on your own? If your arm gets blown off you'll never find anybody who'll fall in love with you and look after you. You'll die all by yourself, a disgusting, miserable old man. Aren't you afraid of being alone?”
…Truth is, this wasn't new. A long time before, we'd agreed, Oshri and me, that losing a limb was worse than anything, worse than death. We weren't the only ones who thought that way, either. All the guys in the brigade said so, it's a known fact. When you lose a limb no girl wants you anymore. And you can't play soccer anymore, or swim. No treks. You're just going to get bumped around like that your whole life, so it's better to die, no doubt about it. When I finished officers’ academy I said to Oshri, “If I get blown up and lose a part of my body, just shoot me. Kill me on the spot.”
Of course, later on, Oshri loses an arm. His friend doesn't have the guts to follow through on their mercy-murder oath. Poor bastard. Glad it's only fiction.
A week later, my first day at Camp Michve Alon near Safed in the mountainous north. This is what you could call “pre-basic training”—a three-week intensive training. I'm here because all foreign volunteers and recent immigrants are obligated to pass through like it's some predetermined spawning point in a video game. All the bottom bunks are taken by the time I arrive. No ladders or footholds. Pain in the ass to climb. I pass out on a creaky mattress formerly owned by Moses (the 1st). It smells exactly like you'd think it would: Like the cast of 300 slept in it after a hard day's filming. Before I know it, a soft voice tickles my ample ears. “Fifteen minutes. Outside, in formation.”