by Roni Eliav
By nightfall, the soldiers left their hideouts, packed their gear, and disappeared into the darkness. In the middle of the night, they reunited and teamed up with me at a firing range. Our assignment was to storm a dummy artillery battery. We completed our objective, and retreated with loaded stretchers. The team then dispersed again, everyone heading off by themselves.
I clearly remember going through that exercise when I was a cadet myself. I’d descended the Dimona range, crossed the empty highway, and strode towards the next hill. My legs had hurt I’d felt like my feet were being prodded with a red-hot iron rod. My back had ached from carrying my pack, spasms in my thigh muscles from bearing all that weight while scaling a ridge. Perversely, I’d enjoyed the feeling of overcoming the pain and striding, almost galloping, forward. That feeling of elation had been cut short by dogs menacingly surrounding me every time I passed by a Bedouin campsite. Their incessant hoarse barking had compromised my stealth and silence. One dog in particular had stuck to my heels and simply wouldn’t leave me alone, even as I got far from the camp. Without thinking, I’d turned around, loaded my rifle, held it by my waist and released a round. Lucky for both of us, I’d missed. He’d turned on his heels and scampered away.
The following night, I settled in at a windy facility in Rosh Zohar, overlooking Arad. The soldiers’ assignment was to sneak in and lay dummy explosives in the facility. Admittedly, I made a poor sentinel and mostly just napped. One of the soldiers audaciously left me a note saying: too bad you’re sleeping, we wanted to say hello.
The following night saw them arrive one by one to perform a complex combat exercise, in which they faced a large opposing force. Of course, the opposing force was comprised of cardboard figures, but with the unit’s top brass all coming down to examine the drill, it was certainly a challenge. I remember when it had been my turn to perform that exercise— I’d been absolutely inspired that night. I’d performed with even more precision and intensity than I later would in actual combat. I remember my squad commander patting me on the back, saying: good job. For me, that was better than receiving a medal of honor.
Later, the soldiers fell into one line. I led them at a measured pace to the Roman battery, to conquer Masada. We were scaling the steep incline when colored smoke grenades went off all around us, flares and fireworks exploding above us. It’s impossible to put that feeling into words. Only one who has dreamed, dared, tried, and succeeded could imagine it.
On top of Masada, in the ruins of Herod’s palace, we swore allegiance to the flag and to the country. We fired a full magazine of tracer bullets into the air, and became fully fledged combatants. We put on the unit’s insignia for the first and last time— the insignia is secret, and the pins are never worn in public.
Chapter 12
SLEEP AND DREAM: MORTAL DANGER
When you are a soldier or an officer on frequent operational duty, your internal world gets deeply intertwined with the outside world, sometimes with harrowing consequences.
I stand amidst a large crowd. People are huddled in pairs and groups against the magnificent backdrop of a brilliantly colorful hall. They talk amongst themselves but I can’t hear them. Someone is leading me through the crowd but I can’t see who. We reach a secluded corner, and I stand in front of a tall old man with a magnificent white beard.
He looks at me with a penetrating gaze, and without warning says: “You will die on the night between the 27th and 28th of October.” The utterance lingers in the space between us. I get sucked out of the scene and wake up in a cold sweat. I’m in my room in the officers’ quarters of the base. It’s a hot Saturday in the middle of August. I feel disturbed by the dream, but not as disturbed as I am by the fan not working. Besides, it’s August. There’s plenty of time till October. I fall back asleep.
Finally, an operation. In the morning, we roll into al-Khiam— a village in South Lebanon— in our trucks. The village has been abandoned since Operation Litany. Each team takes a house and settles in. The soldiers review and restock their gear, adding a magazine here, a grenade there, and ammunition belts to their already engorged combat vests. I say nothing; I’ll make them take it all out later during roll call. I go to the command briefing and the intelligence briefing, and come back with maps and diagrams. The team huddles around me, and we once again go over the roles we already know so well. We’ve been waiting a long time for this, a combat operation, a three-pronged raid on three terrorist targets in Ramat Arnoun in Lebanon. We are a senior, experienced, and well-trained team; there’s a bit of tension in the air, but no fear. I’ve commanded this team for over two years now. I know each and every soldier’s strengths and weaknesses, and they know me.
American cigarettes are cheap in Lebanon, but we’re not allowed to take them out of the country. Military Police check at the gate and confiscate what they find. Christian-Arab kids run around us hawking cigarettes. Since we’ll be going out on a helicopter, all the smokers shove as many packs as they can into their vests. I go out to smoke in the sun. I light a Marlboro cigarette from a soft red pack, and suddenly it dawns on me: today is October 27th! Tonight will be the night between the 27th and 28th of October. I feel my blood curdle. The cigarette turns bland, my chest closes up, and the bright sunny sky seems to cloud over. After a couple of moments, I relax and laugh at myself for being so superstitious. I go back inside to the sound of incessant bickering and joking.
In the evening, trucks take us to the village of ‘Ayun. Before loading the trucks, I inspect the soldiers and their gear, more a common reminder than an inspection. I tighten a strap here, loosen one there, and make one of the soldiers take his helmet with him despite his insistence he doesn’t need it. I direct the driver all throughout the bumpy ride, until we reach ‘Ayun village. We hop off the truck between the houses of the village, our gear already loaded on our backs; we cock our rifles, put a bullet in the barrel, and lock our weapons; the gunner puts a belt in the machine gun’s chamber. Under the cover of darkness, we cross the ridge and start the steep descent towards the Litany River. As we make our way down, the lights in the houses of the village suddenly flick on and off. That’s quite possibly a signal to alert the enemy of our presence, although the electric grid in South Lebanon is notoriously shoddy and it could be nothing. We walk in a long line, and despite the tension in the air, jokes make their way back across the line. We carefully cross the Litany without trouble. The ascent up Ramat Arnon is long and arduous, and our shoes are wet from crossing the river, but we are all in peak physical shape. We stop for a short drink, every pair sharing a canteen. I share mine with my signaler and feel an odd sense of elation— I’m leading a team of warriors that I trained and instructed, and we’re going to confront the enemy.
We head out again and hasten our steps. The incline slowly levels out, meaning we are already on Ramat Arnoun and are nearing our target. We reach the staging point. I lead my team quietly to the right side of the force’s three-pronged formation. We lie on the ground 300 feet away from a stone wall, behind which lies the enemy camp.
We lie there motionless. The night is extremely quiet, and we wait for the other forces to take up their positions. We’re 300 feet from the enemy, and I fall asleep— even though I’m not particularly tired, and don’t tend to usually fall asleep. I sleep for twenty whole minutes, a deep, dreamless sleep. Jacob, my signaler, stirs me awake and whispers: “We’re going.” I wake up at once, energy pulsing through my body. We advance low to the ground, when all of a sudden the night erupts into a shower of bullets. We leg it over the stone fence, where we are finally in sight of the enemy camp and a cluster of bunkers. “Fire!” I shout, and the team unloads a furious barrage at the complex. Our illuminating grenades run out (a fact that sentenced the person who was supposed to carry them to years of jokes at his expense). I stand up and identify targets, completely disregarding the danger, shooting tracer bullets to mark the boundaries of the sector.
I give the or
der to storm the complex, and we advance in a line while shooting. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins: I can see sharper, run faster, I’m focused, and every muscle in my body is synched and coordinated. I feel like an indestructible war machine. We reach the bunkers and split into squads. As I run around the bunker, I feel a round of bullets whistle between my legs. I lift up my rifle and see the company commander running towards me and shooting. I shout for him to stop, and he stands in his place. We surround the bunkers. We shoot inside, and they shoot back. We toss a smoke grenade inside and wait. The terrorists scamper out, and we pick them off one by one. One of the soldiers yells to me that some of them got away; I take the gunner with me and we run to the road. Three terrorists are hightailing it down the road. The gunner holds his machine gun to his waist and discharges a long round which hits the running figures and sends them flying like cardboard targets at a range.
We blow up the bunkers and team up with the main force to retreat. It turns out we’ve taken a hostage, an old Arab man. My team is assigned to lead him back. He is barefoot, and is slowing our progress. The commander of the force orders us to open a stretcher. Two of my soldiers, farm boys from Tel Adashim, take offense to the idea of carrying a hostage: “He’ll walk,” they promise. And walk he does. In fact, run is a more accurate verb.
We reach the clearance point. Distant rapid thudding sounds suggest the helicopter is nearby. Suddenly it’s right above us, a giant Sikorsky helicopter; the sound of its motor is deafening. The helicopter lands like a huge grasshopper, and we rush inside. Rendezvousing with a chopper in the middle of enemy territory is like getting back to the safety of a mother’s embrace. I stand by the entrance and count my soldiers. I signal to the flight mechanic that everyone’s here and that we can go. He closes the trap, and the helicopter takes off. I stand close to the tail in the back, when all of a sudden I’m swept off my feet. I land straight on my backside in the middle of the chopper. A machine gun round fired from Beaufort Castle penetrated the body of the chopper near the tail; the thrust of the hit tilts the helicopter, and I’m sent flying. If I had remained standing in place, I would have been hit. Luckily, the bullets fizz inside but don’t hit anything vital. The pilot steadies the helicopter and flies back south.
We land in a military airfield in Israel. We huddle up, sitting down on our helmets. A faint light appears in the early morning sky. I light a contraband Marlboro cigarette from a soft red pack and burst out laughing in relief. I made it out alive. The dream was just nonsense.
The joking around continues, until a helicopter carrying the Paratrooper reconnaissance company lands. They alight with dark, gloomy faces, carrying a stretcher with a body spread across it. The company commander, whom I knew, was killed. It turns out the Golani reconnaissance company opened fire prematurely. We were safely sneaking up to the fence at that moment, but the Paratroopers were on low ground; the terrorists opened fire before they could reach their positions. Suddenly the whole thing snaps back to reality; it doesn’t feel like a game anymore. We look across at each other, and are glad to be alive.
The following night, I’m sleeping on an iron cot in the officer’s quarters. Suddenly, the door swings open and the figure of an eyeless soldier blocks the light. I look at him, rooted to the spot: “I am your absolution,” he says through a clenched mouth, and vanishes. I wake up soaked in sweat. We gotta fix that damned fan… I grumpily think to myself. I go back to sleep.
Chapter 13
WET COOPERATION
In the early 1980s, Erez found himself in a cold and wet operation.
A team of combatants is meant to carry out operations which sometimes require skillsets that fall outside the purview of its expertise. The team then acquires those skills in training.
We were sent to train with Shayetet 13, the navy’s elite sea-to-land commando unit, ahead of an upcoming joint operation. Traditionally, there’s tension between the two units, which are considered to be the army’s finest. They referred to us as Tizonim, a plural noun derived from a slang verb suggesting all we do is run around hills, or Tizkim, a term incorporating the Arabic word for “ass.” We called them Uchtabutim, meaning “octopuses,” a particularly mean jab considering that was what they called the defensive diver unit; they couldn’t stand that we compared them to a unit they considered inferior. Around the time of the joint operation, tension between the units was even higher than usual: a couple of weeks earlier, a shayat – a navy commando, one of their own – was killed while inspecting a sea vessel for our unit. The shayat warned that it was too dangerous to go in the water, but our commander insisted. So he went in, and never came out. They disliked us, and we disliked them. It was an ugly, childish rivalry.
We were assigned sleeping quarters above the navy commando cadet school. Things got off to a bad start, when we were accused of stealing their clothes which they had hung to dry; in retaliation, they refused to allow us to eat in the combatants’ mess hall. Later, they took us out to a physical fitness training session, which quickly escalated into a wild contest: it started off with a run, a contest in which we could easily outperform them; so they made sure to take us out to sand dunes which they knew like the back of their hands, and with which we struggled. We refused to let the fact that we were having a hard time show, and gave everything we had to match them. But then they made a mistake: they took us to the rope yard to practice a standard 20-foot rope climb using only our hands. In our unit, rope climbing was a religion. Even the weakest among us could easily climb up and down 5-6 times without a break. We were very pleased when it became evident that the brawny and burly shayatim couldn’t even climb half the amount that we could… Our smugness lasted until 6AM the following morning, when they took us out to the bay behind their base for a “clawing” exercise. “Clawing” is a grueling swimming technique in which you propel yourself forward using nothing but fins on your feet. We didn’t know the first thing about “clawing,” and nothing could have prepared us for such a nightmare. You lie and float on your back, and beat the water with your fin-clad feet. The shayatim sliced through the salty sea water like torpedoes, while we struggled to merely stay afloat.
Over the coming weeks, they taught us everything we needed to know ahead of the operation. They weren’t even too smug about it, provoking us no more than one would expect. They taught us how to put on our wetsuits; they envied the new high-quality gear our unit had provided us. They could only dream of having such suits— lighter, thinner, and easier to move in. A wetsuit keeps your body warm in the water, but becomes hot as an oven and heavy as an anchor as soon as you’re back on dry land.
They taught us how to seal the barrel of our rifles when we submerged, as well as how to clean and grease it when we came out. Once again, our gear was superior to theirs. They still used Russian AK-47s, assuming (correctly) they would fire in any condition. We were using the Colt AR-14 made mostly from plastic alloys, meaning it didn’t rust as easily.
We trained together, trying to synthesize our different approaches to warfare. As far they were concerned, brute force and aggression was the only way to go about it, while we preferred patience and precision. It didn’t gel. They couldn’t understand why we insisted on repeating the same drill over and over while timing ourselves, let alone why we insisted on doing it in full gear. They put weights in their combat vests, but we insisted on magazines. They didn’t understand the point of messing up their gear, while we were adamant that was the only way to see if they could endure the water.
In terms of the chain of command, things did not go any smoother. We insisted on planning everything to the finest detail, while they wanted to leave some room for maneuvering and making calls in the field. When we prepared a dossier of potential situations and complications, they flat-out refused to go over it, claiming we were overdoing it.
We made progress. We no longer swallowed seawater when “clawing,” and even the long bay was starting to seem like a manageable dist
ance to swim. They got used to timing their exercises. Their company commander broke his hand, so a squad commander was brought in to replace him. For some reason, the shayatim were significantly bigger and brawnier than us: we didn’t know if Shayetet 13 chose only the big ones to start with, whether the cadets grew bigger due to constantly training in the sea, or whether it was just the bigger ones that made it through their qualification course. We, for the most part, were built smaller and lighter. Uzi Dayan once said: “In the unit, what matters are your head and your balls. And the closer they are to each other, the better.” The shayatim said that was nothing but pocket-sized excuses for pocket-sized soldiers.
When our water skills reached a satisfactory level, we started practicing for the operation itself. It was nigh on impossible to impress the patience necessary for stealth upon the shayatim’s inherently gung-ho approach to warfare. In the end, we had to change our plans and leave them behind to secure the rear.
We went back to the unit for preparations, and the unit commander called me in to ask how it went. I explained the gulf between our worldviews, and offered my analysis as to why that was. He informed me that he was assigning a veteran squad commander named Golan to the operation, both because the shayatim would never accept me as their commander, and also to look out for me. I didn’t like the idea, but there was little I could do about it.