by Roni Eliav
The unit commander and the Chief of Staff were both in the command post, together with other senior officers. The secretary who kept the minutes of the operation was Tal. To ease the tension, the unit commander turned to the Chief of Staff and said:
“You know, after this, he should be promoted to captain.” Him being me.
“Maybe. Or demoted to private,” the Chief of Staff snarled, worried about the time we had already lost.
I was walking fast. I noticed that I’d started sweating a bit too early. I recalled that before the briefing, the intelligence officer had informed me it would be a particularly hot night tonight. I hadn’t made much of it at the time, but I now realized that it could be a problem. Increased sweat requires extra hydration, and we hadn’t changed the amount of water we’d taken with us.
We left the vicinity of the river, passing close to a lookout point for the Jordanian army. The line of vision was interrupted, so I wasn’t worried about being spotted. We hurried down the wide river valley, and climbed the opposing ridge, beyond which were wide open plains.
After a couple of miles in the fields, we encountered a problem. To our right, 20-30 yards away, were some people sitting around a campfire. Nothing to worry about, but I wanted to steer clear of them. There were greenhouses ahead of us, with open fields in the space between. There was a solitary shack with an open door standing in the field; the light was on, and there was a man inside. Our lookouts had always reported the shack was unmanned, probably because it was facing the other way.
I deliberated on what to do. I couldn’t flank the shack to the right, and going left would lengthen our track and force us to cross an open field. My deputy noticed my hesitation, and said: “Let’s just cross.”
I got my senses together, and gave the order to cross one by one. We made it safely across. We were close enough to see the whites of the eyes of the man in the shack, but he never raised his head. We kept going at a fast pace before our first water break. I could see the doctor was breathing heavily. I approached him, and he signaled to me that he was fine.
We charged on ahead. I changed our formation— a light and agile point team walking several yards ahead of the bulky, heavier remaining soldiers. I walked first, alert to the whole terrain around us, acutely attuned to sniff out the slightest hint of danger; the rest were too weighed down to look around. I had Amir walking to my right wearing head-mounted night-vision goggles. Night-vision goggles significantly increase your vision, but I hated wearing them— I felt restricted by their narrow scope, and felt that they dulled my other senses. I preferred to listen, to smell, and to feel “like a Native American tracker,” I always used to say.
We neared the Dead Sea Highway, running north-south through the Jordan Valley. I positioned a lookout to watch both sides. After they reported back that the sector was “clean,” we passed through a large culvert under the road. As we walked, we heard footsteps on the road above us. We stopped. It seemed like one of the Jordanian lookouts had called it a night earlier than usual. We waited for them to put some distance between themselves and the road, and continued crossing.
We were over an hour behind schedule, and still hadn’t begun to climb. Half an hour’s walk later, we reached the rear side of a military camp. We walked along a goat trail which snaked around the fence at a distance of 50-100 yards. Suddenly I saw a light. I froze in my tracks, and the force took a knee where they were.
A sentinel was standing at the gate right in front of us. He couldn’t see us from where he was standing, but his position oversaw the path we needed to take. As I watched the Jordanian soldier manning the gate, Ami whispered to me: “Let’s go, what could he possibly do?”
I considered it for a moment, acutely aware that we were desperately behind schedule. I called Amir over, who carried a muffled rifle; I pointed at the soldier, and he understood. I clicked my tongue, the force rose back to their feet, and we started walking. I had no doubt that he noticed us, but we’ll never know what he made of what he saw. Anyway, that’s what I was banking on: he did nothing, and we moved on.
We climbed as fast as we could. We were dripping sweat from head to toe. I skipped one break to try to make up for lost time. The soldiers panted, gasped, and pushed with every drop of energy left in their bodies. Muscles contracted and swelled in our legs, back, and thighs. We felt our bodies were going to burst like balloons. But we carried on anyway.
After two more hours, we reached our destination. We’d cut our delay down to forty minutes. The operation itself went as smoothly as a hot knife through butter. We infiltrated, we obtained, we vanished. We did it so fast that we managed to save another thirty minutes. Our moods were high. We smiled and patted ourselves on the backs.
Now all that was left was to get my team out before dawn. We fell into formation and started walking. Less than an hour later, dehydration started to kick in. When walking at night, you count off every ten minutes: the last soldier in line taps the shoulder of the person in front of him and says one, and that soldier in turn taps the shoulder of the person in front of him and says two, all the way down to the commander. This procedure serves two purposes: first, it maintains a tight walking formation, and secondly, it feeds the commander constant information about his team and formation. When the count was interrupted, I knew we had a problem.
I halted the force. As I suspected, there were large gaps between the soldiers. Soldiers were vomiting with exhaustion. I huddled them together and made sure everyone was drinking. I went up to the doctor; he was spent. He panted heavily, and could barely understand what I was saying to him.
I took the package of Benzedrine and handed each soldier a pill, making sure they swallowed it with ample water. We were still in the mountains, over 12 miles away from the border. I was worried I might have made the call too soon. It would go down to the wire, I feared. I stretched the break for a few more precious moments, and then said quietly but loud enough for everyone to hear: “Listen up. We need to get out of here. Everybody, gather whatever strength you have left. Help each other. I’ll walk at a pace that will get us out of here, but you have to stick to me. We’re moving in one minute.”
They got up groggily, leaning on each other. I started walking slowly, letting them regain their balance. It was hard to pick up the pace because we were walking downhill and could easily tumble down. Walking downhill, your abdominal muscles are put to work stabilizing and keeping your body at an appropriate angle. Walking fast unsettles your balance, and your core muscles are called in to stabilize your center of gravity. The thousands upon thousands of sit-ups we’d drilled in practice were paying off now. We descended with the precision of mountain goats. The Benzedrine kicked in, and we picked up a frightening pace.
I reported to command post, and they suggested we stay back and hide out for the following day. I had to make a decision before we reached the Dead Sea Highway, it would be too crowded from that point on. The unusually hot night left us seriously dehydrated; we drank more than we intended to. We had a 25% reserve, but we were going through it rapidly. What ultimately tipped the scale against staying was the physical state of some of the soldiers. I was worried another day in the field would put them at serious risk.
We moved on. We passed by the military camp at a near-running pace; the sentinel didn’t even wake up. We reached the Dead Sea Highway and crossed it without even stopping for a lookout; it was 3 AM, and I simply assumed it would probably be vacant.
To avoid a repeat of what had happened near the thicket when we first crossed, I chose to follow an alternative route back. The only problem was that we had learned its axis the other way around. To navigate the route, my point man had to feed me the compass angles (azimuth) after having reversed them. But he was exhausted, and made a mistake on a couple of occasions. “Just give me the angles,” I whispered to him acridly, “I’ll reverse them myself.” To compound the incredible pressure I was under, I now had
to worry about adding or subtracting 180° to every angle the rest of the way back.
Dehydration clashed with the pills… The rapid expenditure of energy resulted in accelerated dehydration. Some soldiers vomited again. My deputy took the doctor’s pack, and soldiers helped each other wherever they could. Our progress slowed. I had to stop and let soldiers close the gaps opening up between them. About a half an hour later, we stopped for a water break. The soldiers were lying on the ground, barely holding onto consciousness. I huddled them together.
“We have about 6 miles to go and a little over an hour to get there,” I said. “This is the last break from here to the river. I’m going to run forward, and you stick to me like leeches. Finish all your water. If you want another pill, tell me. Get ready, we leave in five minutes.”
The soldiers drank, and helped those who struggled to drink on their own. I forced some of them to take another Benzedrine pill. We got up and tightened the straps of our backpacks. I looked at my team and chuckled. A wolf’s chuckle.
“Come on, you animals! Let’s do this!” I said and started running.
We ran through agricultural fields. I took the shortest routes possible— sometimes that included running on a path, and sometimes straight through fields. I kept my pace steady, followed by the desperately dehydrated soldiers behind me.
All along the way, so long as we were within sight, an Israeli lookout followed our progress from a distance. They called us over the radio, saying we were going too fast and they were losing us. I nearly laughed out loud.
Suddenly, I saw a light straight ahead of us. I gauged the distance at about 100 yards. It was a farmer who’d taken to the field early. Without hesitation, I cut left into the field, ran 100 yards, and turned strongly to the right. The lookout informed us over the radio that there was something in front of us. We didn’t bother answering. It was behind us already.
We kept running and came to a path. I looked behind me: everyone was running, the gaps were minimal. They were running like demons from hell, extracting the last reserves of strength from the deepest parts of their being: running and tripping, stabilizing and continuing, vomiting while running, leaning on their friends, and not stopping no matter what.
In the end of the film “Black Hawk Down,” there’s a scene where the Rangers are fleeing the city, vomiting as they are running. To this day, I get goosebumps watching that scene.
The night sky was getting brighter. It was astronomical dawn— the time when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon— leaving us with mere minutes before daybreak. We reached the last line of hills and made a run for the last 800 yards before the river. Someone was using their head and sent out the younger teams, who were waiting in the ferries, to help us get through the final stretch. They reached us and took our packs from us. I burst out laughing when I saw some of my soldiers shoo them away, insisting to carry their packs all the way to the end.
I stopped before the Jordan River. The soldiers ran past me, and I counted them off. They crossed over a cable the younger teams had stretched between both sides of the river, and collapsed in the thicket on the opposite bank. Soldiers stripped them of their gear and helped them reach cover. I waited for the last of them to cross. I connected to the cable, and crossed the river. I didn’t once look at the water torrents flowing beneath my feet. I was too tired to even think.
We agreed that if we got back at first light, we would wait on the bank so no one on the other side would be alerted. Despite that, I ordered my soldiers to board the jeeps. I rushed them, and instructed them to lie down in the vehicles. The officer in charge of the ferry tried to argue with me, but took one look at the intensity of my eyes and backed down. I got into one of the jeeps and lay down by the soldiers, so that even if someone on the other side spotted us, all they’d see were two jeeps without any soldiers on board. “Go!” I yelled at the driver.
Rocking along the dirt path ascending from the Jordan Valley, I looked at my soldiers. They were lying there dirty, ragged, pale as corpses—but with an unmistakable glimmer of pride in their eyes.
“You know, we have another operation up north in two weeks…” I joked.
“Take some other bunch of saps with you…” one soldier replied. We all burst out laughing, a feeling of relief settling over us.
We connected with the main road, then off to another dirt path heading towards to a makeshift camp specially erected for this operation. Medics helped the soldiers down; they were examined and hooked up to IV infusions. I chased away the medic who approached me. Physically, there is no question my soldiers had gone through much worse than I had. My effort was down to holding back my nerves and making the right decisions. Sometimes commanders erroneously think that if they put in a shift like their subordinates, they will be setting a personal example. Nothing could be further from the truth: if I had lugged around the weight they’d carried, I could never have made clear-headed decisions— or, more accurately, adrenaline-infused decision, in this case compounded with the powerful Benzedrine pills…
The operations officer, my neighbor in the officers’ quarters at the unit, came to congratulate me with a cold beer. We drank together. The alcohol and the Benzedrine, together with residual adrenaline, threw my systems into a tailspin— I was drunk in a matter of seconds. But it’s all behind me now, I thought to myself. What a relief…
I was called over to the radio tent. The signaler yelled: “the army’s Chief of Staff wants to talk to you.” I was in trouble now: I wasn’t sure I could even speak. I walked over to the phone, relieved to see it was the type where you had to hold down a button on the receiver for the other side to hear you. The Chief of Staff congratulated me on completing the operation, and thanked me. In the state I was in, I found that funny for some reason. Luckily, I hadn’t pressed the button, so he couldn’t hear me laugh. But the radio officer turned pale…
“Now take care of the soldiers. I want each of them to get the full attention he deserves,” he said. I managed to master out a yes sir, followed by an I’ll see to it, sir.
I took another beer and lit a cigarette. I sat down on the food hamper, drank and smoked with pleasure. No one dared say anything. At that moment, I was as big as Mick Jagger. The second beer knocked me out, and I slept like a corpse.
Early the next morning, after some food, a shower, and a good night’s sleep, we assembled in the briefing room for a debriefing.
I went up to the podium and described the events of the previous night in detail. There were many comments and insights, some humorous and others serious; but all in all, the mood was positive. We’d done it. At some point, the colonel I had walked out on at our meeting a couple of days prior commented: “You said you’d call it as you saw fit, and ended up doing just that.”
“And it worked.”
“Luckily for you…” he said.
I smiled, and someone shouted out: “And he’s not a kibbutznik!” Everyone had a good laugh.
“Just a minute,” the unit commander suddenly jumped in, just as I was ready to go back to my seat.
The unit commander and the commander-in-chief stood at both my sides, removed my first lieutenant rank insignias, and replaced them with a captain’s. When I left the briefing room, soldiers that had climbed up to the roof poured buckets of water over my head, as was customary, and hosed me down with a fire hose. It was a party.
The operations officer, my neighbor, said there was a surprise waiting for me in my room. I went to change into a dry uniform. In my room I found Tal, lying naked on my bed. Her smooth skin enticed me, her sexy bottom teased me… I ignored her, changed into dry clothes, and went back out to celebrate with the soldiers.
Chapter 15
AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT HERMON, 1981: A SENIOR TEAM
There comes a time you may find yourself torn between your unit commander and the Army High Command, forcing you to choose your allegiance. I faced that tes
t on several occasions, not very successfully.
The early 1980s, the twilight of my service. The IDF was planning a large-scale operation to sweep south Lebanon clean. We felt like we had already played our part. We had recently completed a near-impossible walking operation, and felt we deserved a rest. But the army felt it was a shame to waste such a highly-trained team. So just like that, we found ourselves in battle procedures to secure an entrance route for tanks into south Lebanon.
The unit commander wanted nothing to do with the operation, but he had no choice. He sent me down to Northern Command with instructions to delay the operation for as long as I could. The operations officer and I drove up north. After a three-hour ride and a stop for falafel in Afula, we stopped and observed the axis I was supposed to walk that night. The terrain was hilly, you could almost call it a gorge, but I wasn’t worried. In our physical condition, my soldiers and I could handle it. But there were Bedouins and farmers in the valleys beneath us—and where there were Bedouins, there were dogs.
When we turned to leave the lookout, the operations officer walking ahead of me suddenly halted, and I tripped over his leg. I tumbled all the way down the ridge. Luckily, the only serious injury I sustained was to my hand— an ugly, deep laceration. We wrapped it up in an impressive bandage and drove to Northern Command.