The infiltrators planted mines against car traffic and attacked farmhouses in the middle of the night. Innocent people died daily. The generals above decided to attack water-pumping stations that served the villagers around Kalkiliya, as well as the only gas station in the area. We wanted to force the Jordanian authorities to crack down on the Palestinian fedayeen.
I felt lucky to be chosen, one of only three from our platoon attached to a more veteran platoon for the mission. In four months of carrying around the bazooka tube, drilled to conserve ammunition, I had only used four live missiles to practice firing. Now the envy of the other young soldiers in our platoon, I practiced with four live missiles a day, readying for the big day when we would attack the pumping stations.
Euphoric with the assignment, we spent the next two and a half days practicing with the rest of the task force. On the morning of the operation, a final parade drill ended with rousing speeches by the senior commanders. In another few minutes, we would board the trucks taking us to the staging ground in an orange grove near the border. But right after the speeches, one of the older fighters from the task force approached me with a peculiar request.
“Listen,” said the sergeant. “My platoon commander says I should trade bazookas with you.”
I used a French-made 82mm bazooka that I knew like the back of my hand. He offered me his 73mm Belgian-made bazooka. I made a face, pretending not to understand what he wanted. A soldier never gives up his personal weapons.
The sergeant knew that. But he had an explanation. “Yours has more firepower,” he said, “and for this mission the platoon commander says I need something stronger than what I’ve got.”
I loved my bazooka. I never missed the bull’s-eye in all our practices. But if I argued with him, I might end up missing the mission. Warily, I asked if his worked perfectly.
“Of course,” he said.
“Did you try it out? Fire it?” I asked.
“Of course.”
There’s a control light on a bazooka with which to check whether the trigger mechanism makes the electrical contact that sets off the missile. It is a safety mechanism for the soldier loading the tube to be sure to get out of the way. I took his bazooka, and checked the control switch. It worked.
A new soldier, eager for combat and assigned to his first real mission, does not argue with a sergeant. I did something no soldier should ever do-I traded my personal weapon for someone else’s. A few minutes later, we boarded the trucks.
Crossing the border that night, every little noise seemed to reach all the way to Amman. I hugged my bazooka close as we moved silently through the groves, careful to avoid brushing any branches or startling any animals. A single barking dog could awaken the villagers on the outskirts of Kalkiliya, and raise the alarm.
The paranoia of crossing the border passed as I recognized the landscape as identical to Israel’s. Farmers on the Jordanian side grew the same kinds of crops that season-even if they did not have our technologies. The fragrance of the orange groves could not be divided by the line that cut the country. The recognition that the border did not divide nature gave me confidence and the paranoia quickly passed.
We heard the pumping station’s rhythmic thump as we approached quietly through the groves. The signal went down the line, and I crouched, my loader behind me, ready to slip a missile into the tube when the order came.
I raised my right hand away from the trigger, waiting for his pat on my helmet to let me know he had cleared the bazooka’s rear exhaust. I stared down the barrel at the thick walls of the cement building, waiting for the slap on the helmet, the order to fire.
It came. I lowered my hand to the trigger mechanism, made sure of my aim, and fired.
Nothing happened. “Open!” I barked, going through the drill. “Release!” I snapped. He slapped my helmet and I pulled the trigger. Nothing.
“Change rocket,” I tried. He did. Nothing. “Try another one!” Nothing.
I had never felt such frustration. I unslung the bazooka and pulled up my Uzi, pouring an angry magazine of bullets into the cement walls of the building. If the sergeant who made me change bazookas had come by right then, I probably would have shot him.
The cease-fire order came down the line while the explosives teams went into action, setting their devices. We began our retreat, the blast from the demolished pumps behind us ripping through the night with a fireball that quickly turned into a thick column of smoke even darker than the starry night. We double-timed it out of the area, heading home before the smell of the smoke could reach our nostrils.
That night, at the debriefing with our platoon commander, I reported what happened to my bazooka. The next morning, the whole company met for a debriefing. The commanders of each of the attacking forces reported on what happened. After the task force commanders spoke, the platoon commanders stepped up to give their speeches, reviewing the operation. My platoon commander mentioned my bazooka’s failure.
I jumped to my feet from the center of the crowd of soldiers and faced the officers at the front. “Sir,” I said directly to the senior company commander, a captain. “A very serious thing happened.” A lowly corporal, I chose my words carefully, speaking in an even voice. I left no doubt about my feelings.
“Go on,” the company commander said.
“A sergeant took advantage of the fact that I am a young soldier,” I went on. “He knew I did not want to lose my place in the mission. He knew that my bazooka worked and he knew his bazooka had problems.”
I paused to make sure they understood, thinking carefully about what I wanted to say. “He cheated me and he lied to me about an order from the platoon commander. And,” I summed up, “he created a situation that prevented the proper use of my training at the critical moment of the operation.”
Afterward, one of my friends from the platoon told me I sounded like a company commander, not a corporal.
But meanwhile, the sergeant turned red. I looked at his company commander, fully expecting him to immediately dismiss the sergeant from the sayeret. Cheating a fellow fighter from the unit seemed to me the worst thing a soldier in the unit could do.
But Tzimel, the company commander-the same Tzimel who would one day tag along at Karameh-said nothing to the sergeant.
Thus, even after my first mission, my doubts about the army remained. I took part in an operation, over the border, with all the elements of combat-preparation, briefing, order, movement, target location, work at the target, return, and performance of the task. I enjoyed that. But the fact that a sergeant cheated another soldier-and that I gave in to him-bothered me.
A few weeks after what we called the Night of the Wells, Tzimel was replaced and our new company commander, Giora Haika, called me to his office with four other soldiers from our platoon, to offer us an officers’ training course.
The truth is that I never considered the army as a professional career. I regarded it as my duty as a citizen, and my responsibility as a bearer of the traditions of my family. While in the army, I wanted to do my best. I believed I did. The dilemma chased me during my entire life in the army. As deep in my heart as my love of Nahalal and home, I loved the spirit of special operations, and now, faced with the question of going home or more time in the army, I knew that I wanted to be an officer.
I knew that I enjoyed being the leader. In the squad commanders’ course, through which everyone in a sayeret must pass, I learned that I enjoyed my natural ability to organize and control a force effectively. From the squad commanders’ course, I already learned that 80 percent of the work of a combat officer is training and educating soldiers, and I enjoyed that as much as the self-discovery of leadership.