Samson’s Foxes came from the infantry. All the members of the com-pany had fought as infantry soldiers in numerous battles. Even if we sat in jeeps, we saw ourselves as part of the infantry. We belonged to an infantry battalion in an infantry brigade. And even if we attracted a lot of attention, we still knew that we did no more and certainly suffered less than the other companies of the brigade. The "front ant," the simple infantry soldier, he was the real hero of this war.
I felt particularly bitter about the "Writers of the Israel Defense Force," who never took part in combat, but who provided the public with detailed reports. They did not see their task as accompanying the units in a night attack or in the assault on a fort, as thousands of reporters had done in the last world war.
A few days after the capture of the fort of Iraq Suweidan I sent the newspaper an article with the title "Honor the ants of the front!" I am sure the whole brigade stood behind its sentiments.
13 November 1948
Battalion HQ
Honor the ants of the front!
I flick through a magazine which has found its way along some tor-tuous path to our position on the front. So this is the way the front appears to our citizens.
Pretty pictures surround bombastic articles. The photographer and the writer may not themselves have driven to the front, but they still provide the public with the required "delicacies." Tanks, armored vehicles, jeeps, artillery pieces, aircraft, even horses! Also "Desert Animals" and "Samson's Foxes" - only one creature is missing: the front ant or, better, the infantry. The infantry soldier was not romantic enough, neither bombastic nor sufficiently attractive. "Why should I waste my efforts on this dingy creature," the photographer thought, "when there is a fine collection here of everything the public is interested in." And the writer did the same.
* * *
Days passed. The first aircraft crossed the sky. A boy smiled from the armored "Bren carrier." The poor infantry soldier has been forgotten. But even without the attention of photographers and reporters he carries out his task. In the bloody fighting around