We are no particular heroes and are no more enthusiastic than any other normal person about the dangers that face us. But after a series of such "joke actions" the real order to set out is like a liberation.
We lay on the road and cursed ourselves and the whole world, while our comrades got into the armored vehicles in order to check the road to Bab al-Wad. After half an hour we heard the rumble of distant artillery. But that didn’t stop us eating jam and reading cheap novels.
The situation changed from one second to another as suddenly a pickup truck appeared at 100 km/h and stopped just long enough to call out to us that we must ready ourselves for immediate action. And he was gone, followed by an armored car that looked like a sieve. Armor-piercing rounds had penetrated it from all sides. In it sat Aryeh, our company commander, bleeding from five wounds. He only said two words: "Immediate action!"
We knew: it’s our turn.
* * *
On the road our armored cars line up. Now and then ambulances drive past, bringing back the dead and wounded of the first patrol. We quickly complete our last preparations. All private possessions and supplies are left behind. All we take with us are our weapons and military equipment. In the last moment Asriel, the squad leader for this operation, appoints me his deputy. That doesn’t make me happy. Experience has taught me it is better in combat to be free and independent, without responsibility for the lives of others.
Someone tells me what happened. The armored convoy drove past Latrun. Before the Hartuv crossroads they met Arab tanks that were equipped with two-pound guns. Before the heavy vehicles could turn around, they were penetrated one by one by cannon shells. Most of the men were hit. Only one vehicle, the last in the row, was not hit.
We drive off. The vehicles are spaced out about forty meters apart. Our morale is high. We tell jokes and play tricks. The first time we went into battle, in Operation Nachshon, we were excited and nervous. Now we feel none of that. Combat is no longer a strange and frightening world, it is now a more or less known factor. We have learned that not every bullet hits. In brief - we have become "experienced frontline soldiers." Or at least that is how it seems to us.