Yaakov, the medic ...
I can remember that night. It was very dark. We are marching in a long column and making a detour around the Egyptian tanks. We cross a deep wadi. Visual contact between the vanguard and those following is lost. I run forward to report this. A hand grenade falls from my belt. I bend down to pick it up, and at that moment we come under fire from close by. I lie on the ground. Someone falls on me. I want to push him to one side, but he says quietly: "I have been hit in the back. Bandage me." I knowthis voice. It is Yaakov, the medic. He is treated quickly. A few minutes later I notice him marching on with the others as if nothing has happened.
Eight hours later the fighting is still intense. We lie in soft sand and wait. Ahead of us two companies have already been committed to the battle. Suddenly we hear our commander: "All medics over here!" One unit has heavy losses, their medic has fallen. All the medics run over. Yaakov too. The unit in question is about a kilometer away from us. The ground between us is flat, with no cover. Yaakov runs crouching over to the company that needs help. After that I didn’t see him any more ...
* * *
"Your commanders, my son, did not mourn you. The battalions of the Haganah, in whose ranks you fought for several years, did not honor you. Your comrades too ... have forgotten you" you, the father, wrote.
I can remember another scene: we have just returned from action. We are lying beneath trees and expecting enemy aircraft. Filthy, hun-gry, with red eyes, and shaken by the experiences of the last twelve hours, we comrades sit there. The tension has not yet faded. We say what we have seen. We give the names of the dead, the wounded.
Anyone who could hear us would think - as you would too - that we had hearts of stone, that the fate of our comrades left us cold. But that is not true. We are just trying to fool ourselves. Because every name is a heavy blow for us. Each name brings thousands of memo-ries.
We, who have seen our comrades die, we know the same thing can happen to us tomorrow or the day after. We talk in tones of indiffer-ence. But no one apart from us knows the truth about these moments. The shock of the first hours that saves us from going mad.