realize that our baptism of fire is behind us ... the meal of chicken in Deir Muheisin, the first Arab village that the Israeli army captured with the clear intention of conquest... waiting endlessly in ambush, plagued by the burning sun and deadly boredom ... the drive to Jerusalem in a truck loaded with cheese ... the wonderful reception in Jerusalem, with the whole town standing there to cheer us on ... meeting our comrades of the Palmach at Castel, when all the earlier rivalry between Palmach and HISH was forgotten ... our first leave, when we sang "Believe me, the day will come" until we were hoarse, and the civilians on the road waved to us with love ... firing the salute at the grave of a fallen friend ... the patrol between the positions in the kibbutz, regularly passing the canteen where a pretty girl served cocoa and sandwiches, but refused to tell us her name...
A whole generation pioneered a new yest for life. A generation that had grown up in the land, and whose nature first became clear when they set out for battle singing and laughing, who fell asleep in the forward bases half an hour before the decisive assault, who cursed lovingly and complained, but accepted the shortcomings of this unorganized army and who lived the special comradeship between soldier and soldier, and between soldier and commander.
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The most striking phenomenon of those days was the relationship between soldiers and their superiors. The commanders did not yet have any stripes or olive leaves on their shoulders. The private was a fighting soldier, and the commander slept in the same tent as him (if there were any tents at all) and told stories about earlier battles. He was nothing more than a comrade with a bit more experience, whose authority came from his personality.
I can remember that day at a forward base, shortly before an oper-ation, when we saw, for the first time, an officer with insignia - and we heard, for the first time, the command: "Officers - take your places." Not only did that seem absurd to us, but also to our com-manders who fought side by side with us.
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A further special feature of the Nachshon days was the absence of a military bureaucracy. This resulted in monotonous meals of sar-dines or bully beef, and the need to lug heavy equipment around on