The Curse Mountain - Chapter 3 (Part 4) (717 hits)
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Submitted by Avals (View user info) at 2005-12-10 07:47:12 EST
'The Curse Mountain' is the story of Gilad, a team-leader in the engineering company of the IDF's 'Givati' brigade. A sort of service diary, 'The Curse Mountain' chronicles Gilad's tour of duty in Lebanon, and was published in the form of a newspaper article a year after Israel's withdrawal from that country.
Originally published in Hebrew, I have attempted to translate this story into English to the best of my abilities.
(Original publishing: Ron Leshem, '7 Days' supplement, Yediot Aharonot, 11.5.01)
Chapter 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/59575
Chapter 2 (Part 1): http://www.ubersite.com/m/59962
Chapter 2 (Part 2): http://www.ubersite.com/m/60385
Chapter 2 (Part 3): http://www.ubersite.com/m/61802
Chapter 3 (Part 1): http://www.ubersite.com/m/61976
Chapter 3 (Part 2): http://www.ubersite.com/m/62052
Chapter 3 (Part 3): http://www.ubersite.com/m/64502
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Dirties approaching white
The kids lie down side by side, huddled together, digging in. Bendori and I lie down over their heads, across them. They're shaking; God, how they're shaking. "Is everyone here?" I ask. They can't even talk; paralyzed. A few seconds later a huge barrage of Katyushas starts suddenly. There are impacts 10-15 meters away from us. My body's trembling. We can't do anything but hide, and God help us. I can't breathe. The rockets just keep coming, four in each salvo. After the fifth salvo the regiment commander comes up on the encrypted radio; "One, is everything all right?" he asks. Before I get the chance to answer, another three explosions. The cement wall gets hit and shatters; half of it breaks off and comes down right on top of us, nailing my encrypted radio. The connection's lost. We still have the unsecured radio, but it's obvious we can't use it, because the Hizbollah might be listening. If we say we're taking fire they'll realize that they're shooting exactly where they should be and won't stop until we're ash.
Bendori tells me, "Let's extract to the outpost." I say no. He argues, gets hysterical. I've never seen Bendori undermine me before. After ten minutes I finally agree, and Bendori calls on the radio; "Send us an Eyesore." An 'Eyesore' is a Nakpadon - a sort of tank only without a turret, a massive vehicle used for extraction. "Negative, you're not getting it," they answer. We stay silent. A few seconds later they ask if everything's all right.
"Be calm and tell them everything's fine," I tell Bendori.
"I can't," he answers.
"Is everything all right, sec-one?" they ask again.
"Tell them everything's fine and that the fire's nowhere near us!" I yell at him. With a trembling hand he answers, "Roger, affirmative, everything's fine. They're coming up short."
After about half a minute we notice that the barrages are starting to shift away from us, moving closer to the outpost. Maybe the terrorists figured that they're off-target? The men's weapons are still trembling. "Well? Reckon you're getting scared on me now?" I ask one of the men. 'Don't get screwed up on me now', I'm thinking to myself. I need to get them to move, to laugh. I have to find a way to occupy them in the meantime.
Someone suddenly comes up on the radio: "Dirties approaching white." I realize that a Hizbollah foot squad is trying to infiltrate the outpost, probably in the direction of the northern guard station. Now I realize that all of the missile and rocket fire was actually meant to distract the outpost's attention in order to infiltrate a squad from the other direction. The outpost begins firing shells and Orev (anti-tank) missiles in the direction of the suspicious movement.
Again several terrifying minutes. I'm lying there with 13 men in the middle of nowhere, and no-one's talking to me; I have no idea what's going on out there. Hell fire has erupted all around us, tanks from the Beaufort are firing incessantly, flares are lighting up the sky; something dangerous is obviously going on over there. One of the soldiers asks me if the outpost is in danger. Another asks if we'd been forgotten. And we just wait. Only after two of the terrorists have been killed do things start to calm down a little. The regiment commander comes up on the radio; "Start extracting," he tells me, and we begin movement by squads, leapfrogging, three by three.
When we walked through the outpost gate that evening everyone gathered round and cheered. At one point they were convinced that we were all done for. Dead. The operations room was watching through the video camera on the fence and saw thick clouds of smoke over our heads. You could hear them on the radio recording saying, "Prep seven stretchers. We've got seven KIA." Word has it there was a lot of crying there that day.
In all the commotion and joy I try to count my men face-by-face, make sure everyone's there safely; but you can't. Faces disappear in masses of embraced men. Your eyes are tearing up from all the anxiety, and you're not even crying. Kissing anyone that moves. I held Bendori in my arms and didn't let go. I thought how good it was to still have him with me.
When things calmed down I went to see the regiment commander. "If you thought we had seven casualties, why didn't you come down to help?" "It was tactically unsound to go," he tells me. "We would've caused more casualties."
"You sent us out without knowing that you could go out and help? And anyway, sir, how could you send us out there in 98 percent illumination? Hizbollah could've seen us with an ordinary pair of binoculars."
"Gilad, what matters now is that your men are scared. You're going out there again tonight to take that fear out of them."
"No. No, no way. We can't go out now."
"You're going. There's no discussion."
I went to see Carmeli, the CO. I told him forget it, I'm not taking my team out again tonight. Send another team if you want.
"That's the way it's going to be, then? You want to be a common soldier?" he asks me. "Are you a rookie who thinks he can get whatever he wants? No problem, disobey an order and don't go. I'll take your team out in your stead."
"How are you talking to me, Carmeli? I almost got killed a minute ago. You're forgetting where you are."
"What do you want, then?"
"For my men not to go out again tonight. They can't do it."
"Let me see what I can do."
We didn't go out again that night.
User Reviews
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-12-15 21:03:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This series really makes you look at war in a different light. The attention to detail shown throughout is just staggering. Very little has happened so far, but it's somehow compelling regardless.
Thanks for letting me know about it.
Submitted by Avals (user info) at 2005-12-13 07:15:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-12-12 23:37:49 (#)
Ranking: 2
I gotta go to bed, but I'll read this and rate it tomorrow. As for the Hebrew names -- what can I tell ya. That's what the baby-name website told me. What's wrong about it, the meaning of the name, or the origins of it?
Seriously, I would like to be enlightened.
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Well, Mayer sounds somewhat like 'Meir', which means lighting or enlightening. So I suppose that's sort of alright.
Jessica, on the other hand, I can't imagine what it stands for in Hebrew. But then, that's just me.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-12-12 23:40:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh, thanks for the linkwhore, by the way. This stuff is cool.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-12-12 23:37:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Avals (user info) at 2005-12-11 06:32:27 (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't know what GrUeberfest is, and I don't care. This was good, though.
Unfortunately, as a Hebrew speaker I'm forced to call bullshit on these two:
'Jessica -- "Grace of God" -- Hebrew.
Mayer -- "Enlightened" -- Also Hebrew
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I gotta go to bed, but I'll read this and rate it tomorrow. As for the Hebrew names -- what can I tell ya. That's what the baby-name website told me. What's wrong about it, the meaning of the name, or the origins of it?
Seriously, I would like to be enlightened.
Submitted by wardy (user info) at 2005-12-12 06:34:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
uber is no pH. you know that. i know that. god knows that.
that being said, stay sexy.
Submitted by Avals (user info) at 2005-12-12 06:26:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I would just like to say that you all SUCK!
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-12-10 17:09:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hey, if you want wild bears eatin' your children and scarin' your
salmon, that's your business. But I'm not gonna take it! Who's with
me?
-- Homer Simpson
Much Apu About Nothing
Cool! Please keep on posting this, if you would. It's really interesting, and I like it.