Week 2 Theme: Perspective

 

“You promised a dove with a branch of olive…” -The winter of seventy three.

Sometimes a sentence, or even just a line from a familiar song can bring back a whole period of life. That is how I felt on that night on 2005 sitting in the back seat of my daughters’ car when the song came up on the radio. The car had just emerged from around the last curve on the road from Rosh Pina to Tiberias and I could see the first lights of the town mirrored in the surface of the lake, The Lake of Galilee. On the other side of the lake I could barely make out the outline of the mountains, the Golan Heights.

“We are the children of the winter

Of the year seventy three…”

The song, usually performed on Memorial Day, brought back a flood of memories. The winter of seventy three was the winter of the Yom Kippur war. Hearing the song I remembered myself at twenty three, in the midst of the war, sitting in a small café in Tibeirias, looking at the same dark water. We got together, that night, few soldiers, and managed to find a jeep and drive down from Kuneitra, where we were stationed, searching for a hot shower and a cup of coffee.

Dado,one of the reserve officers, and I were sitting on the open deck, talking. I was telling him how I would like to go back to school but thought I was too old to take on a new commitment. He, at least twenty years older than me, was giggling softly in the dark “it is never too late to do something you really like”, these were his exact words. That night when we got back inside the café I couldn’t locate my army jacket. The one I spend much time and efforts getting from our unit headquarters, in Rosh Pina. In its pockets were my reading glasses and my address book. Later that night, on the way back, we managed to get the jeep stuck in the mud, few yards away from the entrance to the base.

“You were tired men

Thanking their good luck

You were worried young women

And all you wanted was love”

The song on the radio kept playing …

When the Yom-Kippur war started I was on my second year of teaching. I was home working on my lesson plan for the next day when the sirens went on. The utter quiet of the day was shattered by the radio calling for the different army units, including mine, to report in. My base, it turned out, was moved while I was in school and with the move I gained a new title and responsibilities. I was to be in charge of the welfare of the soldiers in my army unit. No one, including me, had any idea what that meant. The soldiers were somewhere in the field and I was miles away.

For a whole week I stayed behind in the home base wondering what was I suppose to be doing. It was about being the contact person between the reserve soldiers and their families back home, I was told.But with the soldiers being at war, the families were more concerned with their safe return than anything I could possibly tell them. The days dragged and were full of rumors, and stories, filtering in through people who came to the base for few hours and left.

Finally I was allowed to go to Kuneitra, a major Syrian town before the war and my unit head quarters at the time. Miri, who was to be my help, came with me. When we got there everything was covered with snow which did very little to hide the destruction. We got the” deluxe” accommodation. A big room with a fire place. That was it. No beds and no bathroom, only a front row view of the destroyed main street. In the weeks to come I managed to arrange few trips, closer to the front, to meet with the soldiers themselves. In between constant moves forward into small, even more destroyed villages, and back to our mother base in Rosh Pina, I built with Miri a support system for the families.

“When we were born

The country was wounded and sad”

The song kept going on.

“You looked at us, you hugged us

You tried to find solace through us

When we were born the old men blessed

With tearing eyes

They said “we wish these kids

Will not go to war”

The war of seventy three brought a screeching end to an era of innocence. To the elation and sense of invincibility produced by the prior one, the six days war. “Sharm-el-sheik, we returned to you once again”, “Jerusalem of gold”, these songs reflected the jovial mood. My narrow country widened. We could visit the other side of the walls that divided Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall was once again accessible, I fell in love with the unending, wild beauty, of the Sinai desert. All of this changed as a result of the Yom Kippur unexpected attack and the political aftermath. We, as a nation stopped loving ourselves, not to mention being loved by others.

While all this gear shifting was going on I was busy trying to remain accessible to the soldiers in my unit, and their families. And as the army in its infinite wisdom was moving us back, and forth, from one destroyed village to another I was  trying to get us, the few women soldiers, an appropriate winter gear and locate a warm shower in the evenings.

“You promised a dove

With a branch of olive

You promised peace at home

You promised spring and lots of flowers

You promised to fulfill promises.”

My army service started with the war of 1967 and ended with the “Yom Kippur” war. In the spring the war was officially over. I did not return to my teaching job. Instead, I left by the end of the summer to study in the U.S for my master degree in counseling education.” It is never too late to pursue something you really like.”The sentence is going with me ever since. It takes me back to that night on the deck over the quiet black water, my lost army jacket and the promise of peace still waiting to be fulfilled.

The winter of seventy three by :Shmu'el Hasfari -1995

“We are the children of the winter

Of the year seventy three

You first dreamt us

In the morning after the battle ended

You were tired men

Thanking their good luck

You were worried young women

And all you wanted was love

And when you got pregnant with us

In the winter of seventy three

You wanted to fill with your body

What the war took away

When we were born

The country was wounded and sad

You looked at us, you hugged us

You tried to find solace through us

When we were born the old men blessed

With tearing eyes

They said “we wish these kids

Will not go to war”

Your faces in an old photo prove

That you were speaking from your heart

When you promised to do everything for us

And turn enemies to friends

You promised a dove

With a branch of olive

You promised peace at home

You promised spring and lots of flowers

You promised to fulfill promises

We are the children of the winter

Of the year seventy three

We grew up we are in the army now

With the gun and helmet on our head

We too know how to make love

To laugh and cry

We are men and women too

Like you we know how to dream babies

And that is why we will not press or demand

And we will not threaten

When we were little you said

Promises needed to be fulfilled

If you need strength we will give you

We will not hold back, we just wanted to whisper

We are the children of that winter

The winter of seventy three.