On the Gaza Border
Uri Schechter
A NAHAL Brigade Commander (Reserve)

To all my friends and to all those who don’t know me: Please share this posting in every way possible.

Since I am a commander right here on the Gaza border people are asking me what they could do for those who are fighting here right now.

All in all the IDF supports us in the most amazing way. So the best support that you all can offer is to give the bereaved families a big hug filled with love. Visit them. Visit the wounded in hospitals in your area, or in hospitals that are far away.

It doesn’t matter what tribe of Israel you belong to, prepare a beautiful package that includes a letter from you or your children and go there.

Go to the bereaved family and simply identify yourselves and tell them that you have come to be with them. I am convinced that this is the most meaningful thing that you can do.

And I will close with a brief encounter that I had today:

We evacuated today a soldier with a bullet in his stomach. As we run with the stretcher on our shoulders, my head is near his head and he makes a sign with his thumb that he is O.K.

He looks at me and says, “Who are you?”

I give him my name and my role in the Brigade.

He smiles and says, “Brother of mine will I be O.K.?”

I tell him, “Don’t worry. You will be just fine.”

He asks me, “Do you promise to come and visit me in the hospital?”

I tell him, “Of course I will come to visit you.”

A moment before we place him in helicopter he says to me, “My brother I am an MAG gunner in my unit. I must get back and help them fight.”

I kiss him on the head and slide the stretcher into the helicopter.

Submitted to the Jewish Pluralist by David Langerman and translated from the Hebrew by Ayala Emmett