Judges and courts bring law, order, moral clarity

Court: A place and a system any healthy society needs, but no one really wants to visit.

Just like a judge: Someone you want as a friend, but not someone you want to meet at work all too often. A date in court is not something most people look forward to, and the feelings such a visit generates range from frustration and trepidation, all the way to outright fear and terror.

The army has its own system of courts and judges, and military court, like any other court in the world, is not somewhere you really want to be. In the field, though, court is not someplace separate that you visit, it is most often the office of the commander, and, depending on the issue involved, it is usually the battalion commander who deals with the more serious issues.

When I was in the regular army, I was in the 195th battalion of the 500th armored division, and our battalion commander, a legend in his own right, gave new meaning to the fear of ”going to court.” His name was Shimon Ben Maimon, though he was known by his nickname (the acronym of his name) “Shabam,” and a court martial with him, was known as a “Mishpat Shabam” (a Shabam trial or sentence).

His reputation stemmed first and foremost from the fact that all of us thought he was a little bit mad, though he was as loved as he was feared, and his men would have followed him anywhere.

In the Lebanon war, when the 195th got stuck trying to cross the Awali River, he jumped out of his tank, under fire, and waded into the river yelling to his tank driver to follow, leading the tanks to the right crossing, while seemingly oblivious to the heavy fire he was under. This, along with various other stories, earned him the reputation of being fearless.

He had a colorful reputation, to say the least, and his court-martials were no exception. Every Thursday night, the soldiers who had committed some offense, whether real or imagined, waited outside his office through the night as he “held court” to determine guilt or innocence and hand out sentences. This experience, known as lailah lavan (or “white night,” because you stayed up all night), was unique to the 195th.

More than often than not, the offenders were cooks or mechanics who had snuck home or gone AWOL for a few days hoping to get away with it.