Positions of power, positions of influence

Most of us get excited at the prospect of travel to new places, imagining unforetold adventures and magical moments that lie ahead. After a long period of studying in Israel, on a beautiful Sunday morning in June 1983 I was finally leaving the country on a trip. But this was a not a vacation; Israel was in the midst of the first Lebanon war and, five months into my Israeli army service, we were headed into Lebanon for the first time. I was anything but excited.

After catching a public bus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and walking to Yad Eliahu stadium, we traveled by army bus up north to Kiriat Shmonah, where we got up on our gear. Standing in a U formation, our commanders had the dubious job of trying to snap us from our weekend back in civilian life back and into army reality.

I had not slept much the night before and the thought of sitting in those trucks with no armor (we were, after all, trained as tank crews) was making me nauseous. How would I react if forced into combat? Would I know what to do? Would I ever see Israel, family and friends again? The movies always made it seem so easy, but there was no music in the background, and all I wanted to do was throw up. And the worst of it was I could not let on how nervous I was, and I kept wondering how the heck I had gotten myself into this mess; after all, I had actually volunteered for this madness! 

And then a small detail changed everything.