72 Yom Kippur 1973

I slept in my room in the kibbutz. The only telephone of the kibbutz was in the dining hall. Someone came to wake me up. The call was from my squadron. They asked me to come immediately. It was Saturday, Yom Kippur, 1973. Kibbutz Hatzor is located within walking distance of an air force base. I walked to the base and caught a ride from the living quarters to the airfield. I reached the runway of the light aircraft. Already additional pilots had begun to assemble. I was one of the youngest. There was no chance of my getting a Piper (Pa-18 "Super Cub"). The veteran pilots had already taken them all. Someone received a call from his squadron asking him to bring maps, he ran to look for them. His partner was already sitting in a Piper with the propeller running. There was a feeling that something big was happening. But we didn't know what it was. After the light planes departed we waited for a transport plane that would distribute us between various bases.

When I landed in Ezion (in the "Moon Valley") I learned that my squadron had been disbanded and its members had been distributed among other flight squadrons. The Skyhawk flight squadron established in Ezion was a new one, and not yet operational. Every one of us received an airplane 'as a bonus' and was sent to one of the other Skyhawk squadron bases. Thus I returned to Tel Nof, but not to my original squadron, from which I had been transferred to Ezion, but to its twin squadron.

I remember that one evening the "Kaveret" ensemble performed on the squadron's porch. And on another evening (perhaps at the end of the war, I don't remember exactly) Leonard Cohen made an appearance on the base's football field.

As early as the end of the first day of the war I was informed that the plane of my classmate Ishai Katziri, was shot down near the Suez Canal, in the Bardawil area, and he was considered to be missing in action. On my first leave of a few hours in the course of the war, I sat in Ishai's parents room in the kibbutz, dressed in my flight overalls. They spread before me a map of Sinai and asked me to show them where their son's plane was shot down. I did not know what to say and in my heart there was little hope. Afterwards we learned that Ishai was a prisoner of war in Egypt. He returned about a month and a half after the war. His story and the story of the failed attempt of the General Staff's special unit to rescue him, was shown a few days ago in a television film on the program "The True Story".

One day toward the end of the war Ran Peker, the base commander, called us for a talk. All of the pilots. I sat at the top in the last row of a little auditorium. From the middle aisle a pilot from another kibbutz, married to a girl from my kibbutz, came up to me. He said, "Yesterday I was in Hatzor, someone there was killed, someone from your class – Gilead". Such moments you remember forever. Gilead Zohar was my best friend. A musician. He had the soul of an artist. I remember the words that went through my head: "I have lost this war already".

Afterwards I went on a mission from which I almost did not return. We bombed the surrounded Egyptian Third Army. We blocked their escape routes. Everything was quiet already. We flew at a high altitude in a circle for bombing, almost as we did in practice flights. Suddenly I heard a shout: "Four, break! A missile…!" I flipped over and pulled the stick with all my strength. In the mirror I saw a pillar of fire passing behind my plane. My savior was a veteran reservist pilot, who flew for "Arkia". If it had not been for him, my fate would have been like that of Gershon Funk, from my flight course, who, while flying at high altitude, was hit by a rocket which blew him and his plane to smithereens.

I remember the return from that flight. These words did not leave my mind, "I have lost this war already". Since we fled from enemy missiles and attacked once again we were running out of fuel and landed at Refidim to refuel. One of the refuelers was a member of my kibbutz. I sat in the plane (we refueled without leaving the aircraft) without my helmet and he recognized me. He yelled to me, "Have you heard about Gilead?" I answered, "Yes". We looked at each other and did not say another word.

I remember the film about Ishai. Mainly the words of one of the fighters that were send to find him. He said that the only thing in the present situation that reminds him of the special spirit of those days, are the military actions of Hezbollah. He also said that he feels that we are living the last days of Pompeii. Everything is good as long as it is good. But our sons no longer see any reason to make sacrifices as we did, unconditionally, whole heartedly. Even in a moment of need, he said, our children will not be willing to sacrifice as we did.