A different kind of tower on 9-11

September 9, 2009 - 8:15 AM by David · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Politics, War 

towerI may have been one of the few people to have almost totally missed the horrifying events of September 11, 2001.

I was in miluim (reserve duty) and stationed at the military prison at the Megiddo intersection on the way to Afula. It housed a couple thousand Palestinian security prisoners who were awaiting trial for alleged crimes ranging from belonging to a terror organization to throwing Molotov cocktails at cars, to planning terror attacks, to probably just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As a military policeman, until that year, my duties each year at whatever similar prison dotting the country that I was sent to entailed, opening alot of gates, accompanying prisoners to see their lawyers, doctors, families on visiting day, and bascially enabling them to receive the basic neccessities of food, shelter and medical care. Unarmed and at arms length of the prisoners, we MPs were always watched over by armed to the teeth combat soldiers, sitting in tall guard towers with birds eye views of the primarily outdoor compound.

But this year, due to a combination of budget difficulties and shortages of IDF units, our miliuim assignment was to take over the towers and guard a different batch of MPs. On 9-11, I received the noon to 6 pm shift and the midnight to 6 am shift. However, instead of one of the towers facing inward toward the prisoner action, I got the plum position of the tower facing the bustling Wadi Ara road, Road 65, which led to the Megiddo intersection. The directive – to make sure there were no attempted infiltrations.

What that really meant is that I got to watch traffic for six hours, and sing as many Beatles songs as I could remember. It was another uneventful shift and nearing the end, the only item of interest was a car pulled over to the road right outside the fence, with the driver changing his flat tire.

At one point, he looked up at me, and over the din of the traffic, shouted out something. I couldn’t really make it out and asked him to repeat it. I could only hear “plane… crash…building.”

I smiled and nodded, and counted down the minutes until my replacement arrived at 6. He told me to go straight to the command tent and see what was on TV, that I wouldn’t believe it. When I got there, there were about 50 soldiers gathered around the TV.

“What’s going on?” I asked one friend. He filled me in on the chain of events, each one seeming more infathomable than the previous. I wanted to sit down, glue myself to the TV and try to comprehend the enormity of the events as they were still unfolding. But I had to eat dinner, shower, and try to sleep for two or three hours. Because at midnight, I went back up the tower for another six hour shift.

By the time I saw the sunrise on September 12, the rest of the world was in shock and mourning the thousands of casualties. I climbed down from my tower, trudged to my tent, and fell into a long dreamless sleep.

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A new front in Lebanon?

January 8, 2009 - 1:38 PM by Nicky · 3 Comments
Filed under: Life, Politics, War, coexistence 

I must admit, when I went to buy milk this morning and saw the TV in our tiny village makolet (corner shop), tuned to the news and a picture of the Lebanon and Israeli border, I felt a deep sense of foreboding.

I think it’s what we’ve all been frightened of. That the battle in the south, will lead to a new front in the north. As we are all aware, those four or five Katuysha missiles fired at Nahariya this morning, wounding two people, could be a one-off protest, or they could be the opening salvo of a much worse conflict.

A katyusha attack on Israel.

A katyusha attack on Israel.


I’m one of those people living in the center of the country who have managed to be untouched by either the last Lebanon war, when missiles rained down on the north, or the Gaza crisis, when missiles rain down on the south. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard, however.

This morning I felt it acutely – a kind of moral and emotional exhaustion at the thought of what has been, and what is still to come – with Hizbullah, if not now (with elections in Lebanon in May), then later; and with Iran, looming.

I’m not alone. This morning Larry Rich, the director of development and PR at Emek Medical Center (EMC) in Afula, sent out one of his periodic postings. Every month or so, Rich sends out a report from his hospital, and I always read them with interest. Sometimes it’s about something he overhead, or witnessed at the hospital, often its heart-warming tales about Israeli Arabs and Jews who find that in the face of illness and sometimes death, they share an awful lot more in common than they thought.
This morning, Rich – like me – was in somber mood.

“Two hours ago four Katyusha missiles slammed into the northern Galilee, having been fired from southern Lebanon. It seems that the Iranian forces of darkness are eager to continue their relentless provocation of little Israel. Nobody knows, as these words are being written, just how far this latest act of unprovoked aggression will escalate.”

He goes on to report that EMC is now on high alert.

“An urgent meeting of our emergency preparedness staff led by CEO Dr. Orna Blondheim (still grieving from the tragic death of her nephew, Dagan Vertman, cut down in Gaza) took place as the debris in the Galilee was being cleared. Having unfortunate knowledge stemming from previous wars, EMC is preparing for the worst while hoping that sanity will prevail.
We have opened our bomb shelters and already designated a large shelter adjacent to several empty rooms that will be used (should we need it) by the children of our staff while they are working.

The rooms will be for games & activities while in the event of a missile assault, the children will be only steps away from a large bomb shelter. Our emergency medical supply stores are fully stocked and ready. Our physicians and nurses carry on with their healing, hoping that they will not be, once again, launched into harm’s way.

Adrenalin is rushing, anxiety sets in and we resign ourselves to an indefinite fate.”

A few days ago, the husband of a friend of mine volunteered for the reserves. He’s in his ’40s, and the father of four children. He was sent to the Lebanon border, where troops have been on alert since the start of the conflict with Gaza. “At least he’s miles from the fighting,” she told me then. I saw her briefly this morning. She looked worried.

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