Pumpkinflowers (20 page)

Information on the contents of Avi's pack and where it was recovered—not at the site where his helicopter crashed but rather beneath the point where the two helicopters collided—as well as the fact that his body was found not in the wreckage of the helicopter but some distance away, is from Yossi and Raya Ofner. At least a dozen soldiers (seventeen, according to Yigal Mosko, writing in
Yediot Ahronot
on January 30, 1998) were thrown from Helicopter 903 before it crashed, most of them landing in and around the backyard of the Gershoni family of She'ar Yeshuv. Weeks later imprints of several bodies were still visible in their yard, including that of one soldier clearly carrying a rifle; Avi's parents were informed that Avi was the only soldier found carrying a rifle, hence the assumption that this was him. Additional information on the helicopter accident is from interviews in 2013 with Ruth and Amnon Schreibman, parents of Lt. Nir Shreibman, who was twenty when he died in the crash; with Eli Ben-Shem, chairman of the memorial organization Yad Lebanim and father of Lt. Kobi Ben-Shem, who was twenty-one; and with Yoram Alper, father of Staff Sgt. Idan Alper, twenty-one. The testimony of the watchman is from the IDF's official report on the crash. His name was redacted in the version provided to me, but Meir Amitai identifies him as Khalil Sa'id of the Druze town of Ghajar.

Photograph courtesy of the Ofner family. The soldier in the center is unidentified; on the left is Amit Nisim. Date unknown, probably 1995 or 1996.

Chapter 22

The soldier who remembered being taken to identify the bodies in Tel Aviv is Omri Levi, interviewed in 2013.

Chapter 23

Details on Avner Alter, including his appreciation for the song “Children of Winter '73,” are from the memorial book compiled by his family and found in the Ashdot Yaakov library. Bruria is Bruria Sharon, currently the librarian at Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov and keeper of the Four Mothers archive, interviewed in 2013.

Chapter 24

Eran Shachar, “Mothers in the Service of the Military,”
Ha-Kibbutz
, March 6, 1997.

Chapter 25

The description of life on the hill in the weeks after the crash is from interviews with Mordechai Etzion in 2002, 2003, and 2014; with Matan Guggenheim (then a soldier in the engineering company, now a filmmaker) in 2013; and with members of Avi's platoon in 2014. Descriptions of Mordechai's battle on February 27, 1997, are from my interviews with him; with Yair Barkat (Bareket), the outpost commander at the time; and with Gal Perlmutter, one of the medics. Additional information is drawn from documents in the IDF archive and from my own memory of seeing the video filmed from the lookout post that night. Lior is Sgt. Lior Shabtai, nineteen.

Chapter 26

Jonah is Jonah Mandel, interviewed in 2014. The Alterman fragments are from
Kochavim Bachutz
(Stars outside) (Tel Aviv: Yachdav, 1938). Translations are mine.

Chapter 27

The article introducing the Four Mothers (“The Home Front Takes the Offensive”) was by Eran Shachar,
Ha-Kibbutz
,
April 3, 1997. The four women featured were Ronit Nachmias, Miri Sela, Yafa Arbel, and Rachel Ben-Dror.

Chapter 28

Th
e officer killed on September 7, 1997, by a mortar shell at the Pumpkin was Lt. Avraham (Avi) Book, twenty-two.
Th
e officer and radioman from the engineering company killed (on June 25, 1998) by a Hezbollah explosive after the unit was moved from the Pumpkin were Lt. Amit Asouline, twenty-one, and Sgt. Or Cohen, twenty.

Chapter 29

Th
e battle in which twelve members of a naval commando squad died took place near Ansariya, Lebanon, on September 4–5, 1997.
Th
e brush fire in the Saluki riverbed, which killed five soldiers, was on August 28, 1997. Orna is Orna Shimoni, interviewed in 2013. Lt. Eyal Shimoni, twenty-one, was killed on September 18, 1997.

Chapter 30

From interviews with Orna Shimoni.

Th
e attack at the Pumpkin that wounded two tank crewmen, including Alexei Yermenko, who lost both legs, took place on December 26, 1998 (IDF archive document
115-1210/2003)
. One of the soldiers sent to retrieve the crewman's legs was Oriel Benzvi, interviewed in 2013.

Chapters 31–32

From my own memories and notes.

Chapter 33

Information on the military experiences of my maternal great-grandfathers,
Th
omas Dodd and Archie Affleck, in World War I, and of my grandfather Hugh Affleck in World War II, is from historical research conducted by my uncle, CWO (rtd.) Colin Affleck.

Chapter 34

“
Th
e voice of the Lord”: Psalm 29:5. “With me from Lebanon, my bride”: Song of Songs 4:8.

Chapter 35

Th
e description of the incident is from my own memories and notes, with additional detail from interviews in 2013 with other members of my platoon: Adam Yadid, Yoni Yakiri, and Nadav Strizover.

Be'eri Hazak's poem “Lord of the Universe” appears in
Bivchi Oti Tiktzor
(In Tears Shall You Reap Me), a collection of his poems and letters published by his family after his death (Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing, 1974). Translation mine.

Chapter 36

From my own memories and notes.

Chapter 37

Information on residents of the security zone, including the size of the population, is from Plocker, “Two Fingers from Nabatieh.” The commander at Beaufort Castle who tried to speak the local language was Yiftah Guy, later a school principal, interviewed in 2013.

Chapter 38

From my own memories and notes.

Chapter 39

From interviews in 2013 with Bruria Sharon and Orna Shimoni. Information on the Ofer Sharon affair is from interviews with Bruria Sharon and documents provided by Bruria; from press reports; and from an interview with another soldier present at the battle, Elad Lerer, in 2013. The interview with Ofer Sharon (“Why I Didn't Get Up”) was conducted by
Haaretz
reporter Avichai Beker and published on October 7, 1999. Three officers died at Qalat Jabur: Lt. David Granit, twenty-two; Lt. Liraz Tito, twenty-one; and Maj. Eitan Belachsan, thirty.

The song “Ammunition Hill” (“
Givat Hatachmoshet
”) was written in 1967 by Yoram Taharlev. Eitan, the machine gunner mentioned in the song, is Pvt. Eitan Naveh, twenty-three when he died on June 6, 1967.

Chapter 40

From my own memories and notes.

Chapter 41

On Hezbollah rebuffing Israeli attempts to negotiate a withdrawal, see the deputy Hezbollah secretary-general Naim Qassem's
Hizbullah:
Th
e Story from Within
(London: Saqi Books, 2010), 228, and also Palmer-Harik's
Hezbollah:
Th
e Changing Face of Terrorism
, 134.

“Syria's foreign minister declared that doing so without Syria's consent would be an act of war”: Farouk a-Shara, “Reactions to Government Decision,”
Yediot Ahronot
,
March 6, 2000. On March 12 a-Shara was again quoted in
Yediot Ahronot
condemning the Israeli withdrawal plan, calling it a “trap” and saying, “Israel can't disconnect itself from Lebanon without the permission of Beirut and Damascus.”

The Ali Taher battalion commander who saw the Four Mothers as meddlers, and later changed his mind as an educator, is Yiftah Guy, interviewed in 2013. The senior commander who called them the “four rags” in February 2000 and then met with them to apologize (as reported in
Yediot Ahronot
,
February 20, 2000) was Shmuel Zakai, commander of the Golani Brigade. Brig. Gen. Erez Gerstein's comments on the Four Mothers were published in
Yediot Ahronot
on June 9, 1998. On February 28, 1999, a Hezbollah bomb destroyed the vehicle in which Gerstein was riding with two soldiers (Sgt. Maj. Imad Abu Rish, thirty-five, and Staff. Sgt. Omer El-Kabetz, twenty-two) and the radio reporter Ilan Ro'eh, thirty-two; all four were killed.

Chapter 42

From my own memories and notes.

Chapter 43

“king anointed with salt, crowned in wreaths of seaweed”: Meir Ariel's 1993 song
“Zirei Kayitz”
(Seeds of summer), on the album of the same name.

Makov is Eran Makov, interviewed in 2013 (as deputy commander of the army division in charge of the West Bank). Vasily Grossman's “In the Town of Berdichev” appears in the collection
Th
e Road
, trans. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Olga Mukovnikova (New York: New York Review Books, 2010). The incident in which Amstel was apparently killed took place on February 6, 2000, as reported the following day in “The Medic Raced to the Wounded—and Was Killed,”
Yediot Ahronot
, and then in greater detail in the same paper on February 9, 2000 (“Four-Legged Heroes”). The medic who was killed was Staff Sgt. Yedidya Gefen, twenty. Amstel's handler, who was wounded, was Ro'i Ben-Lulu.

Chapter 44

Blutreich is Ofer Blutreich, interviewed in 2013. Kahana is Ran Kahana, interviewed in 2013 as a brigade commander in the West Bank. Additional information on the last days at the Pumpkin is from interviews in 2013 with Daniel Uman, then a platoon commander, and Ori Asoline, then a logistics sergeant. The last soldier to die at the Pumpkin was Sgt. Amir Meir, nineteen, killed on February 8, 2000, when an antitank rocket hit his guard post. The last soldier to die inside the security zone was Sgt. Tzahi Itach, nineteen, killed when an antitank rocket hit his guard post at Beaufort Castle on February 11, 2000.

“No One Wants to Be the Last One Killed in Lebanon”: Eitan Glickman,
Yediot Ahronot
,
February 10, 2000.

“The soldiers entering Lebanon project a sense of dejection”: Nahum Barnea, “The Shadow of Lebanon,”
Yediot Ahronot
, weekend magazine, February 11, 2000.

Chapter 45

Additional details on the withdrawal are from Tamir's
Milhama Lelo Ot
(Undeclared war); from Yigal Sarna, “The Crew of Tank 3 Shuts the Door on Lebanon,”
Yediot Ahronot
,
June 2, 2000; from another description of the withdrawal in Eitan Glickman, Amir Rappaport, and Doron Golan, “6:40 a.m.: The Last Soldier Leaves, the Gate Is Locked,”
Yediot Ahronot
, May 25, 2000; and from a long article by Ron Ben Yishai, “The Lebanon Withdrawal: The Real Story,”
Yediot Ahronot
,
September 29, 2000.

Chapter 46

From my own memories and notes.

Chapter 47

“this war will be forgotten in a few years”: Tamir,
Milhama Lelo Ot
(Undeclared war).

Chapter 48

“a light at the end of the Palestinian tunnel”: Naim Qassem,
Hizbullah:
Th
e Story from Within.

The border attack in which Hezbollah guerrillas took the bodies of three soldiers took place on October 7, 2000. The cross-border infiltration at Kibbutz Matzuva, in which six Israelis were killed, took place on March 12, 2002. The two army technicians were shot while on a border antenna on July 20, 2004. The suicide attack at the Sbarro pizzeria took place on August 9, 2001. The attack at the Dolphinarium club in Tel Aviv was on June 1, 2001. Lt. Daniel Mandel, twenty-four, was killed in Nablus on April 15, 2003.

“Hezbollah . . . was the ‘A-team' ”: Max Boot,
Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present
(New York: Liveright Publishing, 2013).

Chapter 49-53

From my own memories and notes.

Chapter 54

The names that appear here are pseudonyms. No other details have been changed.

Chapter 55–59

From my own memories and notes.

Chapter 60

The song
“Ha-chita tzomachat shuv”
(The wheat grows again) was written in 1974 by Dorit Zameret of Kibbutz Beit Hashita.

“I, too, have dropped off Fear”: From “Apologia Pro Poemate Meo,” in
Wilfred Owen:
Th
e War Poems
.

Additional interviews (conducted in 2013 unless otherwise specified)

Matan Barak, soldier in Fighting Pioneer Youth Antitank Company wounded at Beaufort in 1997; Nitzan Gavriel, medic, Fighting Pioneer Youth Engineering Company; Lior Lifshits, commander of Ali Taher sector 1997–99; Yossi (Yossifoon) Kauffman, Armored Corps crewman at the Pumpkin in mid-1990s and unofficial outpost historian, interviewed in 2012 and 2013; Eran Niv, Fighting Pioneer Youth Antitank Company commander 1997–98, at time of interview commander of the army officer school Bahad 1; Simchi Rubin, Givati Brigade soldier at the Pumpkin, early 1990s; Moshe (Chico) Tamir, expert on guerrilla warfare and commander in Lebanon, author of
Milhama Lelo Ot
(Undeclared war); Amir Tzuberi, Golani Brigade soldier at the Pumpkin, early 1990s; Elisha (Lulu) Yekutiel, a childhood friend of Avi's.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Amy Gash, my editor at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, and the staff at Algonquin; my agent Deborah Harris; and my agent Judy Heiblum of Sterling Lord Literistic. For help with research: Yossi and Raya Ofner, who were beyond generous with their time and the material they have kept since Avi's death in 1997; Yifat Arnon and Iris Sardas at the archives of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Tel Hashomer; the members of the IDF spokesman's unit; Mohammed Odeh of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission; and all of the many people mentioned in the text and source notes who shared their memories with me. For reading different iterations of the manuscript and offering advice: George Eltman; Mitch Ginsburg; Tali Griffel; Aliza Raz-Meltzer; Sharon Ashley; Stephanie Saldana; and Fleming Kress, whom I was lucky to have teach me creative writing in high school and who had superb writing suggestions twenty years later. Special thanks to my mother, Imogene Friedman; my sister, Sarah Sorek; and my father, Raphael Friedman, without whom this book would not have been written. And thanks most of all to my wife, Naama, and to our children, Michael, Aviv, and Tamar.

The writing of this book was enabled by the Sami Rohr Prize, created by Sami Rohr's children in honor of a great lover of books in general and Jewish books in particular. I would like to think that Sami (1926–2012) would have found this book worthwhile; I am, in any case, forever in his debt and that of his family.

Pumpkinflowers
is dedicated to Avi Ofner and the others who chose in those years to defend our country in the Lebanon security zone and who died doing so. May their memory be a blessing.