Monday, January 19, 2009
Aaron Binik-Thomas Reflections From An Israeli Soldier
Aaron Binik-Thomas was on a March of The Living run by Rabbi Dave Felsenthal for NCSY:
For the most part I am pretty drained emotionally and physically. My injuries make it hard to a lot of everyday tasks and don’t allow me to sleep well either. I was injured in a training exercise preparing my unit for Gaza. And sadly I missed the fighting and the war.
When the Israeli sent in ground forces to Gaza I was at home, watching the news like the rest of the world. At that point I thought that there could be nothing worse for a combat soldier than being at home while everyone else was getting some of the action against the terrorists who have been launching rockets and mortars at our towns and cities for the past 8 years. I soon learned that it could get allot worse. Israel launched the ground attack at night, and the following morning I had an MRI at an army hospital. On my way to the hospital I received a phone call from someone on my base informing me that of the first 20 injuries, 19 were from the battalion, 15 from my company and 10 from my platoon. All of them from one mortar shell. have spent every day since visiting my friends at the hospitals.
My platoon was the first group of soldiers to cross the border, we lead the charge. After about an hour of walking slowly in the fields on the way to Gaza city they reached a small hill. Slowly each squad of my platoon crossed the hill to the next ‘safe’ spot. Apparently Hamas had a lookout and gave the coordinates of my platoon to one of their mortar squads. They launched a mortar and it landed, thank G-D, a few meters in front of the first squads. 15 people were injured, most lightly. Most injuries were 1 or 2 pieces of shrapnel in the legs. Yaakov, the light machine gunner, was hit in the neck. The shrapnel went in near the throat and out near the Jugular. One millimeter deeper he would have died on the spot. He told me how he doesn’t remember the explosion, just waking up in about 20 feet from where he was walking, soaking wet in blood. Uri remembers it all very clearly and when I asked him what happened he started to cry, ‘it was like out of the movies...rockets just started falling, then everything got quiet. He was hit in the thigh. Rafi, my captain, is still in intensive care. He will be wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. His kids are too young to understand what happened, but they know that for a little while they can’t jump on their father like they used to. Shrapnel hit his stomach, liver, kidney and spinal column. Unfortunately the soldier next to him was hit in the head. He is still in a coma.
The most heroic story from this incident is between the medic, fresh out of medics course, and Itzik. When the mortar hit there was a loud explosion and shrapnel flying. Most everyone was knocked off their feet, into the air. People were scatter everywhere. Many of the injured had lost consciousness temporarily. Most people couldn’t see or hear for about a minute. When Nadav the medic woke up the first person he saw was Itzik. Itzik had allot of shrapnel in his shoulder and Nadav crawled to him and started to treat his wounds. It is important to add that Nadav himself was injured and unable to walk. The evacuation of the wounded took three hours, and if it weren’t for Nadav’s heroics and treating injured soldiers while he himself was injured, many people would be in much more serious condition. There were so many wounded that injured soldiers were carrying others on their backs to helicopters and emergency APC’s.
This all happened in the first few hours of the war. Most of the injured from my platoon have gone back to combat, Two are still in intensive care. Keep them in your prayers. They are Rafi Cohen and Nerya Biderman.
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