From Newsgroup: soc.history.war.misc

Jodi's Voice
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4 days ago
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That is Lieutenant Colonel Or Ben Yehuda, commander of the CARACAL unit
near Gaza.
On the morning of October 7th, she opened her eyes and saw Hamas in
front of her.
rCLI look up at the sky, then lower my head again, glance to the side, and there are maybe five pickup trucks coming toward me, full of motorcycle riders. There are terrorists leaping between the sand dunes and the
trees, all of them wearing vests and uniforms, moving in our direction,
and I canrCOt even count them properly with my eyes. ItrCOs hundreds. Hundreds. And farther back, on the distant road, I see columns of Gazan civilians
simply walking toward us, some armed, some not.
And I say to myself: rCyThatrCOs it. This is where I die. Right here,
exactly where IrCOm standing now. This is where I die.rCO
Then I said to myself: Fine. If this is the end, then IrCOll end it well. IrCOll die with honor. IrCOll do the best I can. And IrCOll fight until my very last drop of blood.
So I turn to my soldiers, a group of twelve heroic fighters waiting for
me to tell them what to do. I turn to them with half a smile.
Later, they told me I smiled; I didnrCOt remember it.
And I tell them: rCyCome on, letrCOs tear them apart!rCO
And they all shout back: rCyYalla!!!rCO
They come to the embankment with machine guns, with everything they can
carry, and we position ourselves there and start firing at everyone approaching the outpost. WerCOre shooting like mad. At some point, we had
a LAU missile with us, so we fired it at one of the Hamas pickup trucks.
The truck exploded in a massive blast, something unbelievable. There
must have been huge amounts of explosives inside, and the explosion took several of the motorcycle riders with it.
And little by little, I suddenly realize many of them are beginning to retreat, turn around, and flee back the way they came.
And suddenly I understood: yes, werCOre doing something significant here.
We were there for about half an hour, and then, in the middle of all the chaos, I suddenly hear the tracks of a tank behind me.
It was an unbelievable sigh of relief.
I told my deputy company commander: rCyStay here! I donrCOt know whose tank this is rCo IrCOm going to get it!rCO
It was already around eleven orCOclock. I start moving backward, advancing toward the tank through the concrete barriers, and suddenly I realize a terrorist is jumping at me from point-blank range, and in another
second, he wouldrCOve been hugging me.
And my luck was that I already had a round in the chamber and my finger
on the trigger. It was literally a question of who shoots first, and I
shot first.
The terrorist collapsed in front of me.
And I froze for a moment, like, what was that? What just happened?
Then I hear my deputy commander yelling from behind me:
rCyCommander! Commander! Are you okay?rCO
I look at myself, IrCOm okay.
I turn back toward him and signal with my hand: everythingrCOs under control. He runs up after me, looks at me, and says, rCyWhatrCa what just happened between you two?rCO
And I tell him: rCyExactly whatrCOs going through your head right now.rCO
But the tank!
I remember rCo I canrCOt let it leave. We need it.
I ran quickly toward it, and because IrCOm used to working with my tank
crews, I started signaling to them in tank hand signals: rCyTerrorists
there, behind me, do this, shell over there!rCO
And herCOs with us, he understands immediately.
And for the first time, I suddenly have additional force joining me.
We make some kind of flanking maneuver, take up a strong position, and
simply fire toward wherever the terrorists are coming from. We keep
firing and firing, and they start pulling back. And I understand rCo all
of us understand rCo that if we donrCOt continue fighting right now, those terrorists will get past us and reach all the communities behind us.
At a certain point, my deputy commander and his radio operator are hit
by an RPG and collapse to the ground. So we pull them out of there.
Then I call friends of mine who are pilots flying Yasur and Yanshuf helicopters, and I ask them to come land at the helipad near the
outpost, because IrCOve evacuated wounded soldiers there and I need them
to clear our casualties out. And it actually happens. They arrive, they
land, and they evacuate the wounded for me.
Meanwhile, my medical unit is there the entire time treating casualties, loading them up, evacuating them to the helipad. We managed to bring
there the wounded from the APC we had seen, the wounded from our
battalion, and several civilians we picked up along the way rCo people who escaped from Kibbutz Sufa, from Pri Gan, and from other places. They all received treatment from my incredible medical team rCo those angels rCo and the helicopters I called in evacuated them to Soroka Hospital, where
they finally received proper care.
There were also many dead in that battle.
There were dead.
And I remember one moment at the end, when everything was over, just
minutes before they came to evacuate the bodies. There was a moment when
they were lying there side by side, and I walked between them, gently
touching their faces, stroking them softly, telling them I was sorry,
and closing their eyes.
And I remember telling myself in that moment that those people, who were
now making their final journey, were unbelievable heroes. They fought
there like lions to save Kibbutz Sufa. They fought until their last drop
of blood."
From Or's book 'book One Day in October'.
Thanks Elchanan Poupko for sharing See less
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