In Memory of the Fallen Ones

The soldiers stood at attention, rifles at their sides, orange berets on their heads. Birds sang, bees buzzed and the smell of spring flowers floated in the air. Families gathered around gravesites, here and there, sitting on stools, talking quietly amongst themselves, remembering their fallen sons and daughters.

It was Israel's annual Veteran's Memorial Day, and I was at the Kiryat Shaul National Military Cemetery in Tel Aviv. I was accompanying a friend, who was bringing her mother to visit the grave of her uncle, her mother's older brother.

His name was Jacob, and her mother told us he was quite a looker. The girls swooned over him, but he only had eyes for his sweet-heart, who he was supposed to marry. He'd already given her a ring.

Jacob died at the battle for Rafiah, during the Sinai Campaign in late October 1956.

Israel - backed politically by France and Britian - fought to expell Egypt from Sinai. This was after the Egyptians blocked Israel's access to the port of Eilat, cutting off her sea trade with a majority of Africa and the Far East. This was followed by Nasser's announcement of the nationalization of the Suez Canal.

In any case, it is doubtful 23-year-old Jacob thought much about the politics of the situation before he went into battle. According to his sister, he was upbeat. "Don't you worry about me," he told her, "I'll be fine! The Egyptians are no match for us - we'll eat them without salt!"

My friend's mother sat by her brother's grave and lit a memorial candle. "Why? Why?" she cried. "What a shame! What a shame! You should be an old man today with many grandchildren..."

It happened fifty years ago, but she told us she remembered it like it was today.

Jacob, a tank driver, was killed by Egyptian artillery fire. "The first round he survived," she told us. "I asked his commander at the funeral. He said a medic had talked to him after the first hit and he was only wounded. But with the second round, he suffered a head injury and when the medic returned he was dead."

I looked down the line of graves and saw that many were killed in the same battle. Eighteen-years-old, nineteen, thirty-three, all were young, in the prime of their lives.

"I still remember polishing his boots before he left," she told us. "And his girlfriend grabbed him by the legs and begged him not to go...I told her 'let go of him, you'll make him leave with a bad feeling!'"

Jacob promised his sister a celebration - a "big party" when he returned.

But instead, every Veteran's Memorial Day for the past fifty-years, she finds her way to the Kiryat Shaul National Military Cemetery to leave him flowers on his grave.