Israel underwent a calamitous event on October 7, with over a thousand men, women, and children slaughtered and subjected to unbearable cruelties.
In times of calamity, nations call on great people to protect them. Sir Winston Churchill called them “rough men,” those who stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm their countrymen. In times past we would call them heroes, immortalizing their great deeds of battle and holding their names in renown.
In modern culture, great warriors remain unknown soldiers alive or dead — individual American soldiers are not broadly known by name for how many Taliban they’ve slain, nor Israeli soldiers for how many terrorist attacks they’ve foiled. Today’s heroes are influencers, career politicians, and actors — Everyone knows of them on an intimate level.
No one knows the names of the person who leaves behind the comforts of home for a war’s frontlines. No one recognizes their faces, usually just more people in a crowd. It is only when they don the olive green that their quality is apparent. No one knows their deeds beyond the general statements about operations attributed to companies, battalions, and brigades. When the Simchat Torah War is over, they will remove their uniforms, return to civilian life, and continue to bear the wounds and price of security in silent vigil.
They could be your siblings, your parents, your spouses, or perhaps your doctor, garbageman, neighbor. They hail from the north and south, center and periphery. Their homes were cities, towns, kibbutzim, villages, the faith that guides them Judaism, Druze, Christianity, Islam and more. It was feared that politics had divided Israelis to the point that the call would not be answered, instead the reservists led the charge for unity.
Reservists put life on hold to fight the war
These men and women do not answer the call to arms for fame or fortune. As rocket sirens blared on Shabbat they picked up their phones and resolved to do what was needed to protect their homes, families, friends, and country.
Their lives were put on hold. Time to spend with family would have to come later, paused with tearful goodbyes and replaced with sunken hearts for weeks to come. Work and careers would have to halt their advancement. Weddings, birthdays, and even simple errands become beyond the purview of the reservist. The reservists left their lives knowing that they would need to someday figure out how to patch the loose strands of relationships and routine back together, never quite the same.
The reservists went into beleaguered towns to rout the barbarians that had breached their gates. They searched house-by-house for the savages who had conducted the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The towns were secured, sometimes at the cost of life and limb.
The rough men have had to carry heavy equipment across long distances and go days without sleeping. They have braved all manner of dangers, forcing their fear back down into their gut. They do this willingly, with high morale, because they have to. If they do not, there will be no home and their loved ones will be endangered.
Under mortar fire, sweltering heat, and chilling cold the reservists continue to stand guard. They are now will continue to stand in the night, and will render justice unto those who would do us harm. They will always be ready to fight. All you need to do is call upon them.
The writer is an IDF infantry reservist serving in the Gaza periphery towns that have been attacked by Hamas.