Israel Shamir

PARDES An etude in Cabbala By Israel Shamir The Road To Suez

In 1973, my dashing unit of the Red Berets was ferried by chopper into the yellow East Desert of Egypt and landed some 101 km from Cairo. We were given orders to block the CairoSuez road, and for two decisive days we held a few small hills opposite the mighty crags of Jabal Attaka, shooting off every advance by the Egyptian tanks and commandos. We were just a hundred men poorly equipped with outdated anti-tank weapons, but the Egyptians thought we had at least division strength. We dug into the hills finding protection in their yellow soil from the powerful salvos of enemy fire; and emerged again when the cannons ceased fire to enable their infantry to flush us out. Eastward-roaring Egyptian tanks came under our fire and stopped to renew the bombardment. We clung to our hill, though we had no water, no time to bury dead comrades. It was hard enough to keep the hungry and scraggy desert dogs from feasting on their swollen purple bodies. Not one of us, with the