Sergeant Major Ben Kerido shares real time, first person updates from the front lines of Gaza during Operation Swords of Iron.
Gunfire erupted throughout the shooting range at [censored for security]. Paper targets were torn to bits, small piles of rocks splintered, metal planks dinged, and soda cans bounced down the desert range as bullets slammed into them. As a lead designated marksman, I honed in my red dot long-range scope, clicking the adjustor caps to ensure that my optics were properly “zeroed in.” By the time I was finished, I could hit my target with grouping the size of an American quarter. Previously my special forces battalion and Mobile Infantry & Reconnaissance Company in the Israel Defense Force reserves had been engaged in protective operations at [censored for security / relevant to the Gaza front].
Being mobile, we jumped as directed to provide extra layers of vital security and support for crucial operations and indispensable infrastructure. It’s nearly impossible to properly describe here in a simple format what it’s like to observe, support, and participate in a war. Day after day Hamas and their terrorist allies fired rockets and mortars at us. Hour after hour we ran to the local bomb shelters. In theory we had a mere fifteen seconds to reach the shelter. Occasionally the warning came after the bombardment had finished.
At one point on our way to training along a main highway in an enclosed troop transport Gazan militants fired mortars at a nearby kibbutz. The night was illuminated with the clusters of explosions; the force of the blasts bounced against the windows. During our support operations, the IDF returned fire and commenced with a heavy counter-bombardment. Incessantly our artillery, tanks, and mortars fired at select targets. By day we watched gunship helicopters launch Hellfire missiles less than a kilometer (half a mile) in front of us. By night we heard the screeching of Israeli Air Force fighter-bomber jets soar overhead before they dropped their massive payload on a terrorist target in Gaza.
Giant mushrooms of fire erupted, followed by a corresponding deafening blast. In one case Israeli forces struck [censored for security / a highly-flammable target]. An enormous pillar of fire rose in the night sky, burning for hours without any satiation. After several days of additional training, including weapons calibration, target shooting, urban warfare, and casualty first-aid / evacuation, we received a new set of orders. I cannot say much about those directives, only that we would be involved in the conflict in a much more active way. We prepared our equipment. We checked and re-checked our weapons and supplies, making sure to have such essential items as ammunition, extra batteries for night vision optics, warm gear, and water.
It’s a funny thing to go into a war. It’s an even funnier thing to go further into a war after having been in a war for over a month. What should we think? How should we feel? Is this merely the same thing as before? Is this something new? All in all spirits are high. When I was younger, the attitude amongst the troops was more one of testosterone-induced enthusiasm. But I think a different feeling pervades us in this conflict. First and foremost, there is a clear since of duty that exceeds even previous displays thereof in my fifteen years or so of IDF service (mostly in the reserves). Here in the Israel Defense Force, we always feel that we are protecting our homes and loved ones directly. After the horrific atrocities of October 7th, 2023, that feeling is stronger and more tangible than ever.
It seems to me that there is another feeling that is eminent among the IDF ground forces. It’s a burning, consuming feeling. I think the only way I can describe it is a unique combination of fury and lust for revenge. And I don’t mean the type of revenge that you might see in a Quentin Tarantino movie. I mean the type of emotion that drives you, that takes over your soul, that brings you to a place to mercilessly destroy your enemy not because of what they might do to you and your family, but because of what they already did to your extended family – the Jewish people. And make no mistake. Hamas has emphasized publicly more than once that they will continue indefinitely to perpetrate one unspeakable, genocidal atrocity after another against us after another – both in Israel and beyond – until every last one of those murderous monsters is destroyed.
I think the hardest part for me is leaving my wife behind at home. When we are involved in deeper operations we don’t always have the ability to communicate with our loved ones – at least, not nearly as often as we would like. She gets anxious and worries. (How can we blame her?) But under normal circumstances I like to check in every so often, even if only by sending her a simple heart emoji to let her know that all is fine and that I will talk with her more later when I am available. It may sound funny to say, but this is my first war as a “married man.” In my previous service during major operations I was single.
I had the motto that I was “immortal until I die” and “invincible until I get shot.” It’s a different matter when you have a wife anxiously waiting for you to return, when you have a home and family to build when all is said and done. A popular mantra of radical Moslem extremists – especially the shahid who embarks on a suicide mission of so-called “martyrdom” – is “We love death the way that you love death.” Perhaps in one sentence that is the difference between the Jewish people (especially in Israel) and the Palestinian Arabs (especially Hamas and other terror organizations). We prioritize life – even theirs (I dare say to a fault sometimes, perhaps). They prioritize death. Or, perhaps more accurately, the elites prioritize the deaths of the brainwashed peons while they skim off of international aid money and hide like cowards underground, or even flee gleefully to Qatar or wherever else while the “commoners” die.
General George S. Patton delivered a famous speech to the United States Third Army in 1944 immediately prior the allied counter-invasion of France. He famously declared: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” I think that’s my new mantra. We are not going to win this war by dying for our country. Instead, we are going to make those poor dumb Hamas bastards die for their pretend country that doesn’t even exist… and their radical theocratic fascist ideology. And then I’m going to go back home to my beautiful wife and live the wonderful life that the Most High has blessed me with… while the enemies that I encountered vainly search the afterlife for their promised seventy virgins. With the help of the Almighty… may it be so. Lock and load.
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