The 188th Crybaby Brigade by Joel Chasnoff

Author:Joel Chasnoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2010-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

FUNERAL DREAMS

Most nights, I read the newspaper before bed. Lately, the news out of Lebanon isn’t good. On Wednesday, six Israeli infantrymen stumbled upon a Hezbollah ambush. The ensuing firefight lasted nine hours. Three of the Israeli soldiers were killed and two others sustained burns on 90 percent of their bodies when a nearby oil tank exploded. Thirty-six hours later, a platoon of elite Navy SEALS entered Lebanon by boat. They had intelligence on a Hezbollah operation. But the tip was a Hezbollah ploy, and all seven Israelis died, including the platoon commander, a thirty-eight-year-old officer with an infant son.

What frightens me most is the randomness of it all. Just the idea that I could be walking along and then the ground explodes, or a missile comes flying at me out of nowhere, scares me. I’ve always lived my life as if it were a game of chess—if I had a decision to make, I knew that if I thought about it long enough, carefully enough, I’d make the right move. That’s why I didn’t join the army straight out of college—I began to doubt, and I could only go once I was sure.

The more I learn about Lebanon, though, the more I realize that I won’t be able to think my way out of trouble. For the first time in my life, I won’t be playing chess. I’ll be playing Russian roulette with someone else’s gun.

When I was a child, I turned to God for protection. Every night, before bed, I said the same prayer:

Please, God, don’t let me be blind, deaf, throw up, or die. Please don’t let me fall out of a window. Please don’t let me choke. Please don’t let me drown. Please don’t let me be kidnapped. Please don’t let me get in a car accident. Please don’t let me be attacked by an animal. Please don’t let me catch fire. Please don’t let me run out of oxygen. Amen.

I felt certain God was listening. I wonder if He is now.

. . .

Sometimes, for fun, my platoon mates and I talk about our funerals. We don’t do this often, but it comes up more frequently than you might think. The first time we do it, we’re out in the field, sitting around after lunch, when our social worker, Dassi, shows up with a stack of newspapers. On the front page is a photo of an infantry officer killed the day before in Lebanon.

Moshe Rosenbaum takes one look at the photo and cries, “Hey, wait a minute! I know this guy!” He reads the details aloud. “First Lieutenant Yitz-

hak Klein … Twenty years old … Killed yesterday morning at 7 a.m. on his way back from an ambush … Buried yesterday afternoon on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.”

Moshe folds up the paper. “Yitzi Klein. I can’t believe it. He was at my Yeshiva.”

“His poor mother,” says Tomer. “She woke up in the morning, and by the time she went to bed, her son was in the ground.”

For some reason, this makes us chuckle.

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