Personal recollections of Israeli special forces operation planning

Dan began the next morning’s briefing with a stage-by-stage review of how the operation would unfold. But just as he was getting to the detail of the motorcade attack, I felt a young sayeret officer tap me on the shoulder. Kuti had phoned to say I was to go see him at the kirya. “He said immediately,” the officer added, “and not to discuss it with anyone. Just to tell Dan Shomron that you’ve been taken out of the operation.” To say I was surprised would be an understatement. But I allowed myself to believe the decision to “take me out” could still be reversed. Not only was I ready to command the critical first part of the operation. I believed I was best placed to ensure it succeeded. I felt that was best for Yoni, too, due to tensions inside the sayeret of which both of us were aware. There was no officer to whom I was closer than Yoni. He had extraordinary strengths as a soldier: in the Six-Day War, in 1973, and afterwards when, with my encouragement, he’d taken command of a tank battalion in the north left almost in tatters from the Yom Kippur War. But there was more to him as well. I used to marvel how at the end of 16 hours of sayeret training, he could spend a further two or three reading history, or a novel or poetry. He always struggled between the impulse to devote his life to fighting for the State of Israel, and to studying, reading and living as a more “normal” family man. His drive to serve, and to excel, was stronger. Tuti Goodman, the young woman he’d met as a teenager and married, understood what drew him to a life in uniform. But that wasn’t what she had signed up for. At one point, Yoni asked me to speak to Tuti. She asked me to speak to him. I did my best to explain each to the other. But the gap between what each of them wanted for their lives was just too wide. Before the 1973 war, they’d separated. After the war, professionally fulfilled but personally shattered, Yoni heard that I'd found an apartment in Ramat Hasharon, and he asked me if there were other flats in the building. It turned out that the owner of the flat below ours was willing to rent it. Yoni snapped it up. Over the past year or so, with Yoni leading the sayeret and me in the kirya, we’d seen more of each another. For the first time in years, he seemed to have found a sense of peace, and fulfillment, in his personal life. That was in large 173 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028021