first 25 miles will be familiar territory.” He left unspoken the obvious

first 25 miles will be familiar territory.” He left unspoken the obvious postscript: the need to negotiate the final five to ten miles, through open desert, and to find the right area, on our side of a border that wasn’t even marked. “Can’t any of you,” he barked, “lead a convoy of a few dozen trucks?” I’m not sure what possessed me. But I thought to myself: yes, I probably can. I had been scouting and navigating in one way or another since those first evenings with Yigal in the kibbutz orchards. I’d trained with Gadna Sayerim. And while I’d never lived in the south, the farm settlement of Patish, where I’d worked along with Yigal after getting kicked out of high school, was not far from the route the conveys would have to take. So I raised my hand. “Can you lead a convoy?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” I said. “Of course, Pll need a map. And a compass.” “Why do you think you’re qualified?” he prodded. I’d been in Gadna Sayerim, I said. | was good with maps. “Okay,” he replied, and he sent me, along with two of the company’s junior officers, to the battalion commander. Someone must have phoned ahead, because he was clearly expecting us. Still, I could see the surprise in his eyes when he looked at me: only just eighteen, but looking closer to 15, my uniform sagging on my slender frame. He gazedat the officers, then back at me, then at the officers again, as if trying to figure out whether he was about to approve something utterly crazy. But he had little choice. Three convoys had to be dispatched within the next couple of hours. So far, with me, he had a sum total of one guy to lead them. “Fine,” he said, and waved us out. The column consisted of eight huge, American-made six-wheelers, each packed with ten tons of munitions and other supplies. I was in the lead truck. The driver was a reservist in his mid-30s. So were most of the men in the rest of the transport trucks, one driver and one soldier in each. A staff sergeant, in the second vehicle, was in theoretical command. But, surreal though it felt, I was actually in charge, since I was the only person who might, conceivably, get us to the right place. The platoon commander was right. The first part, on paved roads, was fairly easy. But just before sunset, we reached open desert, the beginning of more than three hours of picking and weaving, calibrating and recalibrating, our way across a wide expanse on sand and occasional scrub bushes that, every mile or 52 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_027900