It was then, suddenly, that I saw Yishai had taken a bullet in the side of his

It was then, suddenly, that I saw Yishai had taken a bullet in the side of his neck. Blood was spurting from the wound. His face was contorted in pain. He looked at me, raising his hands upward, as if to say: “I did my best. It’s over now.” I pressed hard on the wound, trying to stem the flow. But he slipped out of my grasp and collapsed into Yasha Kedmi’s arms. Yasha propped him up and kept trying to staunch the bleeding. I turned toward the Egyptian soldier who had shot Yishai, less than 20 feet to my left. Keeping myself as low as possible above the turret, I fired into his chest. He tumbled into the foxhole. As I kept shooting, Yasha told me Yishai was dead. “Are you sure?” I asked. When he said yes, I ordered the driver to back up. We drove a few dozen feet, to where a group of the paratroopers was taking cover. With their help, we lowered his body from the tank, and then returned to the battle. Barely ten minutes had passed since it began. Two SU-100s were now spewing smoke and out of action. The third had withdrawn. But the Egyptians were still firing. Five of our tanks had been hit. Two were on fire. One APC was smoldering, its commander severely wounded. I knew that if we stayed much longer, we would end up like other armored units during Israel’s first, failed counterattack in the early days of the war. We would risk being wiped out. As far as I could tell, all the surviving paratroopers had been brought out or had managed to hobble to the irrigation ditch. I ordered Sukenik to abandon his attempt to take out the Saggers, and we withdrew behind the irrigation ditch. It was only then that I realized that alongside two of our crippled tanks there was still a group of a dozen men: six crew members from my battalion and six of Yitzhik’s men. It took nearly two hours to get them out. We used our tank guns to try to reduce the intensity of the fire from the Egyptians around them. I ordered one of our APCs to go get them. I rounded up all our smoke grenades, and the APC crew used them to create a smokescreen, the only way I could think of to reduce the danger of being targeted by the Saggers. It worked, but it required incredible guts for the men in the APC to pull it off. The battle had required guts of every man in the battalion. They had found a way to conquer the first and most powerful enemy on a battlefield: fear. I felt it, too. But it’s easier for a commander. When you’re leading people into combat, you don’t have time to be afraid. You have to assess and evaluate, second by second, everything going on around you. You have to make instant decisions and ensure they’re being carried out. The people under your command are waiting to hear your voice, and watching your actions, too. If you lose control at any point, not only is your life at stake. Theirs are too. 154 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028002