Muki betser biography template

Set against three decades of ongoing conflict, Muki Betser's story underscores the daunting dilemmas the Israel Defense Forces and the country faced. A natural leader himself, he counseled his country's most eminent leaders, including Shamir and Rabin, then executed crucial missions as one of Israel's most intrepid troubleshooters. At eleven in the morning we finally reached a bluff overlooking Karameh, giving us a panoramic view of the war in the village below.

About a mile to our west, tanks, armored personnel carriers APCshalf-tracks rear-axled tank-treadsand jeeps zigzagged through the village, blasting at resisters holed up inside the driedmud and tin-walled houses. Planes roared out of Israel in the west, looping in and out of the scene, diving to drop their bombs. Helicopters carrying wounded flew back and forth.

From the foothills of the Edom mountain range, Jordanian artillery shelled the battlefield while our artillery shot back. Towers of smoke rose from burning equipment in the fields and the buildings of the village. The clear, clean air of the desert gave way to the awful smell of warflaming fuel and oil, burning machinery, and charred bodies. The IDF was in trouble.

And so was Matan. I heard General Uzi Narkiss, commanding officer of the central command, in charge of the operation, shouting orders at Matan. The IDF is not supposed to leave casualties behind. We are a small country, and have no unknown soldiers. I broke in on the channel. As soon as we reached Matan, I understood the problem. A soldier lay wounded about a hundred feet away, under intense fire from snipers.

It would not be easy to get him out of there alive. Alexander took over. They say they are lost, and want help getting out. Getting lost did not sound like him. The back-packed radios of the time were the best available to the IDF, but not perfect. Frustrating minutes passed until, finally, I got a muki betser biography template to my own calls.

I told them to stay put and asked Yisrael Arazi, a good friend and my best platoon commander, to pick a dozen fighters for the rescue force. In minutes, we reached the first wadi, where we encountered a little resistance that we quickly dispatched. Entering the second wadi, I saw Nissim, the air force lieutenant who came along as a tagalong, and immediately understood what happened.

But Nissim pulled rank on the sergeant and looked for what he thought would be a shortcut to the safety of the concentration of IDF forces closer to Karameh. He tried cutting across the desert on a straight line up and down the wadis. Alexander knew how to lead the squad along the ridges, where, if they encountered enemy fire, it would be easier to identify its source—and take it out.

The lieutenant, ignorant of basic tactics and believing that rank, not knowledge, gave him authority, endangered my men. Nissim thought it would be a picnic. When it turned into a real firefight, he wanted out. There is nothing more dangerous in combat than a fool. I swallowed back my own anger, hushing my angry platoon commander with a wave of my hand.

The air force lieutenant tried stammering an explanation. I cut him off with a glare. I took the center, keeping an eye on our flanks, while the platoon fanned out with about five meters between each soldier. We worked our way over the first ridge, alert for any enemy movement, sweating under the midday sun in the desert. Heading down into the wadi from the ridge, I left behind a threeman squad to provide cover from the cliff top as we slipped and slid down into the riverbed.

We slalom-dashed across the dusty wadi floor and climbed the crumbly limestone wall up to the next ridge. Reaching the plateau, I called over the squad left behind. Now we gave them cover in case of enemy fire erupting in our footsteps. They made it across without any shooting, and we started down the second wadi. With me in the center, Arazi took the point.

I hit the ground, about halfway down the slope, aware of my men doing the same around me. He collapsed beside a rock jutting from the wadi floor, clutching at his stomach. Bullets raced across the riverbed, kicking up the dust in tiny cyclones around him-and us. Above, the three fighters on the top of the ridge returned the enemy fire coming at us in bursts and singles, a constant attack from more than one source.

Well hidden, the enemy caught us with nowhere to hide.

Muki betser biography template

We were pinned to the ground by hot lead screaming overhead and smacking into the ground around us. I scanned the scene. We could make it across the wadi to an outcrop of boulders a couple of dozen yards ahead, on the other side of the wadi. But it would mean abandoning Arazi. I could not do that. They had practiced for this situation hundreds of times.

One soldier lofted a smoke grenade. It toppled through the air, exploding into a billowing cloud. Three ran into the smoke screen, racing to rescue their stricken officer, knowing the thick smoke only hid them, but did not protect them from the bullets. They knew the drill: to get Arazi to cover before anything else. But when the smoke cleared, I saw my soldiers frozen by panic.

They forgot everything. Bullets stormed across the wadi at us all. I ignored it, concentrating on Arazi and the three paralyzed soldiers. I heard a soft moan beside me. I looked to my right. I looked him up and down. Blood darkened his green fatigues above the knee. He did. For the third time I shouted for the soldiers around Arazi to get him across the wadi to safety.

But just then, one of the three fell soundlessly to the ground beside his wounded commander. Only a few minutes had passed since the shooting began and we had already lost two good fighters, not counting wounded like Engel, still shooting beside me. If we did not get out of there, we would all die. More afraid of me, perhaps, than the enemy bullets, he started running toward Arazi.

But after a few strides, Hanegbi flung himself to the ground, under heavy fire. With nothing left to do but go myself, I plucked a smoke grenade from my web-belt and flung it into the wadi. Red smoke streamed from the can. As soon as it began billowing, I dashed down the slope toward Arazi. A freak gust blew the red smoke the wrong way, exposing me fully as I zigzagged across the wadi toward Arazi.

Bending for my last strides, I saw the shock in his blanched face. I planned to grab it and pull him to the safety of a boulder jutting from the far bank of the wadi. My action would resolve the will of the soldiers who had panicked. Indeed, bursting into their view, lead whistling in the air around us all, I became aware of my soldiers around me beginning to move.

And when I touched it, a blast exploded inside my head. As if struck by a huge ax, my head felt like it had burst open. The impact jerked me upright, while teeth flew out of my mouth. Blood cascaded from my face, a thick red waterfall pouring over my torso. Instinctively, I grabbed my throat where the bullet had ripped into my head.

But as the blood poured out of me, so did my strength. Still on my feet, I realized I was dying. The thought echoed inside me, reverberating into a singular serenity that quickly overcame all my other thoughts. That makes it possible to face death. It should not happen to anyone. Now I knew better. As the officer in charge, I was the last person there who should have been wounded.

But as my strength ebbed away and the sensations of my body diminished, I let go of those thoughts. The shooting around me continued, but nothing mattered anymore. I said farewell to the world, ready to die. Still on my feet, I let my hand finally drop the futile effort to stem the bleeding at my throat. A hot blast of desert air seared my throat, surprising me as it filled my lungs, shocking me with the realization I would live—if I survived the swarm of bullets around me.

Even if I reached cover, I intuitively knew that I should not lie down, certain that if I did, I would drown in my own blood. I must stay on my feet, I thought. Not dead—at least not yet—and still the muki betser biography template, responsible for my men; getting help for them became my primary concern. I walked straight ahead, dimly aware of the shooting behind me, and started up the slope leading out of the wadi, knowing that only a few hundred meters away, Matan and his soldiers waited for us, oblivious to our predicament.

Gunshots snapped in the air like a crazed drumming. Get down! Israel Defense Forces colonel born Early life [ edit ]. Private life [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Betser, Moshe "Muki"; Rosenberg, Robert Secret Soldier. Ynet in Hebrew. Initially operating whereas a Sayeret Matkal reserve unit, it was eventually transferred in the vicinity of the IAF.

Muki Betser was born in in coronate grandparents' house in moshavNahalal. They were among the seven disseminate along with Moshe Dayan's father who established Israel's first collective, Degania. Betser married in February