Daniel and the Machine Gun
Taken from Daniel’s mother, Cheryl’s, comments on one year after
Daniel was killed.
I’m going to tell you a well known story from Daniel’s team. Daniel,
as a member of the elite fighting unit, Palsar Nachal, had a long and
difficult training period. The culmination of this training was a 90
kilometer trek carrying a heavy load. Each soldier had an additional
responsibility such as carrying the radio equipment, being the
officer, carrying the first aid equipment and the strong man of the
team would carry the machine gun. The soldiers trained long and hard
and gradually built up their abilities both to trek the distance, and
to carry the load. At the beginning of this trek, the soldier
carrying the machine gun collapsed. Daniel, being a nice Canadian
guy, went to help his friend. The officer then came up to them and
said: Mendel, take the machine gun! Daniel wasn’t trained to carry
the machine gun and had not been prepared to do it, not physically
and not intellectually, but his commanding officer told him to take
the machine gun and so he did. He finished the 90 kilometer trek,
almost impossible under the circumstances, because that is what he
was ordered to do by his commander. And although by the next day he
could barely breathe, he soon got over that as well.
I, as a bereaved mother, feel like I am in the middle of a trek that
is called life and now, I have been handed the machine gun to carry.
I wasn’t trained to carry this heavy load and I certainly have not
been prepared to do it, not physically and not emotionally. How does
one prepare to be a bereaved mother! But I am carrying it because
that is what my commanding officer, Hashem, has commanded me to do.
And I am doing it with as much dignity and as much positiveness as I
can. I am doing this for two reasons, out of love and respect for my
beloved son Daniel and out of love and respect for all Am Israel!
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