Recollections of the Yom Kippur War

What would we do without wars there would be fewer casualties of soldiers in the field, but not as many as those killed on our roads!

So today on my radio all I can hear is stories of courage or excitement or planning gone wrong or worse, no planning. No response in place for the rumours which were already abounding, that Israel would be attacked.

I am no historian just an ordinary person who happened to be in synagogue in London on that day.

So I have told my story and that of my son Anthony who was on the first plane of volunteers to leave the UK. I have a letter to prove it.

My son did not die in that war. When he arrived in Israel an untrained 18 year old, they sent him to volunteer on Kibbutz Amiad the reason being that all the strong healthy males on the kibbutz were at the Northern front,  there was a harvest to deal with and people needed to eat too! I was on a visit to Amiad, only two weeks ago but could not find anyone who remembered my son!

Everything is relevant we won the war and Anthony died some years later of cancer.

Cancer is an ongoing war as we recently were made aware when the wife of an Israeli show biz celebrity died, after trying to show a brave face to the world during her suffering. At least she managed to attend her daughter’s wedding, they will have those memories of sweetness and sadness every year when the anniversary comes around.

And they do come around.

So lets hope that at least this seemingly endless Corona time will end and they will find a vaccine which may contain this really psychologically disturbing disease or whatever it is?

Let’s hope that people  have learned a bit about discipline and respect for the other. Lets hope that there will be “No more wars” as Begin said.

If, we have learned something that will change our behaviour regarding the environment and the capacity for employees to work from home, then perhaps it will have been worthwhile to have had the inconvenience and if not what next?