armies: one-and-a-half million soldiers. Thousands of tanks. Hundreds of fighter jets. Other, much larger nations had endured months, even years, of hell before prevailing in such circumstances: the Soviet Union, for instance, with its huge strategic depth, or France, rescued by its American-led allies, during World War Two. But any pride in having prevailed was outweighed by simple relief Israel had survived. Even that was nothing compared to the sadness felt over friends lost, and the resentment and sense of betrayal toward the generals and political leaders who had failed to prepare the country for the surprise attacks, or the initial confusion and dissension in some of our commanders’ response to the early setbacks on the ground. Dozens of meetings were held in military units after the war to talk about what had gone wrong. I was not the only young officer to notice that the higher up the command chain they went, the more unedifying they became. After we’d heard one too many senior officer fine- tuning his account with each retelling, minimizing his share for the huge losses, a new phrase entered Israeli army slang. Sipurei kravot — “battle stories” — were the words usually used to describe a normal debriefing process. That expression was now amended, to shipurei kravot. Battle improvements. I was assigned to convert my makeshift force into a regular armored training unit: Battalion 532, and that slightly delayed my reunion with Nava and Mikhal. But in their absence, I found us a larger apartment in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon. Nava and | agreed that at the first opportunity, I’d return to California and we’d fly back together. I went at the end of the year. We bought a refrigerator and a washing machine for the new flat — better models, and cheaper, than those available in Israel — and came home. Those few December days in Palo Alto were a jumble of emotions. Happiness, at being back together. But also a sobering sense, now that I was outside Israel