Fallen soldier was proud to serve in the Golani Brigade
In a Remembrance Day post last year Ben Yigal wondered "if anything were to happen to me, what would happen?"
By ANNA AHRONHEIMSt.-Sgt. Amit Ben Yigal(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
St.-Sgt. Amit Ben Yigal, who was killed during an arrest operation in the West Bank early on Tuesday morning, wrote about the pride he had serving in the Golani Brigade.In a post on Facebook that he wrote last year in honor of Daniel Pomerantz, a Golani fighter killed during Operation Protective Edge, St.-Sgt. Ben Yigal wrote about his pride to serve in the unit. “To be Golanchik is to see the landscape from the bus window, and to know that you marched there too. It’s to curse the moment you are living in, and in the same breath remember why you are here. It is not letting who you are, interfere with who you could become.To be a Golanchik is to sit on gear while looking at each other's eyes and just laugh because you are both going through the same thing. It's a deep friendship which is always surprising... to look at the soldiers with the red berets when you have red eyes. To be Golanichik is not to look back, because you always have a whole country behind you,” he wrote.“To be a Golanchik is to hear Hatikva and get chills in every part of your body... I, Amit Ben Yigal, am proud to be a Golanchik. Proud to take part in a long-standing tradition like Golani. Proud to be the continuation of many drafts before and to be a role model to those after."Every year since I can remember, on the eve of Memorial Day for Fallen IDF Soldiers, something grabs hold of my heart. I cannot remember one occasion on which I have not been moved to tears. Something grabs my heart and squeezes it tight.“For the past two years, I mark Remembrance Day in a different uniform from civilians. This time I'm in the soldier's uniform with the beret and representing something. And suddenly the words have meaning, acts have consequences,” he continued.I am relating personally to events and thinking if anything were to happen to me, what would happen? And right away the tears come down trickling down my face as I am struck by this thought: 'Hey, I have a family at home waiting for me, for the noise I bring with me, the laughter at the table, the clothes and a wet towel that was thrown on the floor, the kiss from my mother, my father's voice as I tell him I am on my way home and how excited he is even if I am still an hour away, but most of all knowing everything is fine.’ And then the tears are no longer a trickle - they turn into a waterfall and I must make them stop, for I am in uniform."“I would like to address each person who reads this post individually: Take a moment of silence, put on a calm song that you love, close your eyes, concentrate on one person out of every 23,741 who fell. One. Close your eyes, look at that one person in front of you and let the emotions take you wherever [they take] you.
