The following text was written by G., an IDF officer, in an internal WhatsApp group, uploading the image attached here.
""This, for me, is the picture of war.".
A brief coffee and cake break at the height of the inferno, when underneath it you can see the diary of the fallen, containing a list of those killed that day.
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So for some of us these are stories.
"For me, these are names. And faces. And friends. And families.".
I asked him to write a book about it.
And this is what he replied:
No, I don't want to remember.
Not anymore.
They call it Memorial Day, a cursed and cursed day, a cruel and unnecessary day.
After all, someone who has not touched death cannot remember.
And those who have already been touched cannot forget.
And I was there. And I was touched. And overall I want to forget.
The faces and names, the friends and families, the sights and smells, the blood and tears.
Because I was there.
I touched death.
And every day is a day of remembrance, without a moment of blessed forgetfulness.
So give me only a day of oblivion and annihilation, not a day of mourning and remembrance.
A day when I won't see the dozens of dead children I cared for.
A day I won't mention to them.
Just one day that I can forget the wedding ring on the murdered man's finger, and the pictures of his children in the pocket of his soiled shirt.
A day when the phone in my pocket won't ring, and I'll remember the man whose phone rang in his pocket and the word "mother" flashed on the screen.
A day when the sight of a soldier wearing a disk won't make me imagine him any differently, wearing a white "death march" on his wrist.
Because I remember them.
Everyone.
Every single one of the 'Protective Edge' casualties.
They were all my sons.
And yet.
And there's no need for a siren, and there's no need for a day.
The memory is vivid and tangible, gaping like an abyss.
So give me only a day of oblivion and annihilation, not a day of mourning and remembrance.
(G, casualty identification officer in the Gaza Division during Operation Protective Edge).
