1.
Early Tuesday morning this week, foreign sources reported an attack by IDF aircraft south of the city of Aleppo in Syria. A few hours later, all the senior officers of the force gathered in the large auditorium of the Air Force headquarters building in Kirya in Tel Aviv. In the first rows sat the heads of formations, the commanders of the squadrons and major bases, and behind them were more junior officers. It was not a dramatic operational discussion. Quite the opposite. A series of thought-provoking speakers took to the stage one after the other, as part of an educational conference entitled "Choosing the Right Way.".
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The last speaker at the conference was the commander of the Air Force, Major General Amikam Norkin. I would have written that "Hess was thrown into the hall" when the commander of the force came up to speak, but that's not accurate. Because Hess was thrown into the hall much earlier. In fact, from the very first speaker. You know, army, air force.
But yes, even within this military atmosphere, when the Air Force commander comes up to speak, something still happens in the atmosphere. A sense of the atmosphere within the atmosphere.
""This seminar is all about choice. Right choices, our free choice," Norkin began. "I want to tell you that since I took office, I too have been trying to choose right every day, to commit myself to right decisions. For example, I decided that once a month, no matter what, I would visit a bereaved family in the Air Force. I would come to them, get to know them, learn.
""I decided that I would participate in all change of command ceremonies, not just those of the senior officers. I put it in my diary. It's all a matter of choice. I also decided that at every stop at 'Yelo' I would take a popsicle and not a Magnum, it's healthier. It's just that I can't seem to implement this decision..."'
The entire auditorium laughed out loud. One of the most basic rules of humor states that the more powerful or higher-ranking a person is, the funnier they are. But there was something else here, and it was also charming. A moment of candor, of revealing weakness, of self-awareness, even of humility, from the last person you would expect to hear such talk from.
This is the opportunity to salute, on behalf of all Israeli citizens, the commander of the most powerful air force in the Middle East, and to strengthen him in his never-ending war on the Magnums in the convenience stores of gas stations. We are sure that the IDF's long arm will not reach the click-pad shelves under the cash register, despite the truly attractive two-pack deals for 19.90.
2.
But I had already received my lesson in choosing the right one half an hour earlier. I arrived at the camp to pick up my wife, who was also speaking at the conference. I made sure to arrive at the exact gate, with the exact permit, at the exact time, but the security guard refused to lift the barrier.
It turns out that I did have a permit to enter the base, but the vehicle's permit was not in my name but in my wife's name – and my wife, as mentioned, was in the middle of a lecture inside.
""Well, I don't understand, if I have a permit, and the car has a permit, what's the problem with me getting in with the car?" I asked.
The soldier in the shop looked at me as if I had said the most illogical sentence in the world. "I'll tell you a second time: the car has a permit, but not in your name. If you want to park it outside and enter as a pedestrian, no problem, but with the car you're not happy. Period.".
Well, go argue with the security establishment. They probably have intelligence that this is the classic profile of a suicide bomber: he drives a car bomb registered in his wife's name, not his own - and explodes.
Then I remembered Bartam, the soldier I was supposed to call as soon as I reached the gate of the camp. It was part of the detailed briefing I had received the day before. He was supposed to be my escort all the way, from the entrance to the camp to the auditorium. I called him and he arrived immediately.
In fact, he had been standing there on duty before, at the height of the Dan Bloc's violence, for who knows how long, prepared and ready for the task - to direct me inside! Only I forgot to inform him that I had arrived. He approached the patrol officer, who called the checkpoint commander, who had received special permission from someone more senior, perhaps from Kochavi himself, to let me, including the vehicle, into the base.
The gate opens, Rathem sits in the seat next to me and begins to direct me left and right into the base.
So what do you do in the army, I asked him as we went along. And he told me that he was in charge of a certain course that the Air Force is giving to its soldiers at the School of Command and Leadership on the Hebrew University campus in Givat Ram. Nice, I think to myself, on the days he's not directing guests to the auditorium parking lot in the Kirya, he spends time on the Givat Ram campus. The guy's not bad at all. A noncommissioned officer for parking lots and campuses.
Wait, and this is the job you're assigned to in the army right after basic training, I ask. And he answers, simply: "No, the truth is that I enlisted in 2013, I'm a pilot and the job I do now, besides flying, is also to train fighters on the campus in Jerusalem. Turn right here and there's the parking lot reserved for you.".
Tricks. How did I not notice? Because I was so nervous about the incident at the entrance, I didn't notice that the IDF intelligence officer I had attached to me had the rank of major and pilot's wings. Wow. I'm sure a pilot, who may have flown over the skies of Syria yesterday, is now directing me, the little one, left and right to the parking lot (wait, isn't that a role more suited to a navigator?).
3.
We took the elevator up to the huge building. Rathem was about to take me into the hall where the conference was taking place, but I asked him, if possible, to go to the bathroom first. Excellent, he said, I'll go there too.
We went into the men's restroom, one man to his cell, and then on the way out I see him standing in front of the faucet washing his hands, and next to him the cleaner, a rather elderly woman who came in with a trash bag in her hand and cleaning supplies. To my astonishment, she started yelling at him: "Why did you come in here?! Can't you see there's a cleaning cart outside?! When there's a cart outside, you don't go in!".
I can't describe how embarrassing it was. A bathroom cleaner, excuse me, yelling at a pilot because he had to somehow understand that according to the orders she made up, no one was allowed to enter the bathroom because it would disturb her in a few minutes when she went in to clean. But the pilot apologized to her, as if he had really done something that shouldn't be done.
Then another small thing happened. Just before going out, he was about to throw the paper he had used to wipe his hands in the trash can. He went to the trash can, and then noticed that there was no trash bag there. It wasn't that the trash can was clean and shiny, there were even some papers in the bottom, but there was no trash bag in it. He went up to the cleaner who had just yelled at him and asked gently: "Excuse me, should I throw the paper in the trash can or put it in your bag?".
4.
Wow. I left the bathroom speechless. I've been on quite a journey since meeting him six and a half minutes ago. The bored soldier who, between playing Candy Crush and Tetris, probably directing lecturers' drivers to their parking spaces, turned out to be no less than a pilot. Then, for the second time, he shattered my stigmas and prejudices about the nature of pilots. Where is the pride and arrogance known to air force pilots in the face of the all-too-impressive guy I got to know today? Where is Ron Huldai and Dan Halutz and where is Rathem? His head is in the sky, but his eyes can also look into (bagless) trash cans.
We often hear the cliché about "the most moral army in the world," which sometimes leads the Air Force to make life-threatening decisions so as not to harm uninvolved civilians. But here, in the services of the Air Force headquarters in Kirya, I discovered personal, human morality. Sensitive to the pilot.
I didn't say all of this to Rathem, of course. Sorry, to Major Rathem. But I think he saw that I was quite upset by the cleaning lady's screams, and said with a smile, half to himself, a moment before we parted, not with arrogance but with understanding: "Well, that's how it is in life, every man and his world.".
5.
Every person and their world. What a beautiful perspective on reality. What a simple and true statement.
In the few days that have passed since I first heard it, I've already had the chance to think about it and use it in several situations. Try it too. Every person and their world. In front of the guard at the entrance who sticks to the rules, in front of the cleaning lady who shouts, in front of the trash can in the bathroom that doesn't have a bag in it, and of course in front of the Magnum in Yello's refrigerator.
• The column is published in the newspaper 'Bisheva''
