On the Road to an Ambush

Marjayoun, Lebanon, March 1978, Operation Litani

At 23:00 under a moonless sky, two staggered files of infantry were poised to begin a nighttime march southeast on the dirt track where we stood. In the darkness of night there were no colors, only black and shades of gray, except for the distant red trajectories of tracer bullets and the occasional burst of a star shell kilometers away. UNIFIL soldiers were scheduled to deploy to the area just a few days hence, and we had work to do before they arrived. 

I was one of four engineers at the front of the patrol, each of us carrying aluminum probes for locating tripwires and subsurface mines, each of us armed with an M16 – a cartridge in the chamber ready to discharge a 5.56 mm steel encased armor piercing bullet at the first sign of an enemy ambush. At a safe distance we were followed by two platoons of heavily armed Golani commandos. Their lieutenant commanded this operation. He and his senior sergeant walked back and forth between the lines of men, checking equipment and speaking words of encouragement to the soldiers. Most of the commandos carried Galil assault rifles, and designated men had FN MAG machine guns with long chains of ammunition. Distributed among them were RPGs, 52 mm mortars, extra ammunition, and of course, several stretchers. One commando was designated radio operator and would accompany the officer at all times. My sergeant, equipped with night vision equipment, and one of the veteran sappers operating a magnetic mine detector, took point. 

Behind them at a distance meant to keep us outside of the blast radius if one of them accidentally detonated a mine or an IED, I followed with another recent recruit. My job was to run forward to dig up any buried objects that the mine detector might find, using my large blackened commando knife to carefully expose what could be a high explosive device with a hair trigger detonator. While I uncovered the suspected mine, the others would withdraw beyond the blast radius. The fourth engineer was there to provide backup in case one of us should be injured and to augment forward firepower if we came under attack from PLO terrorists known to be located in the area. Our destination was a crossroad two kilometers distant at the edge of El Khiam, a Lebanese village about four kilometers north of Metula in Israel. Our task was to take the commandos to the crossroad without detonating any mines or roadside IED's. On arrival, we would join them to implement an ambush of terrorists who were to be pursued by another unit approaching from the far side of the village.

**

Sunday morning, 11 March 1978 after a weekend leave, I left home next to the Lebanese border to return to my combat engineering training base in Gush Etzion on the West Bank south of Jerusalem. We had just finished basic training and the subsequent explosives course. A closing ceremony had been scheduled where we were supposed to receive black berets and sapper insignia for our uniforms.

My route from my kibbutz to the army training base in Gush Etzion was long. Typically, I would need between four and five hours to complete the journey, to the chagrin of my drill instructors who wanted everyone back early Sunday mornings. Unbeknown to me, today, the trip would take much more time.

The thriving Egged central bus station in Haifa during the 1970s was located in an open concrete structure in the Bat Galim neighborhood. Ticketing booths and various small shops selling street food and trinkets occupied the station at street level. You could also buy junk food on the lower intercity bus level. Local bus lines collected riders at street level on the periphery of the station. Intercity lines loaded passengers in the middle of the station's lower level in a row of diagonal bays. Each bay was built with a human cattle chute to impose a semblance of order while Israelis queued to board. Sunday mornings the station filled with hundreds of passengers traveling to destinations around the country, mostly soldiers returning to base after weekend passes. When I reached the bus station, it was more crowded than usual. Most of the southbound bus lines had been suspended. There was no definitive information, but rumors spoke of a terrorist attack north of Tel Aviv. Roads south had been closed. With nothing else to do, I waited and read a paperback book, some volume of pulp fiction.

Passengers loitered for hours in the Haifa station, impatient for the southbound bus lines to resume operation. On the preceding Saturday afternoon, 11 PLO terrorists from Lebanon had landed on the costal road north of Tel Aviv where they captured a bus, killing 35 people, including 11 children, and wounded 71 others. The army initiated Operation Litani. I didn't know any of this at the time. It was almost afternoon when the southbound busses started to run again, and evening was approaching by the time that I reached my base in Gush Etzion.

My company of trainees consisted of three platoons of men. Most of them were 18 years old and had recently graduated high school. A few hadn't completed school. There were several exceptions like me. I was already 22, and I had earned a couple of bachelor's degrees before moving to Israel. In those days, many Israelis were not fluent in English. From time to time, when one of the young soldiers would hear my name, "King, David", he would laugh and ask why my parents had named me after a hotel. I had been assigned to train with a group of older immigrants, what the army called "Phase B", but by mistake I had presented myself at the wrong engineering training base. I had disembarked from the Egged bus at the base in Gush Etzion instead of the base further south called Adoraim, and they honored me with the privilege of doing my basic training with the kids. By the time that I reached the base that bloody Sunday, half of the company was gone – already attached to the 601st Engineering Battalion, usually stationed in Sinai, but now on their way to the Lebanese border. The other half of the company remained in the Gush for temporary duty on the West Bank. After a week, my lieutenant called me into a meeting. We were on good terms, perhaps because I was older, or perhaps because of my education or mature demeanor. He gave me my transfer papers and told me to report to the new home base of the 605th Engineering Battalion on the Golan Heights.

In the morning, I arrived at my new base, "Homa", a couple kilometers northeast of the "Beit Hameches" ruins and walking distance from the Devora Falls in the Jalaboun Stream. (Beit Hameches was an old French customs house and the site where the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement was negotiated and signed by the British and French after World War I.) Except for support personnel preparing the base for use and a few people traveling to or from the unit in Lebanon, it was empty. The battalion was transitioning from Sinai where their duties had included preparing Suez Canal crossings to become the permanent Engineering battalion on the Golan Heights. Due to Operation Litani, they had been sent directly to Marjayoun, bypassing their new permanent base. At the base, I signed out standard equipment including an M16 and ammunition, and in the afternoon I caught a ride to the unit's location in a truck bringing them supplies. We traveled through Kiryat Shemona to Metula. After passing the Good Fence crossing into Lebanon, it was a short ride to Marjayoun.

Dusk was falling when I reached the unit. We were billeted in a concrete building illuminated by 12-volt bulbs wired to a small gasoline-powered generator outside. (In colloquial Hebrew it was called a "pak-pak".) I was allocated a cot in a room with the other enlisted soldiers in my platoon. I was warmly welcomed by the guys, but then a few told me, "Listen, we had someone here just like you – tall, American, glasses, and a mustache. Two weeks ago, he stepped on an anti-personnel mine and blew off his leg. Maybe you should shave the mustache." I didn't. The company officers and sergeants shared a smaller separate room. All of the battalion's companies were significantly under standard strength because of its transition to new duties. Our cooks had prepared supper from C-rations which was being served. After supper, my sergeant told me to join Avi, an experienced soldier from Nahariya on guard patrol. Avi would bring me up to speed. There was a traveling army barber practicing his craft on site, and Avi took me for a haircut before we went out to patrol. (I should have thought it unusual to get a haircut while I was supposed to be on foot patrol, but I was new, and Avi was showing me how things worked, right?) We exited the building and walked the streets around our makeshift billet. Maronite Christian shopkeepers in the neighborhood sold a variety of American and European cigarettes at a fraction of the price in Israel – Kent, Marlboro, Winston, Lucky Strike, Camel, Gitanes, Gauloises, Players, and others. We could poison ourselves with Time, Nelson, Noblesse, and Ascot after returning home. They also sold VCR's and color televisions without customs dutiesThe MP's who searched for contraband when soldiers crossed the border back into Israel might turn a blind eye to a few cigarettes, but they were unlikely to ignore the smuggling of electronic equipment. Avi and I patrolled, talked, and smoked for four hours until we were relieved.

One afternoon my company commander, a lieutenant in his early 20's approached me. "Do you remember anything from your explosives training?"

"Sure," I replied. "I finished the training just a few weeks ago."

"Good," he said. "I have a job for you. You will join three of the other soldiers. I'm sending you to help Golani commando unit tonight. You'll be back tomorrow. OK?"

"OK." The previous resident of my room on the kibbutz had completed his service in the Golani commandos. He had participated in the operation to release the hijacked airplane passengers in Entebbe. It was an honor to go into action with this unit.

"You will be briefed on the mission when you arrive to the other unit's camp. Good Luck."

The sergeant leading our small group told me that a truck would take us to the infantry camp after supper. The day had been gray and rainy, and the precipitation continued into the evening. After supper, a truck took us to the Golani encampment, and we waited for three hours for the briefing to start. Finally, an officer announced that due to the rain, they were postponing the mission until the next night. We returned to our own company. The following evening, we would try again. I took a couple of apples from supper to put into a pouch attached to my military webbing. We traveled to the infantry encampment, and this time the assignment would proceed. We were briefed on the mission. The officers showed us maps, described the purpose of the operation, and explained how we were to execute it. They were concerned that we might encounter hostile forces while on the road, but the commanders also wanted to avoid loss of innocent life. Our instructions were to silently signal the officer in charge if we detected anyone between us and the town, but in any other direction we were to open fire without question or warning. The team boarded trucks which took us to our departure point.

It was past 23:00 and tension was high. The lieutenant approached on foot. It was time to go. There was a small change in orders from HQ. For the safety of the soldiers, if anyone approached us from any direction, we were to open fire without waiting for specific orders. We started walking down the wet dirt road. Without night vision equipment everything was shadows. The nearest lights came from towns and villages toward the horizon. In the darkness, every small sound could be heard in the distance. I was concerned that the sound of our boots crunching against gravel in the road could reveal our presence to a waiting enemy. The quiet tap-tap-tap of weapons and backpacks against bodies burdened by heavy equipment with every footstep behind us seemed like muted thunder in the silence of the night. The air smelled of wet grass with an occasional scent of burning firewood or animal dung.

Ahead of me the sapper with the mine detector stopped walking. Everyone dropped to a knee. My sergeant signaled for me to approach. In a heavy run, I moved forward. I saw where the mine detector had found something. Shifting my rifle so that it would not interfere, I descended to my knees and withdrew my commando knife from its sheath on my webbing. Waiting for the others to withdraw to a safe distance, in the dark, I started digging very carefully. Eventually, I felt something hard and metallic under the surface of the road. I wiped sweat from my eyes under my helmet. It was a pipe. I signaled the others to return. The mine detector confirmed that the pipe ran across the road. They continued forward, and I waited to continue in my assigned position. After several hundred meters the lead sapper stopped again. Again, on signal, I ran forward to dig up an object under the road. Again, it was a pipe. We continued as before. The next object that we found was a bottle cap. Then we discovered an aluminum can. We moved forward. Again and again, the pipe crossed the road. Every time that the mine detector found something, I had to expose it to make sure that no one would step on a land mine. About a kilometer into the trek, an overhead star shell exploded into bright light. Everyone dove off of the road into a prone position, each to his own side to form a firing line, weapons aimed into the dark under the illumination of the powerful flare slowly descending on its small parachute. I tried to avoid looking directly at the light. It took a few moments for my eyes to readjust to the darkness after the flare burned the last of its fuel and was extinguished. On command from the lieutenant, we continued down the road. The shadow of a house appeared to our right. Anyone could be waiting for us there. Further on, we passed the shadow of a building on the left. We were getting closer to the town. I should have been afraid, but I had no time for fear as I was too busy looking for enemy combatants in the distance and digging metal objects out of the ground without detonating an explosive device.

After about five hours on the road, still in the dark of night, we reached our destination intersection. The commandos went into action and occupied several buildings. The lieutenant assigned the engineers to one of the roofs, and we were positioned by a low wall facing away from the intersection, better to leave the heavy work to the better trained and better equiped commandos. Everyone was armed with a personal rifle or a MAG. RPG's and 52 mm mortars were ready to fire. Everyone was on alert, waiting for the terrorists to come our way. At 15 minutes intervals, one of the Golani sergeants made a round of our positions on the roof to make sure that everyone was OK and that no one had fallen asleep. Morning twilight slowly illuminated the skies before dawn. Gunfire erupted in the distance. We waited. The heavens glowed orange against a background of scattered clouds. There was more gunfire, now closer. We waited. The sun dawned on the horizon. A message reached the radio operators. The sergeants ordered us to stand down. Apparently, the terrorists had chosen a different route to escape the town. Another commando unit approached the intersection, coming from the other side of the village. Back in the road, the teams mingled. I smoked a Marlboro in the light of early morning. Breakfast would have to wait until we returned to the Golani encampment. I pulled a pretty red apple from my pouch and took a bite before boarding a truck back to base.