A Welcomed Cease Fire

The past two weeks have been crazy for me. Upon my return from Canada where I spent two weeks visiting family, I was thrown headfirst into the war efforts. While not fighting on the front lines in Lebanon, you can rest assured that there is plenty for my unit to do. A simple Google search for "Home Front Command" can give you some ideas of what we have been up to, but for security reasons I will not go into detail.

The recently signed cease-fire comes as a relief to me. Not because it means that my workload will go down significantly, if anything it has gotten heavier. Not because I will finally get to go home after a long month of battle, I have not seen battle and I have been home almost as much as before this all started. The recently signed cease fire comes as a relief to me, because I am sick of waking up in the morning to see more of my comrades faces appearing on the front pages of the news papers with the abbreviation z"l (blessed memory) next to their names. I am tired of having to hear the names of recently fallen soldiers broadcast on the radio. It sickens me when I am relieved to not recognize any names because while I may not have known the fallen hero, he was someone's son, someone's brother or someone's husband.

Does this mean we can finally breath easy? No. Until Hezbollah is completely disarmed, our northern border is not safe. And that's not to say that their disarmament will lead to safety. With Syria funneling arms to the terrorists and Iran's race towards nuclear weapons combined with its leader's clear and open hate for Israel, Israel's border is far from safe. But I will take this opportunity to catch my breath, if only for a moment. A moment to not leave 20 unreturned messages for my friends in Lebanon, hoping that they are safe and that the only reasons I have not heard from them is that their batteries are dead. A moment where the only names I hear on the radio are those of the artist whose song I just heard, and the only faces in the paper are those of the brave heroes returning to their families.

It is hard to claim victory after such a war. Our soldiers remain captured, and the terrorists that captured them remain armed and strong despite the strong blow we dealt them. Our border is still in danger as are all the civilians of the north as long as Hezbollah remains armed. I don't know what the solution is. I don't know how long this cease-fire will last and I don't know if pulling out at this stage was the right thing to do. What I do know is that I am happy the death, on both sides, has stopped. I'm happy residents of the north are returning to their homes. But most of all I am happy that my friends are coming home safe. Because dying in defense of your country is the ultimate heroic sacrifice; one I know they would do without hesitation. But one I would not want them to have to do.