אברהם בר דוד: האמירה לקראת מלחמת יום הכיפורים ׳הסדיר יבלום׳ היתה בעצם ׳הסדיר ייהרג׳ | אפרכסת

When the young Avraham Bar David left Romania behind with his family and settled in Beersheba, on his way to a professional and commanding career in the Artillery Corps, he never imagined that Yom Kippur would come and his childhood language would help him in the war. The opportunity arose in the Golan Heights in October 1973, when he improvised hasty combat communications with additional units that were preparing to shell Syrian army positions. Lt. Col. Bar David, the commander of the artillery command in the north, knew that the conversations were being eavesdropped on and that the information was being transmitted to the intended targets in an instant. He found Romanian-speaking soldiers and used them to convey the orders. The commander wondered if his artillery officer had lost his mind, but another general, from the Air Force, reassured him. At the end of the war, he was quickly promoted through the ranks and positions to lieutenant colonel, chief artillery officer. In a conversation with Amir Oren in "Aparchesat," Bar David tells how he taught himself Hebrew with his friends; about the IDF of the 1950s and 1960s; how he was assigned to positions and signed off on his continued service even when he preferred to be discharged; and why the artillery computers should not be blamed for the artillerymen's errors. He was involved in the acquisition of Lance missiles, which did not justify the investment in them, and when asked if there was a chance of an American supply of Pershing missiles, he would answer in the negative, because as a trainee at the US Army's artillery (and artillery) school he knew that foreigners were blocked from accessing anything that smelled strategic, a synonym for a nuclear warhead. One of his predecessors, Aryeh Levi, who after the Yom Kippur War was promoted to the rank of major general - a rarity if not the only one in the artillery - as head of the storage department, was assistant chief of the IDF, alongside Deputy Chief of Staff Israel Tal, during the war. In one of the darkest moments of the war, there were army men who came up with ideas bordering on madness. With tears in his eyes, Levi called on Tal to thwart the dangerous proposals. The incident is indeed a story, but Bar David, who spoke to Levi about it, adds an important detail - the proposers' intention was to focus on some city in an enemy country, in order to shock the government there into laying down its weapons. The energetic Bar David was considered a popular and successful major general, but the guaranteed rank of major general did not tempt him to remain in the army under the command of Chief of Staff Rapool. The reason, which he was reluctant to share with his commanders, was financial: his salary as a brigadier general was not enough to finance the academic studies of four sons. A decade after Bar David retired from the IDF, a Kennedy acquaintance from his time in the artillery was murdered in Brussels - the fanatical artillery engineer, Gerald Bull, who dreamed of firing shells - perhaps even nuclear ones - hundreds of kilometers away and launching satellites into space from the muzzles of super cannons. At the time of his death, Bull was working for Saddam Hussein, and the world was quick to attribute his assassination to the Mossad. Bar David does not volunteer to dispel the fog. Studio: Jeremy Portnoy Editing: Yael Badrashy