As the Israeli air force began its pre-emptive strike on Iran, my mind has taken me back to an experience I had in 2009, where I visited an IDF air force base. I understood then that Israel’s air force was preparing to be ready for a possible eventual confrontation with Iran, should Iran strike it or should Israel need to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Already by 1996 or earlier, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin feared that the Iranian regime had set itself on a course of becoming a nuclear power, and Israel would be its target.
At the base, I learned of a necessary change to its structure that I understood would assist IDF pilots to be better prepared to mobilize quickly in the event of a future confrontation which I assumed would involve Iran.
I remember that sometime later I asked Yael Dayan, General Moshe Dayan's daughter about what how pilots mobilized in the very early days of the state. Her uncle Ezer Weitzman (who had married her mother's sister) had been the Chief of the Israeli Air Force during the 1967 Six Day War. Yael made a call to a knowledgeable contact and was told that in the early days of the state, pilots would sleep sitting in the cockpit of their planes such that they could mobilize in a second if need be.
My son who was eight years old at the time was with me in Israel and not having any babysitter I took him with me to the base which we visited on a Friday morning. I told him we were going on “a secret mission” and that he could not tell anyone about where we were going or anything we saw once we got there. He promised. We were to be picked up by a pilot and taken to the base at 6:30 a.m.
I am thinking about that pilot now wondering if he has been flying over Iran, and how his family is.
I am not a morning person and would not have thought about beginning my day at 6:30 a.m. The evening before our trip, we went out for dinner at a steakhouse with a friend and I suggested an early dinner hour as I said we were getting up early the next day. My friend asked me where I was going? I said “on an adventure” rather vaguely. She asked my son if he was going with me and he said as we had rehearsed “yes we’re going on a secret mission.” My friend got more curious when she heard that answer as she knew that I never really got up early and pressed me about what kind of “secret mission.” I made up silly answers and when she wouldn’t relent told her I couldn’t get into it. All throughout dinner she tried to pry it out of me, to no avail.
That next morning we were up bright and early and the ride to the base went by quickly. I had never been to an army base before, and remember seeing a truck drive by with a missile inside it. It was hot and the pilot who drove us to the base offered us some refreshments.
It was visiting day for the Israeli families of soldiers who were at the base. The Israeli families were able to see the fighter planes and there was a drill we watched where two crews practiced attaching missiles to the planes as fast as they could. My son’s eyes bulged opened wide, as he was invited to climb up a ladder and enter a plane while I took a photo. My son was wearing a Beitar Jerusalem soccer jersey, one which I have saved for him downstairs in my cedar closet.
I met the person in charge of the base and got a tour of the command centre, which was designed to function even should the base be attacked by incoming missiles. I assumed these missiles would come from Iran.
We had to get to Jerusalem before Shabbat, which would have proven difficult since we were without a vehicle. But we were offered a ride by the proud mother of a young female soldier who had received an award for excellence. The family lived in the Jerusalem hills, and the mother told me not to worry as they would assure me that we would be able to get the very last bus to Jerusalem. How can you be so sure, I asked the mother? She answered, “Because my husband is the bus driver.” It was such a classic Israel story. She stopped by her house and gave us fruit from her yard.
We arrived to my cousin’s outside Jerusalem and my cousin asked my son where he had been. He answered “on a secret mission.”
