A DEFIANT NATION
Last week I mentioned my son living in Ashkelon and that two of his sons – two-thirds of triplets – have joined the IDF. The family has also two older sons who finished their army service some time ago. One of the triplets has recently joined the same fighter unit as his cousin (the one who just got engaged and finished his IDF service last month). His brother joined the IDF last week in the “Combat Engineering Corps., an unknown aspect of the IDF in our family’s tradition. [The third triplet has yet to change his civilian clothes into an army uniform. In Israel, after completing high school, boys and girls are allowed to study for some time in special religious frameworks before beginning their army service]. The Combat Engineering Corps was founded in 1947 when its soldiers were mainly drawn from Jews who had served in the UK’s Royal Engineers. Their official motto is "Always First" - the unofficial being “ The hard...