About 2 years ago I read about an upcoming lecture about the battle, and decided I would go. After the lecture I realized that, like in the battle itself, I was playing the passive role of spectator. I noticed how the participants jostled to promote their version of the events, to prove they were right and everyone else wrong. On one side there was a controversial military historian, who used the venue to promote his conspiracy theories and attack former military leaders who continued on to political careers; "my" battalion officers were huddled up in one strategic corner of the room, poised to attack anyone who dared hint that their performance might have been less than stellar; and the lone operations officer, shunned and banished, denigrated a traitor by his peers because he had the audacity to radio the corps commander (who was asleep at the time) to plead for help; and lastly - the brigade commander, whose presence was magnified by his absence, since he could never allow himself to be in the same room with the renegade operations officer.
The historian, knowing quite well how to build up the drama and stoke the controversy, had some officers present their version of the events, and in a short while factions of 60 year old men were hissing threats and insults at each other.
And so almost 40 years later the argument lives on - Who was to blame for the battalion ending up where it did; who "saved" the battalion from being wiped out: was it the brilliant battalion commander, or perhaps the operations officer's desperate cry for help? Was it the artillery "box barrage" which some likened to Moses parting the Red Sea, while others claimed never happened ? Or was it perhaps, as one messianic woman in the audience suggested, Divine Intervention ?
It was later that I realized another group was sorely missing - the soldiers.
There might have been a few at the lecture, but I didn't recognize any. I felt as if we were left behind again, designated to the same passive role like in the battle, abandoned, waiting for the end. I'm not referring only to "our" soldiers, but to all those people who had the misfortune of being at the wrong place and at the wrong time that day: Israeli, Palestinian and Syrian combatants, as well as local Lebanese villagers.
I remembered how we always looked up to our commanders and believed they would do everything to protect us and get us safely back home. I realized that no officer or representative from the army had ever contacted me after the war. No one ever asked me how I was doing. It seems that since the war they have all been caught up in this blame game, trying to prove that they're right, and finding the scapegoat to blame.
I realized that all this "noise" wasn't going to help me. I would have to find some other way to figure this out.