After the two tanks were hit, a wave of chaos and confusion erupted.
Syrian soldiers positioned along the road and adjacent houses began firing directly at us from close range. The line of tanks on the road unraveled, each taking off in a different direction. Our tank swerved to the right, circumventing the burning tank in front of us, swerved to the left, jerked, and then raced forward along the road, to the North. Some tanks tried to go back in the direction where we had come in from. Some tanks tried to find cover behind the houses along the road. As we dashed forward I suddenly felt a hot flash of fire shooting above my head. It was a Milan anti-tank missile, and many years later I would find myself travelling for professional purposes to the beautiful city of Milan, and whenever the plane would begin its approach at Milapensa airport I would recall the heat of flame emitted from the Milan missle many years earlier. I learnt later that many fatalities in the battle were caused by these missiles.
I could hear the loud burst of bullets, some hitting the turret. Suddenly, something pounded the turret surface right in front of me. The impact was loud, it sparked and sent shrapnel biting into my face and forehead. It threw me off balance and I fell down, into the tank. I hit the floor of the tank and assumed I had been hit, that I was dead, or dying. Another second passed and I realized I was not dead, and in the darkness I frantically probed my head and face, eyes and ears, trying to determine if I had been hit or not. I didn't feel any blood, and I jumped back up into position.
We continued on our mad dash ahead, and in a short while the pandemonium of gunfire faded away. I could hear explosions in the vicinity, and could see tracer bullets flying above. It was dark, but there was a little light. We stopped at the side of the road, my commander spun the turret around, scanning the immediate area where we were. I could see a house to the right, it looked abandoned. I then heard yelling below me, and looked over the side of the turret to the ground below. I saw two men lying on their backs directly below me, on the side of the road, waving their arms frantically. They were holding their arms in front of themselves, as if trying to protect themselves. It did not appear to me that they were wearing military uniforms, and they did not appear to be armed. It looked like they were pleading for their lives.
My commander hadn't noticed the two men below, so I tapped him on his helmet and motioned to the side. He spun the turret around and looked down, and then immediately yelled into the radio, calling for the battalion commander: "I've got two Syrians here!! What should I do with them ?!"
I thought to myself, why did he say they were "Syrians"? They looked like local villagers to me, how could he know who they were just by looking down in the middle of the night ? Nothing prepared me for the answer the battalion commander screamed back, over the radio: "KILL THEM!!"
I couldn't understand - why did my commander report them as being Syrians when he could have reported that they looked like unarmed local villagers pleading for their lives. And why did the battalion commander scream back as if impatiently answering a rhetorical question, when he could have asked for more details, and perhaps arrived at a different conclusion ?
That is how trauma begins - the brain cannot fathom the incomprehensible. My commander took his M16 rifle, leaned over the turret, pointed the gun downward, and I could heard the powerful shots being fired, once or twice each.
I still think back to those two men being shot from such close range by such a powerful weapon, and I still don't understand, and don't think I ever will understand, why that happened.