On mourning for soldier-sons in Israel

Yesterday, Apri l 12, 1999, another young Israeli soldier, Noam Barnea, was killed in Lebanon. I did not know him or his family. But in the daily paper I saw his snapshot-merely a boy, with trusting eyes. The paper says he was twenty-one and about to be released from active service in five days. For some strange reason this "very last moment casualty," which by a slightly different fate would not have happened, happens all too frequently here. I recall that when my nephew served in Lebanon last year, it was during the very last week of his service that my sister almost went out of her mind with sleeplessness and worry. Nothing is as painful and frightening as the death of a soldier in action, be it combat or accident. Such a repetitive event, a brief news item that no one in Israel ever gets used to, represents my worst fear as a mother, and I am sure that in saying this I voice the feelings of all Israeli mothers, and probably also mothers on the enemy side.