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Australian Light Horse Charge – The Lighthorsemen (Well I Liked it!)

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Thunderbolts and Typhoons: Allied answer to the German Panzers of WWII By Terry Lloyd

p-47 thunderbolt

P-47 Thunderbolt. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Andrew J. Moseley/Released)

Taking lessons from the slaughter of World War I trench warfare, once the Allied armies of World War II were able to stifle Nazi Germany’s offensive capabilities, a new doctrine emerged to utilize industrial might to win the war. This doctrine can be summarized as “steel over flesh,” however much of the “steel” was actually aircraft aluminum.

The Royal Air Force in the North African Western Desert campaign demonstrated both the effectiveness and the economy, in both lives and war material, of coordinated ground attacks. A combination of Spitfires, Hurricanes, P-40s, and medium bombers and attack aircraft such as the British Blenheim attacked Afrika Corps airfields and logistics while engaging attacking Luftwaffe aircraft, especially those on reconnaissance over British positions.

While building up a strong numerical advantage over the desert Luftwaffe, the RAF began to turn the art of aerial warfare into a science. Pilots were assigned to leading army elements, along the same proven concept of the forward observer for artillery. “On call” airborne fighter bombers called (taxi) “cab ranks,” could be called down on heavy concentrations of enemy troops and equipment.

Reserve Afrika Corps and fascist Italian maneuver units were attacked and neutralized before they could reach the battle area, and mobile fuel and munitions storage areas were located and bombed. Eventually, the Axis forces in North Africa, caught in a two-front war after American and additional British forces landed in Morocco and Algeria, were forced to surrender when driven to the sea in Tunisia. Over 250,000 Axis troops were taken prisoner.

While this system of Close Air Support, or CAS, continued to evolve in the subsequent campaigns in Sicily and Italy, weather and terrain precluded the spectacular successes achieved in the wide-open desert. During this time, the primary American fighter bomber for the remainder of the war emerged: the P-47 Thunderbolt.

world war ii p-47d thunderbolt
Republic P-47D Thunderbolt: The Republic P-47D Thunderbolt could be seen in two different guises, as here with the earlier “Razorback” canopy, and later models with a clear “brown” canopy similar to that on the P-51D. NASA Identifier: L36437

The Thunderbolt entered U.S. Army Air Force combat service in the European Theater, in both Britain and Italy, in 1943. It was a large and rugged, but also an agile fighter. Armed with eight .50 caliber machine guns, it was a worthy opponent for the German Messerschmidt Me-109 and Focke Wulf Fw-190. Unfortunately, its range was insufficient to fully protect American heavy bombers during daylight missions over continental Europe. The American P-51 Mustang, powered by a British Rolls Royce Merlin engine., would ultimately achieve the magic combination of range, armament, and dogfighting ability to fulfill the bomber escort role.

The mainstays of the RAF Desert Air Force ground attack aircraft, the Hurricane and P-40, were never ideal for that role, and their pre-war designs had rendered them obsolete in the European theater even during the desert campaign. Hawker Aircraft, maker of the Hurricane, began to produce a new fighter, the Typhoon, to replace its predecessor.

The Typhoon was a powerful and extremely robust aircraft, with thick wings fitted with four 20-millimeter cannons. In initial testing, its performance at other than low levels was disappointing. Since the Spitfire was being constantly improved, it was determined that newer versions would continue to fulfill the “pure” fighter role, and the Typhoon developed as a fighter bomber, configured to carry either two 1,000-pound bombs or a variety of unguided rockets, plus its formidable 20 mm cannons. Despite its limitations, the Typhoon could hold its own with the new Fw-190 at low levels.

As the inevitable Allied invasion of France approached, Typhoons and P-47s modified to carry bombs and rockets began to attack Luftwaffe airfields in France and train locomotives caught rolling down the tracks. Realizing how vulnerable the D-Day landing forces would be to mass panzer attacks until sufficient Allied armored forces could land and assemble, Typhoon and Thunderbolt pilots were told to scour the Normandy countryside for German tanks to attack. This effort worked, using rockets for individual tanks and bombs when armor formations were discovered, and this tactic was continued through the rest of the war. German ground forces soon feared the daylight, only moving at night or during poor weather, when possible.

hawker typhoon mk iB
Hawker Typhoon Mk IB. Public Domain.

When Hitler ordered the last-ditch attack of the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944, bad weather favored the Nazi assault during the opening days, however, ground to a halt and then was ravaged once the Allied fighter bombers could see them on the ground to attack.

Both aircraft, and the service and sacrifice of the pilots and ground crews during the war, are memorialized by modern fighter aircraft. The American A-10 Thunderbolt II tank buster has been in service for many decades. The Eurofighter Typhoon fighter entered front-line service in 2003 with the RAF and, ironically, the air forces of Germany, Austria, and Italy.

Numerous flyable P-47s exist. There is not currently a flyable Typhoon, however, aircraft RB396 is undergoing restoration in Britain, by the Hawker Typhoon Preservation Group.

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Shotgun : The Forbidden Weapon Of World War 1

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A Victory! All About Guns Leadership of the highest kind One Hell of a Good Fight The Green Machine War

The Wagon Box Fight, 1867 by KERRY DRAKE

Sioux and Cheyenne warriors who gathered west of Fort Phil Kearny on the morning of Aug. 2, 1867, had several reasons to feel confident as they prepared to attack civilian woodcutters and the U.S. Army troops assigned to protect them.

Nine months earlier, Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors had attacked troops along the Bozeman Trail about four miles north of the fort, which is located near present-day Story, Wyo, on the east flank of the Bighorn Mountains halfway between the present towns of Buffalo and Sheridan. Tribal leaders sent out a small band of decoys that managed to lure Capt. William J. Fetterman into an area where he and all 80 of his men were ambushed and killed. At the time, it was the worst military defeat ever suffered by the Army on the Great Plains.

 

wagonbox1.jpg
On Aug. 2, 1867, Oglala Sioux warriors attacked troops and civilian woodcutters replenishing Fort Phil Kearny’s wood supply several miles northwest of the fort. Wikipedia.

 

Red Cloud’s War

In the summer of 1867, looking to repeat their success, Indians—furious that white men the year before had built three forts along the new Bozeman Trail across their land in the Powder River Basin—planned attacks on two of the forts. The federal government contended the forts and defense of the trail were necessary because the route offered the quickest path to gold mine discoveries in Montana. The conflict became known as Red Cloud’s War.

 

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Oglala Sioux Chief Red Cloud led the tribe’s resistance to the U.S. Army’s incursion into the Powder River Basin in the 1860s. Whether he was at the Wagon Box Fight is unclear. First People.

 

Sioux Chief Red Cloud had vowed to kill every white man found on the Indians’ land. The Indians harassed troops and white travelers more or less continually. The next large attacks after the Fetterman massacre came in August.

One contingent of warriors battled soldiers and civilians at the Hayfield Fight on Aug. 1, 1867, near Fort C.F. Smith on the Bighorn River in southern Montana Territory. Early the next morning, Red Cloud and more than 1,000 warriors gathered and attacked woodcutters and soldiers near a spot about six miles northwest of Fort Phil Kearny.

What happened over the course of six hours on August 2 became known as the Wagon Box Fight, a relatively small battle that became well known for several disparate reasons. It was the Army’s first chance to claim victory after the Fetterman disaster, though in retrospect the fight seems more like a draw. At the time and since, there were widely conflicting reports on the number of Indian casualties, and for this reason too the fight continues to draw the interest of students of the Indian Wars.

Finally, the fight is important in the history of tactics because it was the first time a large force of mounted tribesmen faced sustained fire from relatively rapid-shooting, breech-loading rifles. The warriors’ old tactics of closing fast on horseback for close combat with their enemies no longer worked—and they paid a heavy price.

The wood supply

Hundreds of infantry and cavalry soldiers based at Fort Phil Kearny needed a steady supply of wood from forests on the slopes of the Bighorn Mountains for construction at the fort, as well as a constant supply for fuel for cooking and for the next winter’s heating.

Protecting the contracted civilian woodcutters was thus one of the Army’s most important jobs if the troops were to survive in hostile country. The wood line where the prairie met the mountain forest was about six miles from the fort. Wagon trains of woodcutters and their soldier guards suffered constant small attacks during the entire two years Fort Phil Kearny was in existence.

 

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View toward the Bighorn Mountains and the site of the Wagon Box Fight, from the reconstructed stockade of Fort Phil Kearny. Vasily Vlasov, Panoramio.

 

On August 2, the tribes tried something much larger. The Indians held a distinct advantage because their foes had split into two groups. Civilian woodcutters decided to stay at a camp near the wood line, about a mile from a makeshift stock corral the soldiers had fashioned from14 wagon boxes, removed from their running gear and set on the ground. Logs were transported from the woodcutting camp to the fort resting directly on the running gear.

A wagon-box corral

The wagon boxes were 10 feet long, two and a half feet high and four and a half feet wide. The wood was only about an inch thick, with no lining. The boxes eventually served as the main line of defense against a massed Indian force determined to overrun the corral and the 32 men using it as cover.

Capt. James W. Powell was in command of C Company, 26th Infantry, which at the end of July had relieved the company previously guarding the woodcutters, and so his troops were new to the job. He set up operations at the corral.

Early on August 2, Powell sent 13 men out from the corral to guard the woodcutters’ camp and another 14 to escort wagons carrying wood to and from the fort. That left the captain and Lt. John C. Jenness at the corral with 26 enlisted men.

The soldiers at the corral were joined by two civilian teamsters who had left the fort that morning to hunt deer. The pair saw Indian smoke signals and tried to get back to the fort, but wound up at the corral instead.

The first attack

The Indians set their sights on the camp’s mule herd, with 200 warriors on foot trying to scatter the animals, but the mule herders kept the attackers at bay until a new wave of Indians managed to drive off the herd and set fire to the woodcutters’ camp. Simultaneously, about 500 Indians attacked the woodcutters. Then the woodcutters and their soldier guards tried to move toward the fort, bypassing the corral.

Three soldiers and four civilian contractors were killed, but Powell managed to divert the Indians’ attention by mounting an attack on the rear of the Indian force from the corral, which allowed the rest of the woodcutting camp’s occupants to hide in the timber or get to the fort. Within 15 minutes, an estimated 800 Indians on horseback surrounded Powell and his men at the makeshift corral.

Using field glasses to scan the area, Lt. Jenness reportedly told the men he spotted Red Cloud at the top of a hill with other Indian leaders. It has never been verified that Red Cloud was at the scene, and because the lieutenant didn’t know what the man looked like, Jenness may have misidentified another chief.

Trapdoor Springfields

Unlike Fetterman’s troops, who carried muzzle-loaders that could only fire three rounds a minute at most, the men at the wagon boxes were equipped with new breech-loading Springfield trapdoor rifles. Seven hundred of these weapons were brought to the fort a short time before by wood contractor J.R. Porter of the Gilmore & Proctor firm. They could fire 15 to 20 rounds per minute. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been any time for target shooting, and Army weapons training was known to be dubious at best. Still, most of the men managed to at least become familiar with the new rifles in the weeks since the weapons had arrived.

 

wagonbox4.jpg
New, breech-loading Springfield Model 1866

 

The soldiers punched two-inch holes into the wooden wagon boxes so they could fire through them. Yokes, bags of grain, kegs and other equipment were stacked between wagons for protection. Some men fired over the tops of the boxes, and blankets covered the tops to hide the men’s positions and provide limited protection from the arrows raining down on them.

The Indians were primarily armed with bows and arrows, lances and war clubs, though some had firearms captured months earlier during the Fetterman attack. They didn’t have much ammunition, however. The soldiers at the Wagon Box Fight began the battle with 7,000 rounds on hand—and this large supply saved their lives.

Once the attack began, most of Powell’s men kept their ammunition in their hats. Although this was convenient, it left their heads exposed to the sun and its sweltering heat. In addition, the troops had to deal with the stench: Indians coated their arrows with burning pitch that set fire to hay and mule and horse dung.

The soldiers’ superior firepower drove back the initial wave of Indians and they retreated to about 600 yards from the corral and spent the next few hours making separate attacks on foot.

A long fight

Powell was at one end of the corral, with Jenness stationed at the other. Participants later reported that a few Indians managed to get within 5 feet of the corral, but none penetrated the barrier.

Jenness was shot in the head and killed, as were two privates, Henry Haggerty and Thomas Boyle. Two other privates were wounded in the fight.

A teamster, R.J. Smyth, later recalled the lieutenant’s bravery during the battle. “Lt. Jenness had just cautioned me not to expose my person, and to hold my fire until I was sure of getting an Indian at each shot,” Smyth said. “He had moved a few feet from my box when he was shot through the head, I think he died instantly. He was a grand, good man, and a fearless officer. I told him to keep under cover. He stated he was compelled to expose himself in order to look after his men.”

Several soldiers wrote firsthand accounts of the ordeal. Sgt. Samuel S. Gibson, who at 18 was the youngest soldier at the corral, recorded the most detailed and dramatic version of the event. He had been dispatched to guard duty at the woodcutters’ camp and had a skirmish with several Indians before he and another soldier made it safely to the corral.

“The whole plain was alive with Indians shooting at us, and the tops of the boxes were ripped and literally torn to slivers by their bullets,” he wrote. “How we ever escaped with such slight loss I have never been able to understand, but we made every shot tell in return, and soon the whole plain in front of us was strewn with dead and dying Indians and ponies. It was a horrible sight!”

Gibson added, “The Indians were amazed at the rapidity and continuity of our fire. They did not know we had been equipped with breech-loaders and supposed that after firing the first shot they could ride us down before we could reload.”

 

wagonbox5.jpg
The monument at the site of the Wagon Box Fight was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936. Wikipedia.

 

Sometime between noon and 1 p.m., hundreds of warriors led by Red Cloud’s nephew charged the corral on horseback, hurtling toward the wagons in a V-shaped wedge. Powell later recalled that things looked very bleak at that moment, especially because ammunition was running low and his men were exhausted from holding off the Indians for so long.

After Indians on horseback were initially forced to retreat from the corral area, they tried to attack on foot over the next three hours. On Sullivant’s Ridge, a hill to the east, were several hundred Indians out of range who had been watching the battle “like spectators,” but it appeared to Powell that they would enter the fray.

A howitzer rescue

Just at that moment, though, Powell said he heard the sound of a howitzer shell hit and saw a rescue party led by Maj. Benjamin F. Smith, who had 100 men with him.

“The shell fired was in the direction of the Indians [on the hill], but fell short, as I anticipated,” Smith noted in his report, “but [it] seemed to disconcert them as a number of mounted Indians who were riding rapidly toward my command turned and fled.”

The Indians who had been attacking the corral as well as the ones watching the action all retreated.

Smith, arriving at the corral, was shocked to find that most of the men had survived the intense encounter. He had expected them all to be dead. “It was a hard lot to look at. The day was hot and the sun was beating down on them in the wagon beds,” he wrote. “The smoke from their guns had colored their faces and they looked as though they had used burnt cork on their faces.”

Each survivor received a big drink of whiskey from a keg brought along on the rescue mission by the post surgeon, Dr. Samuel M. Horton.

Indian casualties

 

wagonbox6.jpg
Text on the 1936 monument overstates the number of Indian warriors and casualties. Vasily Vlasov, Panoramio.

 

Estimates of Indian casualties in the Wagon Box Fight, though, vary enormously; they range from two dead to 1,500. To date no one has come up with a definitive answer about why there is no agreement on the numbers.

“No [other] event has had more wild, inaccurate tales written concerning it,” writer Vie Willits Garber noted in a 1964 Annals of Wyoming article.

Two respected historians–Stanley Vestal and George Hyde–as well as several Sioux leaders said only six warriors were killed and six more wounded.

But there are accounts of people who later talked about the battle with Red Cloud. They said the chief told them that the count was much higher. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge interviewed Red Cloud in 1885, and he told him more than 1,100 Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahos were killed or wounded at the fight. A Sioux medicine man, whose name was not recorded, visited the post of Col. Richard I. Dodge at North Platte in the fall of 1867. He told the colonel that the total of dead and injured was 1,137, and that figure was widely reported the same year as the battle.

Hyde’s book, Red Cloud’s Folk was published in 1937, based on interviews Hyde had conducted decades earlier. Hyde said that late in his life Red Cloud, who died in 1909, claimed not to remember the Wagon Box Fight at all. The historian said that was unlikely, given the large number of warriors in the battle and the fact that it marked the chief’s last major fight.

In his official report, Powell estimated 60 Indians killed and 120 wounded–figures held up to ridicule by some historians as “wildly exaggerated,” while his Army superiors believed he was being incredibly modest about the body count. Enlisted men at the scene supported much larger claims, with various shooters putting the number of dead between 300 and 800.

The account of at least one Indian warrior, an Oglala Sioux named Fire Thunder, supports the claim of heavy Indian losses. He described “dead warriors and horses piled all around the [wagon] boxes and scattered over the plain.”

In 1969, at a reenactment of the Wagon Box Fight near Sheridan, Wyo., some Indian descendants of the participants claimed Indian casualties were between 1,200 and 1,500.

Hyde said while he knew of no written accounts of the battle by Indians, they did not regard the fight as a defeat. If the reports of six dead and six wounded Indians were accurate, as Hyde believed them to be, he said they inflicted more damage to the white men at the camp and the corral because they killed a total of six soldiers and four civilians, plus capturing a large number of horses and mules.

Aftermath

In the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, with the transcontinental railroad nearing completion and opening up a new, shorter route to the Montana gold fields, the government agreed to abandon the forts on the Bozeman Trail, to make the western half of Dakota Territory a large reservation for the Sioux and to allow the tribes to hunt buffalo in the Powder River Basin of what are now Wyoming and Montana. The tribes burned the abandoned forts shortly after the Army left.

The Wagon Box Fight was the last major battle of Red Cloud’s war against the white men he felt had invaded the land they had promised to his people. Some historians credit the battle with teaching both sides valuable tactical lessons. To the Army, it was now clear that Red Cloud commanded thousands of hostile warriors, not just a small number of malcontents.

The tribes, meanwhile, became convinced that they did not have a chance against large numbers of troops unless they could secure similar firepower, which they did by the time of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

 

wagonbox7.jpg
FortWiki.com. Click to enlarge

 

​

RESOURCES

  • Bate, Walter N. “Eyewitness Reports of the Wagon Box Fight.” Annals of Wyoming 41, no. 2 (Oct. 1969): 193-201.
  • FortWiki.com. “Sioux War of 1866-1868.” Accessed Feb. 28, 2014 at http://fortwiki.com/Sioux_War_of_1866-1868.
  • Garber, Vie Willits. “The Wagon Box Fight.” Annals of Wyoming 36, no. 1 (April 1964): 61-63.
  • Hyde, George E. Red Cloud’s Folk: A History of the Oglala Sioux Indians. Vol. 15, The Civilization of the American Indian. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975, 159-160.
  • Keenan, Jerry. The Wagon Box Fight: An Episode of Red Cloud’s War. Conshohocken, Pa.: Savas Publishing Co., 2000.
  • militaryphotos.net “The Wagon Box Fight August 2, 1867” Accessed Feb. 25, 2014 at http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?195915-The-Wagon-Box-Fight-August-2-1867.
  • Murray, Robert A. “The Wagon Box Fight: A Centennial Appraisal.” Annals of Wyoming 39, no. 1 (April 1967): 105-107.
  • The Powell Project. “James Powell Reports on the Wagon Box Fight.” The commanding officer’s official report after the battle, accessed Feb. 25, 2014 at http://powellproject.tumblr.com/post/52483831856/james-powell-reports-on-the-wagon-box-fight.
  • “The Wagon Box Fight.” Annals of Wyoming 7, no. 2 (Oct. 1930): 394-401.

Illustrations

  • The image of the model 1866 trapdoor Springfield rifle is from Wikipedia. Used with thanks. The photos of the monument and the main sign at the Wagon Box Fight site are also from Wikipedia. Used with thanks.
  • The map of the battle site is from FortWiki.com. Used with thanks.
  • The photo of the monument plaque and the view toward the mountains from the reconstructed Fort Phil Kearny stockade are by Vasily Vlasov, from Panoramio. Used with thanks.
  • The photo of Red Cloud is from First People, a child-friendly site about Native Americans and members of the First Nations, with more than 1400 legends, 400 agreements and treaties, 10,000 pictures, clipart, Native American books, posters, seed bead earrings, Native American jewelry, possible bags and more. Used with thanks.

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The Surrender Revolver of Jefferson Davis

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Battle of Majuba

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Colin Luther Powell: 5 April 1937 – 18 October 2021 by Jim Sellers

“Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.”

This is one of many quotes attributed to legendary public statesman and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Since his retirement from public office in 2004, Powell has spent much of his time sharing his leadership knowledge with the business community.  In his 2012 book, It Worked For Me, Powell attributes his success to hard work, straight talk, respect for others, and thoughtful analysis.

At the heart of the book are Powell’s “13 Rules” — ideas that he gathered over the years that formed the basis of his leadership principals.

Powell’s 13 Rules are listed below. They are full of emotional intelligence and wisdom for any leader.

1. It Ain’t as Bad as You Think! It Will Look Better in the Morning.   Leaving the office at night with a winning attitude affects more than you alone; it conveys that attitude to your followers.

2. Get Mad Then Get Over It.  Instead of letting anger destroy you, use it to make constructive change.

3. Avoid Having Your Ego so Close to your Position that When Your Position Falls, Your Ego Goes With It.  Keep your ego in check, and know that you can lead from wherever you are.

4. It Can be Done.  Leaders make things happen. If one approach doesn’t work, find another.

5. Be Careful What You Choose. You May Get It.  Your team will have to live with your choices, so don’t rush.

6. Don’t Let Adverse Facts Stand in the Way of a Good Decision.  Superb leadership is often a matter of superb instinct. When faced with a tough decision, use the time available to gather information that will inform your instinct.

7. You Can’t Make Someone Else’s Choices. You Shouldn’t Let Someone Else Make Yours.  While good leaders listen and consider all perspectives, they ultimately make their own decisions. Accept your good decisions. Learn from your mistakes.

8. Check Small Things.  Followers live in the world of small things. Find ways to get visibility into that world.

9. Share Credit.  People need recognition and a sense of worth as much as they need food and water.

10. Remain calm. Be kind.  Few people make sound or sustainable decisions in an atmosphere of chaos. Establish a calm zone while maintaining a sense of urgency.

11. Have a Vision. Be Demanding.  Followers need to know where their leaders are taking them and for what purpose. To achieve the purpose, set demanding standards and make sure they are met.

12. Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.  Successful organizations are not built by cowards or cynics.

13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.  If you believe and have prepared your followers, your followers will believe.

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Colin Powell’s rules are short but powerful. Use them as a reminder to manage your emotions, model the behavior you want from others, and lead your team through adversity.

Rest in Eternal Peace, General!

Thank you for your service to the United States, the world, and Mankind.

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The world is a better place for you having been in it for 84 years.

Godspeed!

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Bristoe Station: The Campaign that Followed Gettysburg

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Why Did Israeli Intelligence Fail So Disastrously?

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War

I saw this on Quora and thought it was an interesting perspective.

My message to the non-Hebrew speakers. Feel free to share.

Until Saturday I was Stav Bartel. From then and until further notice I am Chief Sergeant Stav Bartel, fighter in the IDF 7109 reserve infantry battalion.

I would like to share that since Saturday morning I am in near the front in Gaza, fighting against the barbarian invasion of Hamas. I want to bless all who genuinely strive to know the truth. Do not back down and don’t let the cynics shove irrelevant pseudo-rationales that would downplay the scale of this crime. There are numerous reports all over the media from reliable sources. These events are unfolding and Western media begin to realize them much later than needed. Do not let anyone decive you.

Lots of my friends and acquaintances had their loved ones were butchered. The enemy is cynically denying anything they themselves filmed doing. Don’t legitimize this. Hamas is evil, don’t fall into that stupid relativistic attitude, that attempts to show the “other side” of Hamas. See the true pictures from Gaza, the voice of the Gazans, but not the voice of Hamas. A group that launches an attack that massacres, butchers innocent men, women and babies, a group that burns houses with civilians trapped inside, forcing them to flee and then massacring them. My friends told me the TERRORISTS were piling bodies from the festival with a tractor and tried to burn them.

A family member of a friend of mine was raped three times. Others were abducted. An acquaintance of mine told me she hid in a bunker after the attack on the rave party, luckily left to treat the wounded, and she saw the terrorists throwing grenades into the bunkers. Her friends were injured, others killed. She carried them wounded under fire. I’ve received these testimonies already on Saturday morning. At the kibbutzim, babies were abducted, others killed, choked, and beheaded. Grandmothers were abducted, entire families were wiped out. This is not an IDF assault from air on a building used by Hamas, housing civilians as human shields. And this is no mistake. There is no way to compare. None of these people were a threat to anyone, they were not next to IDF troops. And this attack had no military objective. This is not a legitimate response to anything, not a proper way to deal with occupation or blockade. There is absolutely no way to justify any of this.

This was done by hands. This is not arresting Palestinian rioters. I’ve done it countless times during my service. Never, NEVER through my entire service have we ever treated an arrested Palestinian that way. We never beat them, never torture them. Never hurt them for fun. Quite the contrary. And if any of my soldiers mistreated them I would stop them immediately. We were always told, the IDF’s morals are the Purity of Arms, the Value of Human Life. We have been attacked so many times, we were equipped with guns and could massacre the masses, but we never did. We suffered rocks and molotov cocktails, got injured but never lost our humanity. Never tortured. I have always had a soft spot for Palestinian children, when entering their homes, I hated the idea of their fear. I often comforted them. And also during the checkpoints. Countless times we laughed with them, gave them high fives. We treated them as human.

I know the situation in for the Palestinians is not good. I know it is far from right. We are not blind to it. And more often then not I’ve regretted our governments. It is complicated. I believe they deserve to live good lives just like we do.

But Hamas are not true representatives of the Palestinians. They are a proxy of Iran, they are a lunatic, ultra-religious murderous organization. They portray themselves as the weak, freedom fighters, but in truth, they are just thugs. All of them. We are no saints, but they are the devil. While we sometimes fall in judgment, they have no morals in the first place. They celebrate death, cheer for the sight of fire and destruction and enjoy the smell of blood. They are animals and they have always been, ever since they started with the suicide bombings. And Hezbollah and the PIJ and all other TERRORIST Organizations are no different.

I woke up on Saturday with a rocket barrage on my city, Tel Aviv, in the metropolitan area of 3 million people was attacked. A rocket fell in my neighborhood, where there is no military presence, no strategic sites. Just civilians. Soon we received the reports of terrorists armed for an all out war, rampaging through cities and villages, butchering people, desecrating their bodies and burning houses. We saw the videos of thousands of people fleeing from the festival. And there are stories I’ve heard that I can’t yet process. I am unable to even think about them. So much blood and gore on the most innocent of lives.

No more than 6 hours later, I was already on my way south to arm up with hundreds of other reservists in my unit. Some of them I’ve never seen, people who did not show up to previous reserve activity for years have showed up. 300 thousand Israelis showed up.

This is the largest deployment in the country’s history. This is how eager we are to defend our homeland. And civilians are doing circle in the air just to provide us with food and equipment. Everyone joined, not a single soul in Israel remained indifferent. Jews, Drzue, Christians, Arabs, Bedouin, people who just a few seconds ago only saw their differences, have all united against evil.

There is no question here, Hamas must be eradicated, just like ISIS. And what they have done is as big a crime against Israel as it is to the Palestinians. They have done nothing but bring on death and destruction on themselves, and we haven’t started yet.

I am now near the front, thwarting continuous infiltration attempts. They try and fail. Dozens of terrorist were killed. They are getting weaker and weaker and we are getting stronger and braver. They keep shooting on civilians. Rockets are falling near us, exploding over our heads. But our spirit is strong, we are strongly united, brothers and sisters, from all over the country, religious, secular, rich, poor… And the ground is shaking below our feet front our air force pounding of the devil’s den.

While their leaders are hiding in bunkers, some of our leaders, members of the Knesset, have showed up, volunteered to join the fighting units. My battalion commander, who lives in a kibbutz just next to the strip, who was abroad at the time, has lost his 18-year-old son, and before burying or even seeing him, he decided to take a flight, show up and help in whatever he can, even though he was given the option to stay home and weep. This is the spirit of our country. And we have no other land to go to. This is our secret weapon. We have one homeland.

My Israeli friends from across the world all began organizing donations, others have bought tickets, cutting their trips by months and came back to recruit. My little cousins set up stations to collect food and supplies from civilians for the soldiers. My family is doing anything they can and so everyone else.

I have gave much thought about my grandparents who fought the Nazi attempt to eradicate them, and others who suffered persecution anywhere they’ve been. Here we are united together, we have the right and duty to help ourselves. And we will do that for eternity. We cannot be beaten, and whoever will challenge us will be destroyed.

I am no religious person, but now more than ever the words Am Yisrael Chai are inscribed on my heart.

I hope to come back as well as possible, to tell our story.