December 20, 2011 -The Temple Chai Israel trip arrived at the IDF Latrun Tank base. First, Dodo provided us with a wonderful Picnic lunch of falafel, hummus and vegetables and schwarma. Dodo even provided fruit and desserts. Some people even had double schwarma!
A member of the IDF called Emma led us on a tour. She started out by showing us a tank that was split in half. The normal tank had four crew members and the members wore special uniforms. We saw tanks used in the War of Independence in 1948. The key tank was the Merkava tank, which has been improved over the years. This tank has played a key role in many of the Israeli conflicts withArab countries.
Emma then showed us a wall upon which the names of the deceased from all Israeli conflicts from tank warfare were engraved. It reminded us of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. She spoke about how each soldier was considered a person first with family and friends,thus their ranking was not listed. We concluded with a well done movie on the history of the tank forces.
TCIsraelJourney 