Free Republic

Shortly after the 1982 Lebanon War, I was in Israel with three retired, high-ranking American General Officers, including the former Chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the former Commander, US Air Forces Europe; and the former Commander in Chief, US Army, Europe. We traveled across the north, into Lebanon and up to the Beaufort Castle (from which the PLO had been shelling Israel). The highlight of our program was to be a meeting with Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. The Ministry of Defense (MOD) schedule, however, showed the meeting late in the afternoon the day before the Kahan Commission investigating the...

The formative moment of Ariel Sharon’s life came in May 1948; not with the Declaration of Independence – which he heard on the radio wafting out of an open window on his way to kiss his girlfriend Gali before a mission – but with the battle for Latrun, 11 days later, in which he was left for dead. >>SNIP<< For the first and last time in my life as a commander, I gave the order: retreat, retreat and leave the wounded in the field. “There was no choice. I had to save the few that were still alive. I lay...