GOC Army Headquarters Maj. Gen. Kobi Barak on Monday ordered a halt of all land-based navigational exercises. It was too little, too late. If anyone had used just a drop of common sense, devoted even a little forethought, logic or sound judgment, the navigations would have been postponed two days ago. Before the unnecessary death of Sgt. Evyatar Yosefi, not after.
It was the type of tragedy that makes you pull your hair out in anger. The writing, as the old cliché goes, wasn't just on the wall. It was all over the private WhatsApp group opened by parents of the soldiers in the elite reconnaissance unit, who couldn't understand why their sons were sent on a grueling training exercise in such inclement weather.
The parents did more than just complain. On Sunday evening they told the squad commander they were worried. They asked if it was possible to change the decision and postpone the exercise. The answer was no. If there is stormy weather, the squad commander said, we have structures in the field to shelter the soldiers.
This tragedy cannot be pinned solely on the junior commanders. It's not that they don't bear any responsibility; they are also expected to use their brains. But the squad leader and platoon commander should be "gung-ho." They should want to conquer all challenges and summits; to prove to everyone that they (and their soldiers) are the very best. This is why soldiers ask to serve in these units, fight for their place in them, give 110% at all times and in any weather.
The people who should have intervened are the senior commanders – the battalion and brigade commanders who authorized the exercise; along with the high-ranking officers in Army Headquarters and Northern Command who are familiar with the soldiers' training timetable. There were enough people up and down the chain of command who should have raised a red flag. They should have wondered if it made any sense to conduct solo navigations in such extreme weather; weighed the benefits against the risks, and they should have postponed the exercise instantly.
This didn't happen. Very similar to the tragedy last April in which 10 schoolgirls lost their lives in a flash flood in southern Israel, this time, too, no one saw the painfully obvious. Every weather forecast indicated a storm; the air force grounded its helicopters (even the Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot had to return home in a car from his visit up north). But it was apparently critical, a matter of life or death, for these paratrooper trainees to complete this exercise.
The investigators would do well to listen to the soldiers as well as the commanders. They tell a different story – mainly that their commanders form their own reality. They should seek to understand not just how one soldier drowned to death in a creek, but how several of his comrades got stuck neck-deep in mud and others came down with hypothermia; and whether this is a case of deep-rooted, institutionalized failure waiting to happen. After all, even the civilians who took part in the rescue on Monday – veterans search and rescuers with deep knowledge of the terrain – wondered aloud which madman had authorized the exercise in those conditions.
It's doubtful the IDF understands all of this. If it understood, it wouldn't have appointed a regular task force headed by a regular colonel to investigate the incident. It would have appointed a general to move worlds and make it clear that the IDF was doing all it could – absolutely everything – to make sure more soldiers don't die in vain. Regretfully, this isn't what's happening. We can already guess what the investigation's conclusions will be; eventually, a few people will be held responsible, some new safety procedures will be written which probably won't change much – and one bereaved family will still be picking up the shattered pieces.
