Several years back an Israeli pal took me to have dinner with the fella who'd been his lifelong teacher and mentor. I expected a teacher or professor, a bookish sort. Boy, was I surprised.
Yeah, the guy enjoyed reading in the sunset of his years, but he'd been a Palmachnik during the formatative days of the Israeli state, and had served if the first two of Israel's wars, in 1948 and 1956. And he still had the six-digit number tatooed on his forearm to remind him of his earlier days, though the Israeli government offered free cosmetic removal of such reminders. He wanted to remember....
And like a good many soldiers, from Israel and elsewhere, he had a few souvenirs of those days. I'd have maybe expected an Israeli Uzi submachinegun hanging over a mantle; again, I was close but not right on target.
The weapon he'd come to favour was the Egyptian *Port Said*, the Egyptian copy of the Swedish M45b subgun known as the *Swedish K* to those spooks, aviators and a few lucky grunts who also used the Swedish buzzguns in Vietnam. If less compact than the Israeli Uzi the Swedish kulsprutepistol b was a little lighter, and thought by many to be more controllable, since it's held between both hands, like the German MP40 burp gun. And the 36-round magazine used in the Egyptian guns was an improvement over the 25-round magazine then most commonly seen with the Uzi, though the Israelis finally fielded a 32-round magazine for their gun in response.
Neither was his trophy- there were bloodstains on it, taken from a shot-up Russian-supplied Egyptian halftrack- a mere wallhanger: he had a bag of a half-dozen loaded magazines for it hanging from the gun's pistol grip, in its place of repose pointing muzzledown leaning against the wall by his apartment's balcony window.
His window overlooked a neighboring school, and this was a couple of years after the Munich Olympic massacre of the Israeli Olympic athletes- and the murder of a couple of dozen high school students at Maalot in 1974. It was indeed possible that something of the sortcould also happen in his neighborhood; but it was not very likely that those committing such murderous acts in his neighborhood could get away with it. Likewise, at his advanced age, the once and former soldier was no longer fit to grapple or fight hand-to-hand or with bayonet against those who might come to kill him day or night, as they'd promised, but he and his little friend could make it very expensive and difficult for them as they came up the three flights of winding stairsteps that led to his floor. The old tiger still had a few teeth left.
I suppose he's passed away by now, he was in his late 70s or early 80s back then, just before America's Bicentennial year of 1976. But I expect he remained capable right up to his very last days- and if he's stiull around, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he still has the Egyptian submachinegun he got the hard way- and still remembers how to use it. And those numbers on his arm reminded him why.
