Eylon

Eylon Pedinovsky, About Igor

When I met him for the first time in IB-10 training camp I was doing a medical orderly course there and Igor - a course for medical officers. We stayed in the same dorm, our rooms just across the corridor. Their course students were mainly recently arrived immigrants from Russia, who never served in the army and did not have much to do with even being a private, let alone an officer. Fair enough, I had no idea back then Igor (who’s name I didn’t know either) would become my commander. But his very appearance, machine gun on a shoulder and a shirt worn outside of trousers - being a young soldier I just could not help smiling.

When I got back to the battalion our doctor, Tal, told me he is getting transferred to another position and a “young” doctor is going to replace him - that Russian, Igor. First I was rather upset… the point of the message was I was going to get a commander with no military experience at all. “Young” doctor, anybody can fool and the whole BMS (Battalion Medical Sub-Unit) is in for a trouble, especially me… That did not happen.

Igor learned fast. Much faster than I expected. Despite poor Hebrew he managed to get the picture quickly. In a very little while everybody got to know him, and he got to know everybody. Especially guys from kitchen - thanks to Igor every day we received fresh milk for coffee, cacao, everything others did not get. Soldiers adored him. Unlike other doctors, he has not received any complaints during his whole service. And not because he was in a habit of giving in to soldiers wishes, but because he could always say “no” in style.

We were located in Hebron then. From the very beginning I noticed Igor’s passion for guns, knives and everything connected to active action. Mainly thanks to him our medical sub-unit has turned into a military significant force in the area - suddenly it was cool and interesting to serve. Out of the blue it got very hectic around. I will never forget radio announcement about a shooting in some village nearby, and a “BMS” commando squad in the middle of the night going there to find out what was going on. If the battalion commander learned what had happened he would beat the shit out of us.

There are heaps of memories and stories, ones repeatedly recalled in our telephone conversations long after demobilization. The time we were raised on alert to Sivan Hotel in Ramallah, Airambulance (the flying ambulance) riding on two wheels, a female officer, who’s got a bullet two centimeters from the most important and intimate part of her body (“Eylon, you’ve made whole regiment’s dream come true”), a bet to put a patient on drip blindfolded, a booze in Krayot - all this would make Igor smile if he was reading this.

After my demobilization we have not seen each other much but kept in touch over the phone, talking for hours. After a while Igor was transferred to Gaza, demobilized, called up again, yet again demobilized, started working in Kaplan, moved North… each conversation with him was about an army, where he felt most at home.

I will never forget that day. It was my third day in a reservist camp - Order 8 (Emergency Mobilization), preparation for moving into Lebanon. That morning a medical instructor briefed us on a new order of moving of medical units into Lebanon and also told us a doctor was killed there. Then I did not know who that doctor was. How many doctors are already there in the army? In the afternoon I got a call from Tal, the one who had been replaced by Igor. After talking to him I started calling Igor, silly I guess…

I did not go to the funeral - couldn’t make it. Don’t know, maybe I am better off without it… I went to his grave the next day I returned from the army.

I am writing this after more than two months since that damn night. I still can not get him out of my head, I still can not realize he is not among the living. I am building his memorial web site at the moment and all the time have this thought in my mind - would he like what I am doing, would he want me to change or add anything.

Igor died on a battlefield as a hero, and he is a hero not just because he died. As his former wife said - we will grow old and be sick and helpless, Igor will stay young forever. He was a good friend, good commander and a decent person, and to me he still is - just changed an address: The Old Beer-Sheba Cemetery, Military Section…

Pedinovsky Eylon