Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War, by Matti Friedman (2016)
In the Israeli military language, casualties in war are called flowers, and deaths are known as oleanders. These euphemisms are deemed to take away some of the ugliness of war.
Pumpkinflowers describes the author’s involvement in Israel’s military presence in southern Lebanon during the late 1990s. Pumpkin was the name of the Israeli outpost in the Lebanon Security Zone. During the period that Israel maintained these outposts to protect the communities in northern Israel from Hezbollah’s growing presence in the area.
In the late 1990s, the author was drafted into the Israeli army and sent to Outpost Pumpkin (it was never referred to as The Pumpkin). Shortly before the author was sent to Pumpkin, two Israel helicopters, filled with young soldiers, collided on their way to Pumpkin. There were 73 oleanders. Israel’s support for continuing these outpost began to wane after this event. It was about this time that Friedman arrived at Pumpkin. Brief skirmishes continued unto 2000, when Israel withdrew from the security zone.
The soldiers could look down on the Lebanese village of Nabatieh. In particular, they observed a small restaurant. They would joke about how they would like to have a meal at the restaurant someday.
The First section of the book focuses on a young soldier, Avi, who was a bit of a rebel. He was also a talented writer, who served at Pumpkin before the author’s arrival. The Second section describes Friedman’s days at Pumpkin.
The final sections of the book describe life after Pumpkin. Years later, Friedman traveled to Lebanon as a tourist. After traveling throughout the country, he hired a cab to take him to the southern part of the country. He stopped at the restaurant he had observed as a young soldier from the Pumpkin and enjoyed a meal. He convinced his driver to take him up the hill where the outpost had been, ostensibly to take photos, but to feel the place again where he has spent 3 years in a forgotten military command.
Read: August 6, 2020
4 Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment