The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World(71)

Danny explained to the general that he had a sample size problem: The losses experienced by the supposedly inept fighter squadron could have occurred by random chance alone. If he investigated the unit, he would no doubt find patterns in behavior that might serve as an explanation. Perhaps the pilots in that squadron had paid more visits to their families; or maybe they wore funny-colored underpants. Whatever he found would be a meaningless illusion, however. There weren’t enough pilots in the squadron to achieve statistical significance. On top of it, an investigation, implying blame, would be horrible for morale. The only point of an inquiry would be to preserve the general’s feelings of omnipotence. The general listened to Danny and stopped the inquiry. “I have considered that my only contribution to the war effort,” said Danny.

The actual business at hand—putting questions to soldiers fresh from combat—Danny found pointless. Many of the soldiers were traumatized. “We were wondering what to do with people who were in shock—how even to evaluate them,” said Danny. “Every soldier was frightened, but there were some people who couldn’t function.” Shell-shocked Israeli soldiers resembled people with depression. There were some problems Danny didn’t feel equipped to deal with, and this was one of them.

He didn’t really want to be in the Sinai anyway, not in the way Amos seemed to want to be there. “I remember a sense of futility—that we were wasting our time there,” he said. When their jeep bounced once too often and caused Danny’s back to go out, he quit the journey—and left Amos alone to administer the questionnaires. From their jeep rides he retained a single vivid memory. “We went to sleep near a tank,” he recalled. “On the ground. And Amos didn’t like where I was sleeping, because he thought the tank might move and crush me. And I remember being very, very touched by this. It was not sensible advice. A tank makes a lot of noise. But that he was worried about me.”

Later, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research undertook a study of the war. “Battle Shock Casualties During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War,” it was called. The psychiatrists who prepared the report noted that the war was unusual in its intensity—it was fought twenty-four hours a day, at least at the start—and in the losses suffered. The report also noted that, for the first time, Israeli soldiers were diagnosed with psychological trauma. The questionnaires Amos had helped to design asked the soldiers many simple questions: Where were you? What did you do? What did you see? Was the battle a success? If not, why not? “People started to talk about fear,” recalls Yaffa Singer. “About their emotions. From the war of independence until 1973 it hadn’t been allowed. We are supermen. No one has the guts to talk about fear. If we talk about it maybe we won’t survive.”

For days after the war, Amos sat with Singer and two other colleagues in the psychology field unit and read through the soldiers’ answers to his questions. They spoke of their motives for fighting. “It’s such horrible information that people tend to bury it,” said Singer. But caught fresh, the soldiers revealed to the psychologists sentiments that, in retrospect, seemed blindingly obvious. “We asked, why is anyone fighting for Israel?” said Singer. “Until that moment we were just patriots. When we started reading the questionnaires it was so obvious: They were fighting for their friends. Or for their families. Not for the nation. Not for Zionism. At the time it was a huge realization.” Perhaps for the first time, Israeli soldiers spoke openly of their feelings, as they watched five of their beloved platoon mates blown to bits or as they saw their best friend on earth killed because he turned left when he was supposed to turn right. “It was heartbreaking to read them,” said Singer.

Right up until the fighting stopped, Amos sought risks that he didn’t need to take—that in fact others thought were foolish to take. “He decided to witness the end of the war along the Suez,” recalled Barbara, “even though he knew full well that shelling continued after the time of the cease-fire.” Amos’s attitude toward physical risk occasionally shocked even his wife. Once, he announced that he wanted to start jumping out of airplanes again, just for fun. “I said you are the father of children,” said Barbara, “That ended the discussion.” Amos wasn’t a thrill seeker, exactly, but he had strong, almost childlike passions that, every so often, he allowed to grab hold of him and take him places most people would never wish to go.

In the end, he crossed the Sinai to the Suez Canal. Rumors circulated that the Israeli army might march all the way to Cairo, and that Soviets were sending nuclear weapons to Egypt to prevent them from doing so. Arriving at the Suez, Amos found that the shelling hadn’t merely continued; it had intensified. There was now a long-standing tradition, on both sides of any Arab-Israeli war, of seizing the moment immediately before a formal cease-fire to fire any remaining ammunition at each other. The spirit of the thing was: Kill as many of them as you can, while you can. Wandering around near the Suez Canal and sensing an incoming missile, Amos leapt into a trench and landed on top of an Israeli soldier.

Are you a bomb? asked the terrified soldier.

No, I’m Amos, said Amos.

So I’m not dead? asked the soldier.

You’re not dead, said Amos.

That was the one story Amos told. Apart from that, he seldom mentioned the war again.



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