they even insisted I change my name. I was no longer Ehud Brog. I’d

they even insisted I change my name. I was no longer Ehud Brog. I’d Hebraicized it: to Barak, which seemed near enough to the original. Among the few dozen outside the unit who did know about my role, however, were paratroopers who’d joined us on various missions. One of them now told the El Al people who I was. Not only was I given a seat on the first overnight plane back to Tel Aviv. I found myself helping the airline establish a priority for assigning seats to others: first, active officers in fighting units: armor, infantry, the air force. Then, reservists, with the emphasis on those who’d seen active service most recently. As we were waiting to board, I phoned Uzi Dayan and asked him to meet me at Lod the next morning. Then I called Motta again. “Ehud,” he said, with no trace of irony, “it is an extremely serious war. Syrian tanks are getting close to the outer fences of Nafakh” — our main command post on the Golan. “Good luck.” Uzi was waiting for me when we landed. Walking to his car, we ran into two reserve armored officers who had also just arrived home. They expected to be sent north, to help beat back the Syrian advance. When they asked me where I thought I’d be going, I said, truthfully, I had no idea. “Wherever I can help,” I said. Uzi drove us to the bor, the bunker built two floors underground in the kirya. Usually, it functioned as the day-to-day operations center. But it was where the commanders of the armed forces operated during times of war. At officers’ school, we’d heard and read about the importance of throwing the enemy “off balance”. Now, we were the ones off balance. The faces I saw around me were gray and drawn. There were dead looks in the eyes of the commanders and their staff. Some 30 hours after the surprise attack, all the self- confidence we’d felt since 1967 seemed to have evaporated. I looked into several of the rooms where, months earlier, I’d run through operational plans as sayeret commander. Inside each, a large wall map traced the course of the fighting. Israeli forces were marked in blue, the Syrians and Egyptians in red, with a timestamp for each position report scribbled at the side in black magic marker. But I saw that the latest addition was from at least twelve hours earlier. It was as if we'd lost track of what was happening, or were simply overwhelmed by the pace of events. I spoke briefly with Talik as he walked along the corridor. He looked 10 years older than when I’d last seen him. Then I spotted Ahrahle Yariv, who had been called back into military intelligence at the start of the war. Looking surprised to see me back in Israel, he pulled me close to him. “It’s important 147 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011618