Terrorist Infiltration and Israel's Youth of Today

Yesterday, my daughter was at her university when her phone beeped around 4:00 a.m. It gave notice that there was a terrorist infiltration. There were no instructions...so she tried to go back to sleep. And when she did, she dreamed of terrorists coming into her room at school.

At 5:30 a.m. or so, there was a short air-raid siren that awakened her and her dorm mates...it was the upward wail of the siren followed by the loud announcement repeated over and over "terrorist infiltration - terrorist infiltration". They were instructed to lock their doors...

Within a minute of the time she got up to make sure the others were up, there was a knock on the door and the boy from the dorm room opposite theirs called out to them. He said his name, but one of the girls, frazzled and scared, yelled back "prove it".

My daughter rushed to unlock the door and when she told me about it...a few times... she kept saying how she saw her hand shaking as she struggled to get the key in the lock.

They opened the door and the boy came in. He's armed and the fact that he brought his weapon with him calmed them some. They asked about his roommate and with laughter in her voice, my daughter described how he had only thought of the girls alone and frightened. Shocked, he rushed back across to find his roommate sitting outside holding his gun looking all around, watching, waiting, guarding.

While one went to comfort and protect; the other, a soldier recently back from Gaza, stayed outside to confront if necessary, to protect.

Even now, my eyes fill with pride and tears and sorrow and anger.

As the door was open, they saw a few panicked young women rushing past them in the early moments of the day, "where are you going?" my daughter called out.

"To the bomb shelter," they answered and continued on their way. And my daughter explained that it shows how automatically we respond without thinking.

And she said that they automatically think of the bomb shelter as safety but this was a terrorist infiltration, not an incoming missile.

We talked about locking windows and doors, of maybe barricading the door....in what world does a mother have this discussion with her daughter? And when she explained that they had decided that of the three rooms in the little apartment, hers was the safest room because it was away from the street. I thought of the big bed she bought from last year's tenant and said - you could hide in the large storage area under the bed...she's so skinny and the compartment is very large.

No, she explained. She had told that to the boy who came back from Gaza and he looked at her and told her that when entering an apartment, the first thing they are told to do is shoot at the bed and the closet...because that's where terrorist might hide...

I got off the phone and my mind whirled with so many thoughts...of those girls rushing to a bomb shelter, of the boy who came back from Gaza taking up a position to defend, of the other rushing to comfort the three girls.

And I thought - this is my country...a nation that rushes to protect, to defend. A nation haunted by war, shattered by the agonies we've endured...and still, still strong enough to think, to worry, to protect the other.