Arnon Grunberg

Head count

Left behind

This afternoon in my spare free time I managed to buy yesterday’s Herald Tribune: “An embarrassed Israeli military confirmed Sunday that a soldier from an elite brigade was left behind by his comrades in the Gaza Strip last week and that he was recovered only after they had returned to base.
Even worse, according to the Israeli news service Ynet, which broke the story, his comrades answered for him during a verbal head count before they returned to Israel.
The soldier had fallen asleep during a rest break about 700 yards, or 640 meters, inside Gaza, as the Israelis were returning from an incursion near Khan Yunis. When he woke, he became frightened and began firing tracer bullets into the air and waving a fluorescent lightstick to identify himself to his comrades.”

The Israeli army might have become your average army: fairly corrupted, low moral among the troops and slightly careless.

The detail that his comrades answered for him during a head count is interesting for a novelist.