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To the big people with the big shadow:

Being Kravi is to curse the rain and mud now, but to insist to go on the operation tonight. It’s to call mom, help her relax; tell dad that it’s not true, that you’re in Beth Shemesh and not Bethlehem. It’s to understand the citizens fear without knowing if they understand yours. It’s to look at the setting sun and to know that the day has just begun.

Being Kravi means asking a lot of questions about death without getting one answer about life. It means losing brothers in arms, but not losing the hope, the madness in your eyes or the clearness of thought. It means hearing about the past in Lebanon when tomorrow you’re in Gaza. It means feeling the need for vengeance after a terrorist bombing, but still to be polite and civil at the Arab at the roadblock.

Being Kravi is traveling around Area A and pretending you’re overseas, eating spam and dreaming of Shwarma.

Being Kravi is watching the view from the bus window, and knowing that you marched there too. It’s to spray cardboard targets, but still smell the battle. To curse every day for three years, and think three years isn’t enough. To be pissed off about having to cut your weekend at home short, but to still appreciate the time you had at home.

Being Kravi means dividing courage up into different levels of fear. It’s the deepest friendship, but you always discover more. Its dark out, but nobody’s sleeping. It means being mad at your girlfriend who waited and finally left cause you’re not coming home, without knowing when you’re actually gonna come home. It’s to be injured only from the shrapnel of your heart. To look at the REMF’s with the red berets, when you’ve got red in your eyes.

Being Kravi is the Hermon, the Beaufort, Tel Fakher, Tel Fares, the Soluki, the Ink Flag in Eilat, the Golan Heights, Lebanon, and all of Israel. It’s finishing a trek on top of Mount Hermon and loving the whole country spread out at your feet.

Being Kravi is the Past, the Present and the Future, dreams and hope, sunsets and rivers, mountains and sunrise, shooting stars. Eternal tiredness, Religious and non-religious, missing home and shock, and a hand that’s always holding a weapon. It means always thinking of the country first, and always trying to achieve more. It’s not letting who you are get in the way of who you could be.

The ground is soaked in blood, and we’re here for you, for your safety.
Loving the people. Loving the country. Swearing an eternal oath to Jerusalem.

Because being Kravi is first and foremost being human.

"Retreat, hell! We just got here!"-Captain Lloyd Williams, 2nd Marine Division, Belleau Wood, France, WWI