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July 2, 2004/Tamuz 13 5764, Vol. 56, No.41
Local attorney joins Israeli army
MICHAEL MIKLOFSKY
Staff Writer
Phoenix attorney Don Harris was 65 years old when he first suited up for an Israeli army combat unit.
Last August, Harris rekindled his military past as a lieutenant for the Marine Corps in the Vietnam War when he joined the Israeli army for two months through the Israeli Defense Forces.
When Harris first arrived, he bought a big screen television and stereo system for the enlisted soldiers and soon had 300 new friends; but more than the new friendships Harris built, he was happy just to have passed the physical and made it into a combat unit. It was, he says, "one of my desires in life to serve in the Israeli army through IDF. I love Israel."
Harris' colonel, Lt. Col. Yossi Haddad, was leery of allowing a 65-year-old American to serve with his unit, so he and other soldiers took Harris out on patrol until 2 a.m. When they arrived back at their camp, Haddad told him to be ready to go back out on patrol at 5:30 a.m.
At 5:30 a.m., "Donny Boy," as he was known by the other soldiers, was up and ready to go. Soon, a driver came to pick up Harris and the colonel.
"I was in front of my hooch - these little trailers we lived in - I was out there with my boots spit-shined and my uniform pressed, my weapon ready to go," Harris says.
"They're (the colonel and captain) sleeping, Donny Boy," Mikail, the driver, told Harris.
"I told Mikail 'Get the captain up,'" Harris says. "We went over there and we pounded on the door and I said 'Get up, get up and get out, we're going on patrol.'
"He finally staggered out and said, 'Donny Boy, what are you doing?'" Harris says. "We're ready to go; you told me 5:30, it's now 10 to six."
The captain told Mikail, "Take Donny on patrol along the border in Eretz," he says.
"Later that day, it was all over the camp that the colonel was sleeping, the captain was sleeping, and Donny Boy was awake and went on patrol with Mikail, the two of them."
While out on patrol along the Eretz border crossing, the two of them captured eight Palestinians who had snuck across the border and were hiding in a construction warehouse. They were not terrorists though, and had come across the border looking for work, Harris says.
But these were just small victories for Harris, who faced an ever-present danger of being hit by enemy fire coming across the border from Gaza.
"We had rockets fired that passed within a mile of me," he says. "Thank God, they are lousily made, homemade rockets.
"They shoot them off of the back of pickups from Gaza. They just race along the border, fire off a Kitav rocket and then take off. Sometimes, we have helicopters up in the air - that's 'goodbye pick-up truck' - but that was a scary moment to have that rocket go overhead; you don't know where it's going to fall."
On occasion, soldiers on patrol would be alerted that an alarm had gone off and that the electric fence had been breached.
"It makes your blood boil and your pulse race," Harris says, but, "the sad part is when you see the memorials to the kids from the Shimshom brigade, which was my brigade, who were killed on the border or had a bomber come up to them and pull the pin, and it becomes very real."
Still Harris says that "Israel is a fairly safe place" and he encourages students to take trips to Israel and for anyone that is able to, to enlist in the army.
"The incidents that happen, when they do happen, they capture the world's attention because of the horrendous effect, blowing somebody up in a school bus ... blowing up a restaurant. ... It's sort of catastrophic because of the way it happens," he says. "But overall, that is really minimal compared to what happens in the streets of America everyday."
Now that Harris is back on American soil, he is looking to take on what may be a bigger challenge: a run for Maricopa County attorney. Harris is a registered Democrat and will face off against Jonathan Warshaw in a Sept. 7 primary election.
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