A year later: Dubi, the company commander fights to walk again
'I tried to rescue my friend and at that moment a missile hit us that cut off my leg. I knew that if I would lose consciousness I would not survive. The only thing going through my mind was Karen and the thoughts ‘I love you, I will live, I will come home, this is not the end, not now.’ The company commander of the engineering corps fought to come home from Lebanon and he succeeded. Now he is fighting to walk on both legs
Dubi Genish hugs Michael, his 7-month old baby - and smiles. This simple picture hides behind it a long and arduous struggle of returning to life. On August 14, 2006, the Second Lebanon War officially ended.
IDF forces began to pack up their supplies and return back to the Israeli border. That is precisely when Dubi’s private battle began.
Dubi Genish, the 36-year-old company commander of the engineering corps, married to Karen and a father of four, received the order to enter with his soldiers to Marj Ayoun in order to open a route - a routine yet dangerous mission. The convoy of tanks encountered a mine field and retreated. The retreat passed uneventfully, but the next morning the convoy was discovered and found itself under attack from anti-tank missiles.
“It was a barrage of 14 missiles from El-Chiam. I realized that our tank could be hit any moment, so I immediately ordered everyone to jump out. I saw that my friend Oren was stuck behind and I immediately returned to pull him out. I pulled Oren and at that moment a missile hit us when we were in the ‘Puma.’
"The missile struck exactly where I was standing and cut off my leg. Luckily the missile did not explode inside the vehicle, it severed it and exploded outside. It was a feeling of hell, Oren and I were severely wounded, lying in the vehicle, the heat was unbearable and we did not know if we would live or die.”
Genish recounts that at that exact moment his own private battle began: “It was clear to me that if I lose consciousness I would not survive. The only thing going through my head was Karen and the thoughts ‘I love you, I will live, I will come home, this is not the end, not now.’ I screamed ‘Shema Yisrael.’ In its merit I came out of there.”
Ten days later, on his birthday, Genish opened his eyes in the hospital. “When I woke up I saw that my leg was still there, it was clear to me that I could not give it up but that I had to fight for it.” In the past year Genish has undergone complicated operations. “Your entire world is the pain, it becomes your existence,” is how he describes the feeling.
The rehabilitation is ongoing. The aim, says Genish - to walk again. An additional point of light which gives him the emotional strength to continue and cope with the severe injury, is his baby son Michael.
When Dubi was injured in Lebanon, his wife, Karen was five months pregnant, and today he knows that thanks to a lot of luck - or a higher being- he was able to witness the birth. “I returned to my wife, my children, my friends. While when I see the children playing on the grass I sit and cannot run to them, I am here - and that was not obvious.”
