Guy Hever
Reproduction: Shaul Golan
Brother of missing soldier to recruits: IDF won't always look out for you
'There are ego wars between the different government offices; my perception of the army has changed,' Or Hever tells Sderot students who will join army soon. Miki Goldwasser: We cannot afford to have an army of mercenaries
"You must take into consideration that the army will not always look out for you and the establishment will not always be by your side," the brother of missing IDF soldier Guy Hever told a group of Sderot students who will soon enlist in the IDF.
"We've lost all faith in the system," Or Hever told the students during a discussion dedicated to POWs and missing soldiers. "There are ego wars between the different government offices. My perception of the army has changed, and there is no doubt that had it not been for what happened to my brother, I would have become an officer.
"Young men – go for it, but know what you are facing," he added.
Guy Hever, an Armored Corps serviceman, disappeared in the Golan Heights on August 17, 1997. A military inquest into his disappearance concluded that he vanished wearing his army fatigues and carrying his service rifle.
The mother of IDF reservist Ehud Goldwasser, whose body, along with that of his slain comrade Eldad Regev, was returned to Israel by Hezbollah in exchange for the release of Samir Kuntar and a number of other terrorists, told the students, "We cannot afford to have an army of mercenaries who will decide for themselves whether they want to enlist or not - even if the State of Israel does not do enough when it comes to kidnapped soldiers."
"Citizens who do not protest (the State's conduct) are to blame for the fact that new leaders rise to power and nothing changes," Miki Goldwasser said.
General (Res.) Eyal Ben Reuven, chairman of the Born to Freedom Foundation, said Israel "invests more than any other country" in the efforts to bring its captured soldiers home, including "acts of heroism that cannot be discussed publicly."
Orna Shimoni, whose son Eyal was killed in Lebanon in the later 1990s, said public pressure on the government to secure captive soldier Gilad Shalit's release does not have any affect on the cost of a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.
