A lieutenant and a sergeant major belonging to a combat IDF
unit were relieved of their duties over a prank they pulled on a soldier under their command, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday.
After noticing that the soldier had accessed his Facebook account from a laptop, the two commanders ordered the company's troops to rush to nearby training grounds to simulate a response to a sudden emergency.
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The simulation lasted about two hours, and during this time the lieutenant and sergeant major entered the troops' tent and replaced the soldier's Facebook profile picture with a photo of a naked man.
Upon his return from the drill, the soldier found numerous messages on his cell phone from friends who were wondering about the racy profile photo.
When he opened his Facebook
page, the soldier was shocked to see that the man in the photo uploaded by his commanders "looks so much like me."
"I was devastated and barely left the house," the soldier told a friend while he was on leave.
The soldier's commander granted his request for an additional two days of rest before retuning to the base.
The soldier filed a complaint with IDF Ombudsman Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik in which he claimed that the company commander merely reprimanded the lieutenant and sergeant major.
Brik responded with a letter saying he found a "severe moral failure" in the commanders' conduct.
"Even if I accept their claim that the prank was not meant to humiliate you, I do not believe this kind of behavior can be tolerated," he wrote.
The ombudsman ordered military authorities to dismiss the lieutenant from the army and relieve the sergeant major of his duties.
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