Since October 7, I have been living on the seam line between home and the front, between the Shabbat table and an operational map, between a child’s embrace and an order to deploy.
I am a reserve commander, but the truth is that I am not unique. There are tens of thousands like me, men and women who in civilian life are teachers, site managers, high-tech workers, farmers, self-employed professionals and students, and with the push of a button become soldiers, fighters and commanders.
Over the past two years, the Israel Defense Forces has not merely relied on reserve soldiers. It has been built on them. In many ways, it depends on them entirely. And when the state called, they did not ask questions. They left everything and came.
They left jobs, left studies, left personal plans and placed dreams in a drawer. They left the familiar comfort of routine, and above all, they left home. Home is the heart of this story, because behind every reservist stands a family, a partner, young children who do not understand why their father has disappeared again for a long stretch of time.
That moment before leaving the house is familiar to every reservist. A bag packed at the last minute, a brief message to an employer, a kiss to the children and slipping out with as little noise as possible. And one look at her, a quiet, steady look that says everything without words. She understands the necessity, believes in the mission, but also knows the price, and she is the one who stays behind to bear it alone.
The personal cost is heavy. No grant, no financial compensation and no medal truly balances it.
Children waking up at night asking when their father will return, end-of-kindergarten ceremonies or school report days you miss, birthdays you are not there to celebrate, rides to after-school activities, homework, daily mishaps you usually handle. All of it falls on shoulders that are already exhausted and overburdened. There is also the economic cost. Self-employed people who shut down businesses, salaried workers who feel tension with employers, careers put on hold. A real challenge. And there are even those who wink as if you made a profit at the state’s expense.
It needs to be said clearly. The partners of reserve soldiers are part of Israel’s reserve force. Without uniforms like ours, without ranks and without ceremonies, they are the home front that sustains the front line. They are the ones who allow us to focus on the mission even when worry weighs heavily on our hearts.
As a commander, I have seen this strength up close. Soldiers who arrive after sleepless nights, hearts heavy with concerns from home, and continue. They receive a phone call from a partner sharing difficulties and upheavals on the home front, and they continue.
Davidi Ben ZionIn civilian life, these are people divided by opinions. In the reserves, they act as one body toward a single goal greater than all of us.
I have seen comradeship. I have seen responsibility. I have seen love of country in its most demanding, most honest and most pure form. Reserve soldiers are a story of heroism that is anything but one-time. They are a routine of sacrifice. They are the choice to place the collective before the individual, again and again.
Israeli society owes them and their families far more than kind words. It owes them genuine appreciation, sustained support and a deep understanding of the cost. If there are people of the year in Israel, they are the reserve soldiers in the field and the partners who remain at home, quietly holding everything together and waiting for everyone to return safely. They deserve a salute.