It goes back to 1976 when I was a freshly discharged GI living in a tipi when the Entebbe Raid took place in Uganda. An Air France airplane on the Israel-Paris run had been hijacked, taken to Libya and then Entebbe, Uganda.
Needless to say, Israel tried diplomacy to get the passengers back to no avail followed by a raid on Entebbe Airport that is still being taught today in military circles.
The raid was short, sharp and vicious. It was slated to last an hour but the last Israeli aircraft went gear up 53 minutes after the first airplane hit the tarmac.
Out of 106 passengers taken hostage 102 were rescued. Three were collateral damage. Two were caught in the crossfire, one was misidentified as a hijacker when he got up after being told to stay down. The fourth, Dora Bloch was in the hospital at the time of the raid and was later murdered at Idi Amin's orders.
There was one military death, the commanding officer that was (as usual) leading from the front.
When I started attending classes at a local community college there was a pretty high veteran's population, The subject of the raid came up fairly often and the general consensus is that the United States should follow the example of the Israelis.
One thing many of us agreed on is that as a direct result of the Entebbe Raid that Israel would not be having very many hijacking problems for quite a while. It's actually proved true for several decades. I don't recall another hijacking of an Israeli airliner since.
Shortly afterwards Jimmy Carter became president and we became somewhat of a punching bag until he was replaced by Ronald Reagan.
It was about that time my mental policy of being somewhat slow to anger but hitting hard when the line is crossed came into being.
The IDF does no FA. I guess their motto is FAFO! I like it.
ReplyDeleteThe movie based on "The Raid on Entebbe" is very good. Charles Bronson is one of the stars.
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