A Memory from the Storm of August 1968 It was a family summer vacation. My parents, my brother, and I traveled to the mountain resort town of Wisła, located along the Vistula River. A friend of my father’s, who had studied with him at university, owned a small vacation cottage on the top of a mountain, right on the border with Czechoslovakia. We arrived and stayed in that cottage during our vacation. The location was so close to the edge that I experienced the very meaning of the word “border” in the most tangible way a child could. I remember standing on Polish soil and peeing into Czechoslovakian territory... But the road to that peaceful mountaintop brought us a sight that would remain etched in my memory for the rest of my life. There, by the side of the road, I saw tanks for the first time in my life. They stood there huge and intimidating parked in what, many years later, when I served in the army myself, I would learn to recognize as a road-clearing deployment. They looked brand-new. Really, really new. They were painted a deep green, and on their hulls gleamed a large red star—the powerful symbol of the Soviet Empire. Only later, once we reached the mountain and the adults began talking with concern, did I understand the magnitude of what I had witnessed with my own eyes. They explained to us that it was the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. I encountered history on the side of the road in a single moment when the innocence of a child playing along the border met the steel tracks of war. Adam Feder https://youtu.be/awCT9eLiqaU?si=BOoI66xe0gSZc7iD

I had this exact car (This one is not mine) but you literally could do this with a 300D turbo diesel. Took some practice to get it right. Not bad for a 42 year old sedan. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mGaL_pPkpMs

In 2019, a dangerous precedent emerged in the United States: a military officer who saw himself as the “adult in the room” placed himself above the elected political leadership. The officer was Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council. Vindman chose to bypass the chain of command, disclose classified material, and play a leading role in the first-ever impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. In the eyes of America’s conservative establishment, Vindman became one of the most recognizable faces of the “deep state” — a security bureaucracy operating as an independent guild, detached from the public and undermining the policies of civilian leadership in the name of “national security.” A closer look at developments in Israel in recent years, and especially during the months of the Iron Swords War, raises a disturbing question: Has this American model replicated itself inside the very heart of Israeli society? Has the IDF’s senior command undergone a similar process of institutional conditioning, creating an invisible filter that allows only officers who share a particular worldview to reach the General Staff table? Critics of the defense establishment see clear parallels, beginning with the system of appointments. Unlike many democratic countries in which elected political leaders exercise decisive influence over the identity of senior military commanders, promotions at the top of the IDF are largely driven by a system of internal selection — essentially, “friends promoting friends.” The appointment rounds controlled by the serving Chief of Staff and senior generals create a powerful filter. Officers with unconventional, offensive thinking, or those willing to challenge established assumptions, often find themselves blocked somewhere along the middle ranks. Those who eventually make it to the top floors of the Kirya are frequently those who have learned to speak the same language, adopt the same terminology of “containment” and “conflict management,” and align themselves with the prevailing institutional consensus.