President Herzog Related Chilling Story About The ‘Four Ehuds’ At Remembrance Day Ceremony

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — President Herzog devoted a significant portion of his speech at the national remembrance day ceremony for Israel’s fallen soldiers and civilians to four soldiers, all of them named Ehud, whom he said typified Israel’s story of comradeship and mutual responsibility which continues from generation to generation. Speaking at the Western Wall ceremony, Herzog stressed Israel’s solidarity and unity as the testament of those who fell for their country.

Herzog related that Private Ehud Shachar had been drafted to the IDF in 1954 and wrote to his parents: “We are turning into better soldiers in our homeland’s army, we will try to protect it the best we can.” In February 1955, during an operation against terror cells in Gaza, Ehud was shot and killed together with seven of his friends.

“Ehud’s friend Ilan Bornowski from Merhavia carried Ehud on his back to the border and back to Israel, where he was buried,” the president added.  “After Ehud fell, three sets of parents decided to call their children after him: Ehud Schtok, Ehud Falk and Ehud Bornowski. Major Ehud Falk fell [in 1988] in a training accident in the Judean desert, when two Buzz planes crashed during fighter training. His friend Ram-Yedidia Koler was also killed in the accident. Ehud was buried in the IDF cemetery in Merhavia. He left a wife, daughter, parents and two siblings.

“When Ilan Bornowski, Ehud Shachar’s friend who carried him back from the battlefield, and his wife had a son, he also named him after Ehud. Corporal Ehud Bornowski volunteered for the naval commando and in December 1986 he was killed in a parachuting accident. When his father Ilan – who buried his son Ehud and his friend Ehud – meets young soldiers, he tells them: ‘we don’t have another country, do the best you can to protect this country.”

Ehud Schtok, the first Ehud to be born [during the shloshim of Ehud Shachar], he was the last one to fall. Deputy Superintendent Ehud Schtok-Sadan was a security officer at the Israeli embassy in Turkey, when a Palestinian terror organization hid a bomb in his car. He fell in March 1992, two weeks before his 37th birthday. He left a wife and three children.”

The president added that he had spoken with Schtok’s widow, who is present at this ceremony and she, too, had stressed “guard this country for us.”

The president concluded, stating: “Four Ehuds, four exemplary individuals. Four soldiers who embodied in their names, actions and souls the mutual responsibility, the comradeship which is transmitted from generation to generation.”