In the memory of...

During this war I've read a numerous number of articles on the lives of the soldiers and civilians who died. Each and every one these people has left behind family, friends, a life story.

There are young wives or girlfriends who in a split moment lost the love their lives. There are mothers and fathers having to do the unbearable and burry their own child. There are brothers and sister who now miss the teasing and fighting that once seemed so tedious and annoying. There are grandparents that will not get to tell their wonderful stories to their grandkids. There are children who will now grow without a father or mother.

How can one even comprehend the meaning of such pain of someone who is taken away without even given the chance of proper goodbye? Not that I think that a proper goodbye from a loved one exits. Out of all these horror stories of lost life I have to refer at this moment to a specific one.

Major Roi Klein z"l

Roi's funeral was last Thursday (July 27), the day that would have been his 31st birthday.
Major Roi Klein was a Golani brigade deputy commander. He was killed last Wednesday, in an ambush among the houses of Bint Jbail, a large village in southern Lebanon. Hezbullah terrorists killed eight soldiers, including Roi, and injured nearly two dozen. There were two other soldiers next to Roi. A hand grenade was thrown at them and Roi shouted, "Grenade!" He then threw his body over it, sacrificing his life for the sake of his soldiers, who later attributed being alive to his act of selflessness.
In his last seconds of life, Roi mustered the strength to shout "Shema Yisroel" the prayer that Jews have prayed for centuries, declaring our belief in G-d and in a better world; the prayer that so many Jewish martyrs throughout the generations called out as they were being led to their deaths.

I think the least I could do is tell the story of a true hero, the kind that we didn't think even existed anymore.