I thought you should know...

... that yesterday morning a young man woke up from his dreams. 

At 25 years old,  Avi Karouchi's whole life of hopes and dreams stretched out in front of him as far as his imagination could see. 

But yesterday he arose and set his dreams aside.  He didn't put on slacks and a shirt in preparation for another day at work.  Instead, he pulled on his army uniform for another day of his annual reserve duty in the IDF.

Probably as he got dressed his thoughts drifted to his fiance, a pretty young woman who would finally become his wife in two months time.   He might have thought about his family... his father, his mother ... or his siblings. 

Or maybe, being the responsible sort and a leader, he was focused on the long day ahead of him, and his responsibilities to his reserve unit.

Surprisingly, Avi Karouchi's day got progressively easier as the hours passed away.

As much as he probably longed to finish his reserve duty and return to his home city of Beer Sheva, I doubt that he considered the possibility that in a few short hours he would be drifting peacefully through the sky in an army helicopter towards a hospital within walking distance of his family and friends as they went about their busy day.

The scratchy uniform he had donned, and the weight of his equipment no longer bothered him.  The heat of the desert sun miraculously did nothing to keep his young body from cooling, and all of the responsibilities flew away with the wind as the helicopter in which he floated made its way through the desert sky.

When he got dressed yesterday I doubt he imagined medics frantically cutting his blood-soaked uniform from his broken body.  Who thinks about such things?

I'm certain that if he woke for a moment during the flight, he didn't realize that he had flown directly over my head as the pilots circled to land into the wind.  After all, why would he think of me... I didn't even know his name until an hour or two after he had landed at the hospital up the street.  I'm just a nameless face he might have passed once or twice on the street here in Beer Sheva.

While he was rolled on his stretcher into Soroka hospital, I doubt he was wondering how his loved one's would react at finding somber officers and social workers standing at attention on their doorsteps in a few hour's time.  Nobody thinks about these things... until the door opens and there they are.

Being 25 years old, Avi Karouchi was probably not accustomed to going to bed early in the evening.  And it had probably been years since he had been properly tucked into bed.  So if he was somehow aware of being laid tenderly to rest at the childish hour of 8:00PM, he may have experienced a moment of confusion. 

He had very likely seen this particular sun rise as he slipped into his uniform... how could he already be going to sleep before it set? 

Through their grief, his parents probably didn't stop to consider the irony of all the times this skinny little boy in his soft pajamas had fought against the tyranny of bedtimes.  How odd for him to go down so quietly this time... at 8:00PM! 

He woke up yesterday and put on the uniform of a sovereign nation and patrolled that nation's borders (and patiently bore the scorn of the entire world for doing so).  Inside those borders lay a system of roads and highways (such that they are), an economy (such that it is), an infrastructure of flowing electricity and water (such that it is), and a rich culture of education and scholarship (such that it is).

If anyone bothered to ask the terrorist groups who have been clamoring to take credit for snuffing out Avi Karouchi's dreams what their plans are for building roads and highways... creating power plants or desalinization stations... what monetary system they envision... what system of medical care they want for their people... or what style of education they most prefer...  they would have no answer other than to say that 'all those things will magically appear once this cancer called the Zionist Entity is excised from the otherwise healthy entity called Palestine'. 

These people don't have dreams of their own... they live only to destroy the dreams of others, and to celebrate each time they succeed. 

Avi Karouchi was full of dreams and plans, but more importantly he was the receptacle of other people's dreams and plans.  All that ended yesterday.

I thought you should know that yesterday a young man woke up from his dreams, and went back to sleep... never to dream again. 

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Note:  All images are the property of the sources listed.  To view these and other images you may visit the website of my neighbor Jacob Richman.  Not advisable for children.