Day 1655 - A very hot and humid aturday, definatly not suitable for a hike but after a whole week being indoors, in the store, we decided to go for a motorized trip. We drove north to the Golan Heights, an area I visited many times before but I got to see it from a whole new perspective. My partner took part in the Yom Kippur war in that area and had many memories from that time. He was a very young man then and now he heaves as he slowly climbs the mountain he once charged fully armored with weapon and all. But the pain and the nightmares never go away even decades later. I think it's one of the first times he revisited it and I really appreciate the effort it took. I came from the navy where the war is distant and I am a woman so I've never been to a battlefield anyway, but an infantry man has to go through hell and back. The sounds and the smells never go away he tells me, and only today I also understood how vivid these memories are. There are things that go with you till the day you die he told me, and you never come back the same person who went into the battle. How sad that this is the reality of our life here and generation after generation of our youngsters are subjected to the same faite. True, they know how the treat PTSD better than they did 42 years ago but I am sure the mental wounds are there for life even nowadays. We drove through the Golan, an area so crucial to our coutry's survival, and everything there is blooming. Green trees, manicured gardens, beautiful homes and vast open spaces with nothing but dry grass in between the settelments. Everything was on fire then he told me, and the sky was black and the air full of the sounds of bombs and artilery shells and planes... Almost forty two years later and nothings shows the scars of war but the bodies and minds of those who fought there...