The Brigadier
ISAAC ROSENFELD
wE HAVE BEEN FIGHTING
the enemy a very long time. So long
that I, who entered the war a foot soldier, have had time to receive
more than the usual number of decorations and promotions and to
become a brigadier, attached to staff headquarters. I forget how
many times I have been wounded and the names of all the battles
and campaigns in which I have participated. The greater number of
them, however, are not to be forgotten: Striplitz, Bougaumeres,
Trele, Bzelokhorets, Kovinitsa, Laud Ingaume, El Khabhar, Woozi–
Fassam, and so on. I am the oldest man in our field office, though
not in the brigade itself. Lately, the newcomers have not been rising
from the ranks, but from the Academy. They are young men who
have not proved themselves in any way; some have not even fought.
I am settled into my work, which for many years, I am pleased
to say, has been of an absorbing nature. It
is
difficult to recall the
time when I fretted with impatience to return to what I considered
·my natural life as a citizen. I am happy that I am no longer
im–
patient. I have developed, instead, a great eagerness-an eagerness,
however, which is thoroughly disciplined and in every way related
to our military enterprise. I do not hesitate to call our enterprise the
most glorious and far-reaching that has ever been undertaken.
Far-reaching
is
not quite the word-though it
is
only in an un-
official capacity that I admit as much. Let me say that it is not the
word for me to use.
As
a matter, simply, of objective fact, what we
are engaged in is, of course, that-! mean far-reaching-and much
else besides. But for myself it
is
not enough, and the work I do must
be otherwise defined. I have been studying the ends of our warfare
while pursuing them; I have tried to make them a part of myself. I
should not want it to be said that the Objective
is
one thing, and the
brigadier's effort in its behalf is quite another, not related to it as
the word one and the number one are related. My work is the war
itself.
The office
in
which I do my work was once a schoolhouse; it
stands in what used to be enemy country. A section of blackboard,
