They built big houses for the settlers, but the settlers didn’t move into them so they wouldn’t have to pay income tax, and they continued living for free next to the buildings that were built for them. A gray place, no color, religious people walking with their heads down. A strange and depressing place, with a settlement security coordinator who was scarred from the Vietnam War. There were four of us and a platoon commander who left after one day and came back on the weekend. Another person and I were in command. The settlement security coordinator made it clear that it was his settlement, and, the fact was, we were under him.

He briefed you in the beginning? Yes.

What did he say? It was like something from the movies. I don’t remember his name, but he said “I was a soldier in Vietnam, I was in the Marines and I see that you’re infantrymen, that’s good, because I have two boys in Golani.” He told us that if anyone wants to come into the settlement, we have to check his ID, and if he’s Arab, he can’t come in. He starts saying, “I see people in the distance, if they want to come in, I shoot them.” He said, “If people drive up in a taxi, you have to check to make sure the driver is Jewish, because one time someone from the settlement caught a taxi in Jerusalem, didn’t know who the driver was, the driver came in, and I catch him in the kindergarten looking for a bathroom. I went up to him, he’s looking for knives, I sent him to hell, I don’t let anyone with an Arab name into the . . .” The guy’s crazy.

What did you do there? Guard duty. We waited for people to try to enter, and no one did.

It was quiet there. Yes. One time we had our binoculars and saw that three kilometers from the settlement a boy was bringing his flock from the Hebron area to the valley. The settlement security coordinator came, put in a magazine, emptied it in his direction, as if anything would even reach there.

He shot in the shepherd’s direction? Yes. He said, “That Arab’s gathering information, he wants to infiltrate the settlement.” You could barely see him. It had just gotten foggy, so we had to use binoculars to see him.

He just fired an entire magazine at someone three kilometers away? Yes, the guy was crazy.

Did you see the boy afterward? He wasn’t even aware that anyone was shooting at him. He was near Hebron, they empty magazines there all day. He stayed where he was with his sheep. The funniest part is that the Haruv Battalion relieved us, and they all have Arab names, and this settlement security coordinator hates Arab names and anyone who speaks Arabic.