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crossing the swollen river? Why hadn’t I taken the time to check the current several miles downriver inside Israel? And couldn’t we have moved more quickly on the way in, even with the delay in crossing the river? I was aware of, and grateful for, the confidence Avraham had shown in me. He had taken a chance in choosing me to lead the sayeret’s first, critical operation. He must surely have had doubts about whether I could handle the task. Years later, I asked him about it. He told me that he’d been relying on intuition. Yes, he realized I’d had no experience of a real cross-border mission. But that was true of everyone else in the unit as well. He was convinced that the tools needed for success were self-confidence, attention to detail and an ability to think and act in response to what happened on the ground — all qualities which he was confident that I possessed. Now that we had provided Israel access to communications in the north of the Golan, there was a demand for us to do the same in other parts of the Heights. I was involved in nearly all of the missions we were asked to undertake in the months that followed, either as commander of the main force or the hillutz. I was also soon training a new team of recruits for future operations. But perhaps the most important sign of Avraham’s confidence was to involve me in early efforts to broaden Sayeret Matkal’s experience and reach beyond pure intelligence missions — to create a true special forces unit that could fight as well. Early in 1963, we hosted a visit to the unit by Colonel Albert Merglen, a veteran of France’s colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria, and commander of the airborne commando force known as the 11" Demi-brigade Parchutistes de Choc. As the colonel looked on, I led a sayeret team on a live-fire raid in a training area not far from Lod Airport. We attacked a position protected by trenches and concrete barriers and stormed a two-story building. Eager to impress Mergelen, Avraham even insisted on our wearing French-style berets in place of helmets. I assume it was the attack more than the berets that did the trick. But a couple of months later, Merglen proposed a series of exchanges. The first would involve an officer from Sayeret Matkal officer spending eight weeks on a counter-guerrilla commanders’ course in the parachutistes’ training headquarters. Avraham picked me to go. The French base was in a 17th-century fortress near Mont Louis, in the Pyrenees along the Spanish border. I’d never been outside Israel, at least legally. I had no passport. I didn’t own a suit or a tie. But within days, I was kitted and fitted. I boarded an EI Al flight to Paris and, on a 73 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011544