Ariel, the widow of Lt. Col. Dor Gedalia Ben Shimchon, the commander of Battalion 52 who was killed in the tank disaster, wrote an emotional Facebook post about the tank crew that served with her husband. She said she had always known how carefully his headquarters crew was chosen, because the tank crew had been the unit responsible for protecting him and, in practice, for helping keep him alive.
In the post, Ariel recalled asking her husband on the day he took command who his crew was and whether he felt comfortable with them. Dor, she wrote, answered without hesitation that they were “a group of brave and amazing fighters” and that he felt safe fighting with them. She said that reassurance calmed her, because she believed there were people who would sacrifice their lives for him.
Ariel also wrote about her long-standing admiration for the armoured corps and said she had once dreamed of switching into tank service when the army opened a female tank company. She said that dream never came true, but that she still saw tanks as the most impressive war machine and was glad Dor had been able to command one with a crew of his own.
She named the fallen crew members as Staff Sgt. Naveh Havshush, Staff Sgt. Yoav Klein and Staff Sgt. Liav Kabbabia, and thanked them for being her husband’s crew. “At our place, rank does not determine a person’s importance,” she wrote, calling them “a world unto themselves” who died with her husband. Ariel said she was grateful Dor’s final moments were spent with them, added that there were likely “many scoldings, but also many laughs,” and said she had briefly considered delaying the funeral until the crew recovered, before learning that no one was left alive. She concluded by saying she would remember them forever and hoped to meet their families.
