Our troops come first

Truth must be told: IDF soldiers do not act like indiscriminate killers
Eitan Haber
.....Us or them
On many occasions during battle, it’s either us or them, and at times “them” happens to be a woman who walked in the shades, an old man who peeked at the wrong moment, or a curious child.
I’ve seen a lot in my life, and regrettably I also saw the dismembered bodies of children, women, and the elderly who paid the price of war with their lives. There is no such thing as sterile wars. The question is whether Breaking the Silence realizes that soldiers fear for their lives – and fire.
This does not mean, heaven forbid, that IDF soldiers do not have the duty to be doubly careful, or that our troops our trigger-happy, but we need to say the following clearly, as cruel as it may seem: Many innocent civilians die in wars - Also, but not only, because IDF soldiers seek to safeguard their own lives, and their own lives are more important to them than the lives of others. War is not a game.
All those honorable members of Breaking the Silence should have made a distinction between an indiscriminate killing spree, bordering on glee, and the adoption of cautious steps, even exaggerated ones, in order to avoid harm to oneself. This is the way it works: Our troops come first.
The IDF, and that’s the truth, examines each and every such case, draws conclusions, and at times punishes more severely than other armies in the world. When one of these days we’ll gain access, for example, to the tales of the US Army in Iraq, it will turn out that compared to it the IDF was like a monastery inhabited by saints.
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