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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Feel-good story of the day: Son of a Swedish preacher man |
| 2009-02-06 |
| A taste. Go read the whole thing. Seriously, go. We'll wait 'til you get back. :-) 'Fredrik' recently finished basic training in the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade. Together with thousands of other soldiers, he is waiting on a base a few miles from Gaza, ready to be deployed in case the cease-fire collapses. The only difference is that he is not an Israeli citizen, or even Jewish. He is a 29-year-old Swedish Pentecostal Christian. Fredrik came here for the first time nine years ago as a tourist. "It was love at first sight. I stepped out of the airplane, looked around and felt that this was a country I could die for." He returned to his small Swedish hometown, where his father serves as a pastor in the local Pentecostal church. "I always commit 100 percent to things that I do and I felt strongly that this is where God wanted me to be," he explains, so he wrapped up his own career as a youth pastor and moved here. Soon after his arrival, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up along with 21 young people in a discotheque in Tel Aviv. "Suddenly I realized that not everybody is nice," Fredrik says with a touch of irony. "When I was called up to do army service in Sweden, I had refused to carry a gun." After having experienced terrorism up close, he stopped being a pacifist. "I realized that there are situations when one needs to use weapons to defend oneself." That insight led him to an IDF conscription office in the summer of 2001, where he explained that he wanted to join the IDF. He received a resounding no for an answer, since he was not a citizen, nor Jewish. He was not even a legal resident, only a tourist. What follows is a classic tale of patient Swedish stubbornness, with a happy ending. 'Fredrik' even received his beret in the elite Egoz Unit, before being sent back to the 51st Infantry Battalion. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 Sounds like an intelligent young man that matured. Glad he understands that people sleep at ease because rough men are ready to do violence to others on his behalf. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-02-06 20:09 |
| #1 Swedish stubborness can be an obstacle in normal times, but a massive aid in harsh situations. |
| Posted by: Lagom 2009-02-06 14:48 |