\nOn the evening of October 13, a UAV struck the dining hall at the Golani training base. At the time, Sergeant Aviv was a basic training squad commander. He rushed to help the wounded, unaware that he himself had been hit\u2014shrapnel had severed the main artery in his neck.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe suddenly heard an explosion. Within about three seconds, we understood what had happened\u2014there were casualties and bleeding all around us. In a situation like that, you have to act quickly, because there\u2019s chaos all around,\u201d Aviv recalled in an interview with the IDF\u2019s official website.<\/p>\n
He managed to assist several injured soldiers before realizing he\u2019d been wounded: \u201cI touched my neck and saw a lot of blood\u2014I understood I didn\u2019t have much time,\u201d he said. He was evacuated to Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera, where he underwent a 14-hour emergency surgery. The doctors succeeded in saving his life, but the injury left the right side of his face paralyzed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou begin a journey\u2014a journey with yourself\u201d<\/strong> After two days under sedation and on a ventilator, Aviv began a long rehabilitation process, including six weeks of hospitalization and four months of physical and occupational therapy. \u201cYou begin a journey\u2014a journey with yourself. Suddenly it\u2019s hard to breathe, you can\u2019t talk, you\u2019re hooked up to tubes, and you can barely move your arm.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPutting the uniform back on\u2014it\u2019s a kind of victory\u201d<\/strong> \u201cSeeing all my friends and the soldiers in the unit after rehab\u2014it\u2019s a little like enlisting all over again. But what drives me is the privilege of putting the uniform back on\u2014especially after being injured. It\u2019s a kind of victory,\u201d he added with emotion.<\/p>\n His return to the Golani training base\u2014the very place where he was wounded\u2014marks a personal triumph. \u201cWhat I missed most, especially at this time of year, were the sunsets\u2014they\u2019re the most beautiful here at the Golani base,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After being seriously wounded by a UAV strike at the training base, undergoing life-saving surgery and a long rehabilitation, Sergeant Aviv returned to serve with his soldiers at the very place where it all began: “What drives me is the privilege of putting on the uniform again\u2014especially after being injured.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":20482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,2276,85,6],"tags":[4577,2075,1816,1475,4575,4576,4574],"class_list":["post-20480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-idf","category-people","category-positive-moment","category-security","tag-combat-resilience","tag-golani-brigade","tag-heroism","tag-idf","tag-military-rehabilitation","tag-soldier-recovery","tag-uav-attack"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\u201cI lost two liters of blood, and the shrapnel that hit my artery also damaged the facial nerve,\u201d explained Aviv. \u201cAll I could think about was my soldiers. I hadn\u2019t seen any of them since the explosion, and I was really worried about them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/reganews.co.il\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/heroes2.webp\")
\nDespite the hardships, he never gave up on his dream of returning to serve alongside his soldiers. \u201cFrom the start, I knew I\u2019d return to the Golani training base,\u201d he said. Today, he serves as the company\u2019s communications officer. \u201cIt\u2019s a full-circle moment to come back and serve with the same people I knew so well,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n