Chapter 4 Monday May 9th Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day)

Rise and shine at 6:30 AM after a well deserved night's sleep and wake to a beautiful day. Terrific breakfast buffet - cheeses, fishes, salads, outstanding breads and great omelets. This will be standard fare throughout our trip.

Get on the bus and take care of our first order of business - learning our number. Andi is #27 and I am #28. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the number given the times we were asked to count off.

Bus took us to Latrun where the British built a police station in the Ayalon Valley to guard the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israeli's tried to take the fortress 6 times during the war for independance but were unable to so they built a "Burma Road" around it. This was depicted in both the Kirk Douglas movie "Cast a Giant Shadow" and in the Herman Wouk book "The Hope". Latrun - Wikipedia

We were given a tour of the police station and tank museum by the son of our tour guide who was a tank commander in the military.

We were then honored to attend a Memorial Day service held at this fortress. It was a very emotional service and concluded with a teary rendition of Hatikvah.