A Grenade

It was before the Matla al-Fajr Operation. For better coordination between the Commanders of the Army and the Military, a meeting was held at the Andarzgu Group location. Ibrahim, three Commanders of the Army, three Commanders of the Military, and I were present in the meeting. Some of the soldiers were busy doing military training. It was in the middle of the meeting. Everyone was talking when suddenly a grenade was thrown in through the window! It fell exactly in the middle of the room. I went pale in fear. As I was sitting in the corner of the room, I put my head between my hands and squatted facing towards the wall! For a few seconds my breath was caught in my chest! Everyone else crawled into a corner like me. The seconds were passing with difficulty; but, the sound of an explosion didn’t come! I opened my eyes very slowly. I looked at the middle of the room from under my hands. The scene which I was seeing was unbelievable! I slowly took my hands off of my head. I raised my head with eyes grown large from wonder and said, “Mr. Ibram…!” Others raised their heads from the corners of the room one by one. Everyone was looking at the middle of the room with pale faces. It was a very strange scene. While we had all crawled to the corners of the room, Ibrahim had laid on the grenade! At that same time, the person responsible for the training session entered the room. With many apologizes he said, “I am so ashamed. This was a training grenade. It fell into the room by mistake!” Ibrahim got up from the grenade. Such an event had never happened for any of the forces up until that time, which was the first year of the war. It was as if this grenade had come to measure our masculinity. After that the story of the grenade spread throughout the forces; mouth to mouth.