Photo By Staff Sgt. Tegan Kucera | Izabela Cislak, the Polish grandmother of an Israeli Defense Force paratrooper,...... read more read more
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Shortly after jumping out of an airplane, one Israeli paratrooper reunited with his Polish grandmother on the airfield in Poland during Swift Response 18.
Swift Response 18 is one of the premier military crisis response training events for multinational airborne forces in the world.
This year, for the first time, members of 35th Brigade, also known as the Paratroopers Brigade, Israel Defense Forces, have come to Miroslawiec Airfield, Poland, to participate in an airborne insertion here. This is the first time the paratrooper brigade has jumped into Europe.
That is not the only special aspect of this particular jump. This is the first time one Polish grandmother saw her Israeli paratrooper grandson jump.
“It’s important to me,” said Izabela Cislak, a resident of Warsaw, Poland, and the grandmother of the Israeli paratrooper. “I’ve never seen it before, never saw him jumping. I’ve seen him in uniform, but I never saw him as a soldier in a group. Also, he’s in Poland, so it’s a good opportunity for me to come and see.”
Cislak, the grandmother of four, has made many trips to Israel since her daughter moved there in the early ‘90s. She knows her grandson very well even though they live on different continents.
“Poland is my country, but I am very proud of him. I love him, and I’m very happy that he came here,” said Cislak.
Throughout the paratroopers display, Cislak was FaceTiming with her daughter, showing her the hundreds of international soldiers floating to the ground. Not only were the Israelis jumping together, they were also jumping with Italian and American paratroopers, making it a joint effort.
“Jumping with Americans was exciting as well because it’s like going back to when the Americans were fighting the Nazi’s,” said 1st Sgt. Bary Adin, a paratrooper with the IDF and grandson of Cislak.
Bary Adin said he did not believe his grandmother, or ‘Babcia’ as he calls her, would be there on the airfield until he saw her there. He said he was excited to see her even if she did not recognize him at first because he had grown a beard and was wearing camouflage as part of the exercise in Poland.
“It has special meaning for me to have a jump here in Poland, flying over Germany after a large part of my family and my grandmother’s family were killed by the Nazis,” said Bary Adin. “I think that’s the true meaning of this jump.”
Overall the jump was symbolic to Bary Adin because his mother was born here. The jump was also special because he could do it with the soldiers from America, which unites both sides of his heritage. His paternal grandparents live in San Antonio, Texas.
Even though his parents come from different countries, Bary Adin is Israeli born-and-raised and enlisted in the IDF like all young people there. Conscription into the Israeli army is mandatory for men and women at age 18, but paratroopers are all volunteers. Of those who volunteer for the Paratrooper Brigade, 20 percent are accepted and 25 percent of those drop out during initial training.
“I wanted to do my best in the army, and have a good army service. Give what I have at this time to my country,” said Bary Adin.
Israel is his home, but Bary Adin still has deep roots in Poland: his grandmother still lives here, and so he has come many times to visit her.
“I think it’s very exciting, both from his personal view and definitely from a general perspective,” said Maj. Sharir, a trainer for the Israeli paratroopers. “Seeing the grandson of a Polish native jump here as part of a joint exercise between the U.S. and Israeli Army. It’s unique and very special from every aspect.”
Sharir said there are many in his ranks who have Polish ancestry, and that all Israeli soldiers have ties to the history of both Germany and Poland.
Only one, however, still has a grandmother living here who came out to see her grandson jump. The paratroopers of the IDF, who are jumping for the first time on European soil, are taking part in an exercise larger than themselves.
“We are enlarging and deepening our connection and cooperation between the armies,” said Sharir.
For their first jump on European soil the IDF are not only connecting generations. They are also jumping into the future of interoperability between themselves and the other nations participating in Swift Response 18.
| Date Taken: | 06.09.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 06.12.2018 07:03 |
| Story ID: | 280335 |
| Location: | MIROSLAWIEC, PL |
| Web Views: | 181 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Grand times in Poland, by SSG Tegan Kucera, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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