Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9407310006
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY ROBERT ALOTTA
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Following World War II, many veterans were dissatisfied with the rather quiet life in these United States. They wanted more out of life than a 9-5 job; they wanted excitement.
Harold Livingston was just one of those men.
"In the Army," he wrote, "I was a high-ranking executive, in charge of as many as one hundred men, in a difficult and responsible job. Go back to a copyboy...? Never. What I wanted, truly, was the war again." And, he was not alone.
Livingston investigated the idea of returning to the military, but the best deal he could cut was to go back as an enlisted man. (He had been a master sergeant.) He wanted a commission, but the Army felt he was more valuable as a communications chief than as a second lieutenant.
He went to work for TWA where he met people who later would bring him into the Israeli Air Force. In 1946, there was no Israel, only Palestine. As I write that, I think of the irony of today where there is an Israel and, only after years of fighting and acrimony, a small Palestinian state.
In the Forties, there were very few Jewish heroes for young Jewish men. In fact, one could count them on one hand - boxer Max Baer, footballer Marshal Goldberg, and, the star of them all: the Detroit Tigers' first baseman Hank Greenberg. Perhaps, in his youth, Livingston wanted to emulate those heroes. It was not difficult for him to be recruited.
Livingston, better known as a writer - he wrote "Star Trek- The Motion Picture" and ten episodes of "Mission Impossible," was a young man who wanted to fly, he wanted to be a pilot. "No Trophy, No Sword" is his recollections of the time he spent helping Israel establish itself as a free state. The book is well-written, and filled with anecdotes that transform the basic facts into a kaleidoscope of human experience.
The author shows us how difficult it was for Israel to begin its life; both the United States and England were more in favor of the Palestinians than the Jews. Obstacle after obstacle was put in the way, not allowing the Israelis to transport planes to Palestine for example, even though the Palestinians were well armed - with British weapons.
Livingston tells us about the irony of having Jewish pilots flying German planes against the Arabs. He talks of the men and women who gave up their lives in the United States to pursue a Biblical dream. And, he recounts the heavy-handed Israeli leaders who decided to endanger the American citizenship of some of its volunteers by automatically making them members of the Israel military.
When the majority revolted over this action, the Israelis backed off - but not for long. After what might be called mutiny, if the Americans were Israeli soldiers, the men gave in ... but not Livingston. He returned to the United States and picked up the rest of his life.
"No Trophy, No Sword" is absorbing reading. It tells of a time of which little is written, at least in English. It is a personal account, so personal that the author is willing to tell of youthful indiscretions without a backward glance. Livingston in the ultimate story-teller, and makes us wonder about the birth of other nations. It is also the pilgrimmage of one man who must confront his ethnic background with his home land.
"And I knew now where I belonged," Livingston writes after a 1979 visit to Israel, "which was in America and not here, for the deceptively simple but very sound reason that I was an American and chose to remain one... I could indeed be both an American and a Jew, and I had not turned away from my heritage, not at all. I knew all this because I knew that thirty-one years ago I had done what I came to do in Israel. I had helped make it a reality."
- Robert I. Alotta is a Harrisonburg writer.
by CNB