by Jim Fletcher

I met a great man, once.

I would say that each year at this time, I think of him, but in fact I don't need a special occasion. His bravery, and that of his fellow soldiers, comes to my mind often.

On the 27 ^th of June, 1976, members of a joint PLO-German terrorist group hijacked an Air France jetliner bound for Paris. They ordered to plane redirected to Africa, of all places. The world would soon know why.

Airline hijackings in those days were the method of choice for killers like Yasser Arafat, who by this time had been chairman of the "Palestine Liberation Organization" for eight years. His Marxist friends around the world, including the German Baader-Meinhof Gang, were only too willing to help.

Once the Air France jet landed in Uganda, at a place called Entebbe, Israeli officials were learning the first sketchy details. They were actually well acquainted with hijackings and various other terror acts, including a blood-bath at the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv.

Idi Amin, the psycho dictator of Uganda, was in league with the terrorists, who had by this time separated the Jewish passengers from everyone else. Shades of the Nazi "selections" in the death camps. One-hundred-five men, women, and children were held at the old terminal building at the Entebbe airport. The terrorists set a deadline of Sunday morning, July 4; their demands were simple and non-negotiable. They wanted 50-odd terrorists released from prison, or they would begin killing hostages.

Into this chaos entered the fabled Israel Defense Forces. When most nations, save the United States, would hesitate to use a military solution for such a crisis, Israel's planners decided that a rescue operation could be just daring enough to actually work. Thus was "Operation Thunderbolt" born.

To make a long and intensely dramatic story short, Israel sent 200 commandos on this 2,500-mile flight…in the middle of the night. Emerging from planes just after midnight, IDF soldiers, including paratroopers and the iconic members of the elite commando unit, Sayaret Matkal (General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, or, "The Unit") made their way to where the hostages were held.

As the 30-man rescue force entered the front door of the terminal, guns very much blazing, Surin Hershko and the paratroops were a mile away, securing the airport's new terminal building. They had deplaned moments after the Unit had begun moving toward the old terminal.

Surin, a decade before an immigrant from Romania, huddled with his men in the tall grass. Now they moved in.

Ascending an outside staircase, Surin met a Ugandan man and woman, descending. IDF planners had briefed the soldiers to be careful of inflicting civilian casualties. Surin did not have his weapon up and in position. The man he encountered raised a pistol and fired.

Surin's fellow soldiers found him later, lying still. A bullet had severed his spinal cord.

Oh, although I'm relating Surin's personal story here, you should know that the Entebbe raid was an astonishing success. Within 90 minutes, the hostages were loaded onto planes and flown to freedom in Israel. It remains perhaps the most daring and successful operation of all time.

Thirty years later, I got out of a cab in front of Surin's Tel Aviv home. He has a thriving business, a lovely home, and a wide circle of friends. In 2006, Benjamin Netanyahu's speech in the Knesset mentioned the remarkable Surin:

"Among the soldiers on the mission was Surin Hershko, who was wounded in an isolated clash in the staircase of the new terminal. He was shot in the spine, and for thirty years has borne his injury with a courage that amazes all those who know him."

Surin, a quadraplegic for the past 33 years, is still a hero, still a soldier. As I visited with him about Operation Thunderbolt - re-named Operation Jonathan, after Jonathan Netanyahu, the only IDF soldier killed at Entebbe - it was clear that Surin Hershko has an internal fortitude that very, very few people have ever had. There are always a handful of people like him, in every era, keeping the rest of us safe.

At one point during our conversation, he looked at me and said, "I'd go again."

My goodness, what an example. What a shining light. Especially in dark days like these, in which amoral politicians and various other cowards endanger all of us through failed policies and self-serving agendas.

I asked Surin about the flight to Entebbe. The commandos onboard those planes had to wait until they were well away before hearing by radio that the Israeli Cabinet had indeed given the green-light to proceed.

"It must have been nerve-wracking," I said. "I guess some were afraid the Cabinet would actually approve the operation." Surin looked at me again.

"We were only afraid they wouldn't  approve it."

The spirit of Joshua.

As I was leaving Surin's home, a friend picked me up for the ride to the airport. He asked who I had been visiting and I told him.

"Surin Hershko? Really?" He did a double-take; and this man had been a Mossad agent! That gives you an idea of the reverence Israelis have for the men of Entebbe.

All through history, weak men, self-serving men, have made the world more difficult. Only a handful of men swim against the tide and echo the words of the Greatest Man: "Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his brother."

For the chattering, hissing critics of Israel, those who harp about "settlements" and the plight of the Palestinians, and the necessity for Israel to give up land won in defensive wars: keep chattering and hissing. The Judge of history will remember what you've done. And He will remember what a handful of men like Surin Hershko have done.

Surin, I salute you. May you continue to live well. May God bless you and keep you.