Dear Daniel…

I have just read your "take of your mask" article. I want to tell you that I just recently returned from three weeks of IDF Sar-El volunteer duty -- the last of it spent struggling with the onset of pneumonia -- and still I was kicking and fighting my return to the States. A vast majority of my weekend liberties were spent in Haifa. Exploring Haifa. Riding bus number 37 to the Carmel center in search of anything and everything that I could not find on the Army base, as I had become thankful for every little thing in life now that I was living the austere life of"Soldier".

Every weekend I would ride the bus and train with all those other soldiers up to Haifa, and on Sunday morning, my comrades would be waiting or running along with me to HaCarmel Train station desperate to catch the 7:24am train to Tel Aviv, lest we miss it and all report to duty, late. Early on my tour, I had to make a decision: do I get off at HaHagana train station and continue with my comrades making our way as a sea of green soldiers in pursuit of that bus ride back to the base, or do I part ways, catch a taxi, and leave the Russian Roulette of riding the bus to those far less fortunate that I? Mr. Gordis, I chose to cast my fate and live and die as the Israeli I had temporarily chosen to be, as it was my choice to ride the bus with my comrades. And what a ride it was! For the next three weeks it was cell phones, CDs, photos, sleeping on each other, M-16's poking in my ribs...! I would not have traded that bus time with my beloved comrades in my beloved homeland for all the Mercedes Benz taxi rides in the world.

On the eve of my departure from Israel, I was in need of oxygen, antibiotics, and a hospital stay, and still I did not want to leave....In a phone call to a Haifa U archeologist friend, who was on a jeep in the middle of the Jordan desert, I choked out words of love of G-d, the Jewish State, the Jewish People, and the IDF.

Daniel Gordis, I want you to know that there are many more just like myself, and that the Jills are the exception. I want you to know that I would lay down my life for Israel and the Jewish people....and I almost did according to my doctors.

Finally, Daniel, I want you to know that I was destroyed when the bus bomb in Haifa went off. I was live on line to Israel when it happened at 4:45am my time, and I suffered a relapse in my illness that very same day. I also want to share with you the mass email that I sent out to my friends shortly after the bombing (see below)

Daniel Gordis, Israel, and my fellow Jewish People: YOU ARE NOT ALONE and I LOVE YOU...and I will return.

Sincerely,
Donna G. Burris