Free Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril by King Abdullah II, King Abdullah Page A

wept.
    At dawn, after we had put in a counterattack against one of our positions taken by the Gurkhas, a Scorpion light tank pulled up next to our trench, part of a reconnaissance party for another regiment’s exercise. Rumors circulated among the infantry that inside tanks were anything from TV sets to washing machines, even kettles so that tank commanders could serve up their own hot drinks. A cavalry officer popped his head out of the turret of the Scorpion, holding a steaming cup of tea. He took one look at us, disappeared back into the turret, and reappeared a few seconds later holding a small glass of port. He raised his glass to us in a silent toast, then slammed the top shut and drove off.
    “That’s it, to hell with the infantry,” I thought. “I’m joining the cavalry!” The next day I transferred to reconnaissance and signed up for the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, which later merged with another regiment, the 15th/19th, the King’s Royal Hussars, to form the Light Dragoons. (A few years ago Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth honored me by making me the Light Dragoons’ colonel-inchief.)
    I joined as a second lieutenant, and after two months went for a young officer’s basic course before returning to my regiment. I completed my armor training at Bovington Camp in Dorset, and served a year as an officer in the British army, in the UK and West Germany. At that time, in the early 1980s, the cold war was still at its height, and as an armored regiment one of our missions would have been to repel a Russian advance through the Fulda Gap into the heart of West Germany.
    One afternoon I was traveling with my regiment on the M4 highway, the main motorway from London to the west, in Fox armored cars, which, although they have turrets equipped with 30mm cannons, move on wheels, not tracks. To a civilian, however, they look like tanks. These armored cars had a reputation for being fast, so I thought I would test them out. We were barreling along well over the speed limit when I looked out of the turret and saw a police car driving alongside us, siren blaring and lights flashing. I gave the order to pull over, and the convoy stopped at the side of the motorway. The policeman got out and walked over, shaking his head. “I have no idea how I’m going to write this up,” he said. “Nobody would believe me if I told them I’d pulled over five tanks for speeding on the M4!” We were let off with a warning and told to mind our speed and get on our way.
    During the Falklands war, which began in April 1982, when Britain and Argentina fought over control of the Falkland Islands, we were given “dog tags” for the first time—metal tags that soldiers wear around their neck with personal information so they can be identified if they are killed in battle. I called my father and told him they were issuing us with dog tags and it looked like we might be deployed. Without a pause, he said, “If they go, you go with them.” As it turned out, another unit was sent, and we spent the conflict on a training exercise in Fort Polk, Louisiana.
     
    In June 1982, as the Falklands war was ending, halfway around the globe another war was beginning. On June 6, the Israeli army invaded southern Lebanon—just four years after it had last crossed the border and occupied southern Lebanon with the purpose of destroying PLO bases and expanding the buffer zone it had established where a surrogate force, under the leadership of a renegade Lebanese army officer, was providing support. By June 1978, Israeli forces had been replaced by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), established under UN Security Council Resolution 425. Their mandate was to confirm Israel’s withdrawal and to assist the government of Lebanon with restoring peace and security.
    This time, in contravention of a cease-fire brokered by U.S. envoy Philip Habib in July 1981, the Israeli army, under the command of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, conducted an aggressive