A soldier's best friend

(JNS) - Thrown into a tank after being riddled with seven bullets in Gaza, the 23-year-old Israeli soldier kept his hand on his mortally wounded Dutch Shepherd through the entire ride to the hospital, even as he drifted into unconsciousness.

"I kept hoping that he was OK even as I felt my organs were popping out of my body," Ben Ladany told JNS in an interview in Herzliya on Wednesday of his beloved IDF counter-terrorism dog, Jack.

For the next two months, Ladany lay in an induced comatose at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon with severe stomach and leg wounds, as a fungus infection set in his body. He had repeated dreams of fighting Hamas in Gaza with Jack at his side.

After a month and a half, he suddenly awoke. Ladany first asked his sister if his private parts were OK, and then immediately inquired about Jack. When she told him that Jack did not make it, he fell back into his coma for another three weeks.

'Unconditional love'

It was a year and half earlier that the South Africa-born Ladany and the Dutch-born Jack became a team, after he enlisted in the IDF Oketz canine unit.

He had grown up in a "typical Jewish home" in Johannesburg (his mother is South African and his father Israeli) and immigrated to Israel at age 19 with a steadfast desire to join the army, and, quite by chance, got assigned to the canine unit.

"I knew nothing about dogs at the time, and it turned out to be the best decision that has shaped my life," he said.

After undergoing the requisite nine months of basic training, Ladany met Jack.

He confessed to being nervous ahead of their first encounter. "I didn't know if we'd connect and be good together."

The soldier and his year-old dog immediately became the best of friends and trained together for the next nine months before the war broke out.

"It was chemistry like no other I had felt in my life," Ladany said. "It was unconditional love.

"My dog was the soldier. He was a better soldier than I was."

'Oct. 7 taught me never to hate'

After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre, Ladany's unit was rushed to southern Israel, which had been invaded by thousands of Hamas terrorists in the worst single-day attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. He found himself going from one hard-hit or devastated kibbutz to another in the first days of the war.

"I saw the bitter face of hatred," he recalls of the images of burned bodies of women and children. "I saw that and said to myself that I would never hate again."

The next month, his unit, which typically accompanies other ground troops, was among the first to enter Gaza.

Close encounter with death

It was Nov. 12, 2023, and his unit was on the hunt for Hamas terrorists in northern Gaza's Jabalia camp.

Acting on intelligence information, Jack was sent in a building where Hamas suspects were believed to be hiding out. As he went in on the attack, he was immediately shot. Then Ladany took seven bullets from another Hamas cell member who came out of the building on a suicide mission.

Within 45 minutes, his unit got him from Gaza to Assuta Ashdod Medical Center. He was subsequently transferred to Barzilai in Ashkelon, where he dreamed of his dog.

"If I would have died in my mind, I would have died in my life, but his soul came to me and saved me three times," Ladany said.

Awaken to a new life

Two months later, Ladany awoke from his coma, his parents and sister at his side. His parents, who moved back to Israel after his injury, now live in Givatayim, east of Tel Aviv.

"I woke up hating my life, depressed and feeling bad for myself," he said, unable to get up even to go to the washroom due to his injuries.

Then one day his father had enough and got his son a wheelchair, told him to get up and took him to the orthopedic ward where he saw other soldiers, some without arms or legs.

"I learned a lesson that will stick with me for the rest of my life: As badly as you think you are injured, there is someone who is way more than you," he said. "It puts things in perspective."

There and then, Ladany began rehab, telling doctors that he would enroll in studies at Reichman University in Herzliya by the end of the year. The doctors said it would take him two years to recover enough to study.

"I looked at them and said I'll do it in half the time, and here I am today," he said in the interview at the university north of Tel Aviv.

'Live every day as if it were the last'

Now a student in between physiotherapy sessions, Ladany, who plans to get a dog to fill the void left by Jack's death, is still using a mobility scooter at campus, as he can't feel his right leg. He walks short distances with crutches in the dormitory and hopes to be able to walk on his own in two months.

Taking a lesson from man's best friend, who, he said, are among the most joyous animals that live among us, even in doing simple everyday matters, he said: "I won't be 100 percent but I will live every day like it will be my last."