Pundak, Uri

Uri, son of Ruth and Herbert (Nahum), was born on 27 August 1952 in Denmark and immigrated to Israel with his family in 1944. Uri was drafted into the IDF at the end of October 1970. Uri joined the naval commando course, but at one point decided to leave the course and move to the Armored Corps, where he successfully completed tank courses, a tank driver, a tank gunner and a NCO tank. His commanders, who insisted on his qualities, recommended him as a candidate for the officers’ course. Uri completed a course for officers of the Armored Corps and Armored Corps officers, and after successfully completing professional training, he was appointed as platoon commander and later as an operations officer in the Armored Corps. His commanders, in their periodic opinions, noted him as “a responsible and dedicated officer, a man of initiative and a good professional level” and in a different opinion: “a satisfactory, disciplined and dedicated person.” In the Yom Kippur War Uri participated with his battalion in the bloody battles against the attacking Egyptians, and after the breakthrough he moved to the western side of the canal. On the 19th of Tishrei 5734 (19.10.1973), Uri moved as a cannon in the battalion commander’s tank to attack a missile base, and the tank was hit by a missile and Uri was wounded and taken to the hospital and died on the same day. “Uri served as an operations officer in the battalion and was a right-hand man in the period preceding the Yom Kippur War and during the war itself … We, the commanders of the unit in which he fell, and his soldiers are carrying in silence and in terror, Sanctify his memory. “