The Speech Steve Garr

the gift from hashem be vigilant be aware that's my first lesson the second lesson i can think you can take from here number two i spent five years on shilik in sydney australia everywhere i've gone in the world i've turned on the television i read in the newspapers uh here on the radio do you know they say that we love killing little palestinian children you met us i want you to take a message back to your communities i don't do this because i love killing i'm not involved in an elite counter-terrorist unit because i'm filled with hate in fact the exact opposite i'm filled with a deep deep sense of love i love this country i love the people who live here and the people come and visit you see guys i don't really care what's written in any of your passports you should know for me that's just a little piece of paper it means nothing i want you to know are you standing now yeah this is your home it's been your home for hundreds of generations and it's still your home today i know you weren't born you don't understand the language this is home i've got a principle my principle is when someone comes home they should feel safe if you're not going to be safe in your own home then where are you going to feel safe i want jews to come home to their own country to learn torah to go to the hotel to go to mall or eat in a kosher restaurant and i want you to do all these things feeling safe that's what motivates me i wish i could tell you that my terrorists are also motivated by love i think that's true the terrorists i've encountered are filled with so much hate i don't even know how to describe to you guys maybe you heard of a terror attack on a family on a friday night in a little place called itamar vogel family while they were asleep 11 30 two terrorists went into their house with knives and killed the family while they were sleeping these terrorists managed to escape into an arab village when they were in that village they started boasting about what they had done showing the blood of a family in their hands we had a secret undercover agent israeli in that village he heard what they said verified the information gave us their location in the sting operation we went and arrested these two terrorists as part of the team we took them back to the house where they did all the killing you know why why did i take them back there because i wanted to see how i failed my unit is sworn to protect civilians how is it possible that a whole family was killed and these terrorists were able to escape i wanted them to reenact the territory i took them back to the house do you think they wanted to cooperate with us they were so pleased with a big smile on their face they wanted to show me each detail of how they massacred the family i handed the first terrorist a knife made out of rubber i followed him into the first bedroom it was horrific on the floor there was blood on the bed on the walls he showed me how he went from bedroom to bedroom killing a family when they were done they left the house because when they were outside they heard a baby crying this was a six month old little girl the parents couldn't help because they were killed but these terrorists realized they had missed out somebody following the crying of this baby they went back into the house for a second they walked down the corridor following her crying until they found her little mattress in the corner of one of the rooms the second terror showed me how he held the infant still so the first terrorist took the knife and slit her throat i don't understand because when i turn on the television they say that i'm the barbarian i am the monster and what do they say about these terrorists in the news they call them freedom fighters you met us you met sharon a colonel a religious man you met aitan you met me you want to know a little bit about me yes i'm on a counter-terrorist unit i'm also privileged to be an instructor here on this counter-terrorist academy one of the best in israel but i'll tell you guys i only work here part-time you know what i do in my mornings on a special needs program i found that guys were down syndrome autism weren't allowed into a regular yeshiva no one would accept them so i set up yeshua that allows special needs to come to you israel to learn for an entire i've got a boys and a girls program that's my mornings in my afternoons i'm in there's uh sean told you i'm in kolel i've been in kuala lumpur for six years now doing my smita run and doing my rubber rabbinute i've got one exam left i just want you to know what type of person i have number one in this world i am a husband number two i'm a father baruch hashem there are four beautiful children number three is i'm an educator anyone who knows me will tell you that i'm very gentle but i'm gentle to a point if someone will put my family in danger and when i say my family i'm talking about each and every one of you if someone will put my family in danger i will not be gentle i will protect that which i care about that doesn't make me an animal that does not make me a monster that makes me a person who cares you'll do us a service if you take this message back to your community that's what you can do for us guys i don't want to stand here and glorify guns make them seem cool the movies do that xbox guns aren't cool they're not toys i've seen what they do in combat please don't think because you are on a shooting range you are now an expert guys i can live with what's happened in the terror attack i've gone and stopped the terrorists getting little children you know what makes me not sleep at night more children die every year in some countries not because of terrorism but because of stupidity irresponsible gun laws eight children in the united states every single day die not because of terrorism because a person comes home he leaves his glock loaded underneath his bed his little boy comes home plays with a gun pointed at his brother squeezes the trigger and blows off his brother's face more children guard guards are trained until my fingers bleed no matter how hard i train i cannot stop little children from dying because of stupidity please when you leave here please have an awareness that you don't play with guns they're not toys don't look at them you want to shoot shoot on a registered shooting range there's tons all over the world in america over here you want to really shoot join the israeli army but don't do it in a backyard and don't play with weapons guys you picked up shells some of you on the shooting range you actually i want you to know your arts as tourists you're allowed to take those shelves at the souvenir bullets are as a criminal offense to leave that gate with a bullet on your body is appreciated preston anthony k yeah me so mr certified your name is on the top that's completed a basic shooting training at caliber 3. my name is steve god they put me as the instructor i don't know why anyone guys there's a man here standing in the train tracks on you all certificates this man is standing in full israeli uniform anyone know where these train tracks are we have a program where we take our best soldiers until half million jews were killed in the holocaust six million jews one and a half in auschwitz six million jews in the holocaust i've got two words to say to my enemy never again not when we got our own nation not when we got our own military force when we have our own country never again israel surrounded by five countries that hate us guys kagai was standing on these train tracks when he was singing israeli national anthem he got a call on a satellite phone to come back to israel quickly he didn't even go home he went straight from auschwitz to the airport to his army base he kitted up in his uniform he went over the procedures with his soldiers and then he led them into combat i told you already commanders go in first in the israeli army the colonel goes first everyone else comes behind him it's inevitable that the commanders are the first to fall hagai went in and he was killed he was married for less than a year his widow was there to bury her husband both his parents were alive to bury one of their children my colonel his brother-in-law was there to bury his brother-in-law he also had a little sister his little sister was 12 years old when her big brother died she loved him very much so she kept this picture the very last picture they ever had of her guy they kept she kept this next to her bed she lives here in iraq until she went with her school to march of the living she went to poland she took the picture with her you know when she went into poland guys she went to auschwitz she didn't go inside the concentration camp she told me she walked along the train tracks you know why she did that she wanted to stand where her brother was once standing she wanted to be close with him one more time she told me she found the spot where he was she sat down there and she cried she couldn't control the tears but she said you know israelis are tough i don't want to cry i want to write down what i'm feeling so she took out a pen and paper this is what she wrote i don't have grandparents who survived auschwitz to tell me stories i don't have aunts and uncles who wrote an aflame to heaven i have a brother a brother who was in auschwitz but my brother did not stand here in rare clothes and fear in his eyes my brother stood here in uniform with a purple beret on his head and bars of a captain on his shoulder my brother did not ask what would happen today will we live or die my brother wanted to provide an answer for all of us for them and us but my brother like the million and a half people stood in this cursed place is not with us today he is looking down on us together with six other million pairs of eyes he is above us in heaven but my brother is not buried in a collective grave with thousands of people he was not burned or dumped into a grave my brother was buried with a flag draped over his coffin and shots of honor not fear rang out over his grave my brother is buried in her rehearsal my brother is buried with his brothers soldiers of the state of israel you know when i read but this little girl wrote i felt proud because she's proud she's proud that her brother died defending his country her brother died leading his soldiers into combat guys a guy died 11 years ago 10 years after his death one year ago now one and a half we rededicated this entire counter-terrorist academy in his honor this is called the captain hagai lev counter terrorist academy i was here at the ceremony you couldn't move where you standing now there were so many friends family every soldier he led in combat every soldier he trained was here tears in the eyes his little sister was here now not so little ten years later she's married with a kid but she's still crying i wanted to go up to her to give her words of comfort i don't know what to say i thought it was the right thing to do i walked up to her she looked me in the eyes and she told me something i'll never forget she said steve do you know that my big brother died protecting me his little sister i'm safe because my brother stood on the border and he made sure the bad people didn't come and hurt me i can have a family today in his merit guys i'll tell you we don't like morning more than just one year that's the jewish law after that we want to remember our loved ones as a blessing here's a picture of her as a proud soldier leading his soldiers into combat guys i'll tell you we're very proud some of the superpowers of the world come here to train in fact some of the countries that wouldn't help us 75 years ago they said jews are not allowed in here these are the same countries that come to israel now and say we have a terrorist problem will you teach us your techniques and what do we say absolutely i'll tell you guys we're not the best because we love training hard we're not the best because we love working i'll tell you why we're the best i'll tell you when i was a little boy i was in bernanke camp in south africa i stood in this huge sat down in the huge hall and we sang a beautiful song the song was israel you say twice a week when you take out the tauras mondays and thursdays this song talks about all your brothers the entire house of israel wherever they may be if they are in trouble hashem he should have mercy on them i remember being a little boy at camp closing my eyes and praying to hashem hamakom elohim please have mercy on every single jew every single soldier fighting for israel one day i made it into the israeli army and i'm standing on the border defending our country and my friend next to me bought out of his mind starts singing all of a sudden him singing took me all the way back to south africa and i thought about being a little boy thinking about soldiers and here i am standing sahel rdf on my chest standing here singing i stopped my friend and i asked him i said [ __ ] when you sing akenu our brothers what do you think about he said steve i think about all those jews who live outside of israel you know in the diaspora where you cannot walk around proudly as a jew because of anti-semitism where there's assimilation where it's tough to be a jew [ __ ] says god should have mercy on them isn't amazing being hashem all those little people at the naked camp in south africa all the people in our australia canada america they praying about their brothers standing on the border of israel and what are those soldiers on israel borders what are they thinking about or thinking about you it must be amazing being a kurdish baraku we're the best in the world because we care for one another never again are we gonna let a nice nation kill us like lambs to a slaughter not now we proud to be jews because i wanna thank you for coming it was an honor being all being your instructor come back to israel often guys this is your home but most importantly everyone please stay safe thank you guys hey is me is foreign thank you guys awesome thank you very much thank you for everything you do man thank you hey rabbi okay what if i say ma beautiful oh yeah thank you so they're about rabbi shmoel steve steve thank you for inspiration thank you very much absolutely