[“The Book I’ve Been Avoiding Writing” (a.k.a. “Three Years of Writing and 40+ Years of Thinking About The Lion’s Gate“) is a mini-series about the writing of my new book, The Lion’s Gate. Thanks for tuning in as it runs Mondays and Fridays over the next few weeks.]

Giora Romm was the Israel Air Force’s first fighter ace. He shot down five Egyptian MiGs in three days during the Six Day War. I have been hearing about Giora from every other pilot Danny and I have talked to. I’m a little nervous, now, meeting him for the first time. But from the minute he opens the door and invites us in, I feel completely at ease.

Girls' gymnastics at the Reali School in Haifa, 1938.

Giora is my size, my age, my build. Even his manner feels familiar. He could be my brother.

Giora, on the other hand, is uneasy. “So,” he says in excellent, slightly accented English as we settle into his living room in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ganey Yehuda. “What exactly do you want to talk about?”

Giora cites a magazine interview he did just two days earlier. (He is, today, a retired two-star general and director of Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority.) “It was for the military monthly of the IDF. One of those articles where they get old guys to tell: ‘What I Have Learned in Life.'”

“That’s a great place to start,” I say. “What was your answer?”

We begin by talking about Giora’s days in school.

When I was fifteen, I applied for and was accepted into a new military boarding school associated with the Reali School in Haifa. The Reali School was the elite high school in Israel. The military school was a secondary-school version of West Point. We attended classes at Reali in the morning and underwent our military training in the afternoon.

Giora was born in Tel Aviv in 1945, three years before the founding of the nation.

I don’t believe there is an institution in Israel today that can measure up to the standards of that school. Why did I want to go there? I wanted to test myself. At that time in Israel the ideal to which an individual aspired was inclusion as part of a “serving elite.”

The best of the best were not motivated by money or fame. Their aim was to serve the nation, to sacrifice their lives if necessary. At the military boarding school, it was assumed that every graduate would volunteer for a fighting unit, the more elite the better. We studied, we played sports, we trekked. We hiked all over Israel. We were unbelievably strong physically. But what was even more powerful were the principles that the school hammered into our skulls.

First: Complete the mission.

The phrase in Hebrew is Dvekut baMesima.

Mesima is “mission”; dvekut means “glued to.” The mission is everything. At all costs, it must be carried through to completion. I remember running up the Snake Trail at Masada one summer at 110 degrees Fahrenheit with two of my classmates. Each of us would sooner have died than be the first to call, “Hey, slow down!”

Second: Whatever you do, do it to your utmost. The way you tie your shoes. The way you navigate at night. Nothing is academic.

Third: En brera. “No alternative.”

We are Jews; we are surrounded by enemies who seek our destruction and the extermination of our people. There is no alternative to victory.

After an hour or so, we begin talking about the war, specifically the training of the fighter pilots. Giora flew in one of Israel’s three elite squadrons, under Major Ran Ronen, a legend in the air force.

In Squadron 119, Ran led us according to the same principles I had been taught at the military boarding school. Complete the mission. Perform every action to perfection. Follow through at any cost.

I ask Giora to explain what form Dvekut baMesima, “adherence to the mission,” takes in the experience of a fighter pilot. Here is his answer:

Egyptian MiGs destroyed on the ground by Israeli air strikes, 5 June 1967.

In the Six Day War our squadrons, in formations of four, attacked Egyptian air bases. The pattern was bomb, strafe, strafe, strafe. Each four-ship formation would make one bombing run aimed at knocking out the runways, then three strafing passes seeking to destroy enemy planes on the ground.

The system employed by Egyptian triple-A—anti-aircraft artillery—defending these fields was not to aim at the planes as they flew. Instead the gunners erected a “curtain” of anti-aircraft fire, through which you had to fly.

You can see triple-A. It looks like a lid, an angry reddish-gray lid over the runway. Believe me, to see that lid will make your heart beat and your palms sweat. You look down at it and you can’t believe anyone or anything can fly through that and survive.

But you do.

To do anything else is unthinkable.

That is devkut baMesima.

DO THE WORK

Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.

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THE AUTHENTIC SWING

A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.

The-Authentic-Swing

NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T

Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.

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TURNING PRO

Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"

Turning-Pro

11 Comments

  1. David Y.B. Kaufmann on June 13, 2014 at 3:32 am

    Wonderful insight and inside story. D’veykut is more than “glued to” – it’s hard to translate. But it’s something like “attached with an I breakable bond, essence to essence.” So here, in a sense, the pilot becomes one with the mission.

    Thank you, Steve. B’d’veykut

  2. Nancy Darling on June 13, 2014 at 6:21 am

    Hi Steven, I’ve been listening to Killing Rommel and I enjoyed it immensely. I was driving most of the time and kept wishing I had a map to follow. Can you recommend a map I can acquire? I especially enjoyed the parts where Chap discussed his realization of his true nature and also the descriptions of Rommel’s character. Thanks!

  3. Mary Doyle on June 13, 2014 at 6:38 am

    This series has been truly inspirational. In another decade or so these men will all be gone – kudos to you for capturing and sharing all of this while they are still here. Thank you for this, and for The Lion’s Gate too!

  4. yehudit rose on June 13, 2014 at 6:47 am

    You could write another book about your experiences researching for “Lions’ Gate”

  5. Chad on June 16, 2014 at 6:14 am

    This entire series of behind the scenes of The Lions Gate is fantastic. There are a few emails I look for in my inbox, and Steve’s newsletter is one of them.

    As an Army Infantry Veteran now in creative pursuits, every single story about The Lion’s Gate leaves me fired up.

    Inspiring work.

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    cool

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    As I am preparing competitive exams and my major subjects is American War History, I was read about this pilot but others details I could not find but here I find it every aspect of his story.
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