The cluster of extinct volcanoes known as Mount Hermon actually encompasses three mountain peaks, not one: they sit on the border between Lebanon and Syria, as well as the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Today, other than the wind, the summits are quiet. The air feels thin and the sunlight diluted; the vast slopes roll away into hazy views of three countries long roiled by war and internal strife.
On the Israeli side of Mount Hermon there is now a ski resort. But in 1973, when 20-year-old Nir Atir was stationed in the southern Golan, the view was very different. The tank platoon sergeant knew that the situation on the ceasefire line agreed six years before was tense, and that the Syrian army might attack. Like the rest of the country, however, he did not expect a full-blown war on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
