Father & Son
By Dudu Levy Reich, Halochem Magazine
Mike Guy, whose right leg is amputated up to half of his pelvis, is a competitive wheelchair tennis player, an artist, takes part in off–the-beaten path jeep tours, studies Arabic at Beit Halochem, conducts voluntary activities for the benefit of soldiers in a military prison, acts as a representative of The Zahal Disabled Veterans Fund as well as other activities. Mike, who is going on 81, is a retired employee of the Defense Establishment where he worked for 35 years. He, together with his family, devotes much time to his second son Eran who suffered a severe head injury in car accident whilst serving with the elite Egoz commando unit of the Golani Brigade. But Mike looks at things positively and says, “my injury opened up a new and vibrant chapter in my life.”
About a year ago and a little before his 80th birthday, Mike decided that it was about time that he got a new tennis wheelchair custom-built for him – light and strong, which would answer his needs as a competitive player. “Although I have been playing wheelchair tennis for some 20 years, I never had a chair specifically built for me”, explains Mike with a smile: “I played with a second-hand chair which wasn’t built specifically for my needs and physical build. I didn’t have enough speed and mobility and I was sure that a custom-built chair would be highly beneficial to me.”
“So, I went to Mickey Uzai, the Director of the Tel Aviv Beit Halochem Sports Section, and explained my problem. He approved my request and the chair was built recently for me by Doron Shaziri, the Paralympic Shooting Champion who is a one-legged Zahal disabled veteran. Doron owns a workshop where he builds sports wheelchairs. I am now running it in and it’s great, and I have hopes for forthcoming tournaments!”
At 81 are you really a worthy opponent for players who are more than fifty years younger than yourself? ”Sure. I give a lot of them a good run for their money. I am considered to be one of the leading second level players and even in Open Doubles I am considered to be a pretty capable player especially as I play an aggressive net game. In the Israel Wheelchair Tennis Championships, a couple of years ago I won the Second Row title against a player who was 25-years old and last year I won the second row Doubles title with my partner. I also play regularly at least twice a week and all the players are much younger than me – the next oldest is in his fifties! My trainer Nimrod Bichler said that I am probably the oldest competing wheelchair player in the world – and certainly in Israel.”
Mike, who is amputated up to half his pelvis (right leg) due to a rare cancer which occurred when he was an active member of the defense and security services, comes to Beit Halochem in Tel Aviv several times a week but does not confine himself only to the tennis courts. Because of his knowledge of languages and broad life experience, he acts as a devoted Ambassador of the Zahal Disabled Veterans Fund and acts energetically to further the aims and objectives of the Fund. He is frequently asked to accompany groups of overseas donors and their families when they visit Israel. He also does terrain jeep tours almost every month with a group of friends. “I drive using my left leg only and we drive all over the country off the beaten track.” He has also had several art exhibitions at Beit Halochem (and elsewhere as well as having his paintings reproduced in the Annual Israel Art Calendar). Recently, he started studying Arabic in a course at Beit Halochem.
Mike enjoys going to Beit Halochem with his grandchildren. “The swimming pool and all the other special facilities are what make makes Beit Halochem so special”, he explains. “When you are amputated and missing one leg there’s an immense difference in taking the grandchildren to a pool in a country club used by everybody where I can’t use some of the facilities and am also different physically from the rest of the people there or taking them to the pool at Beit Halochem. Bet Halochem is so convenient as it is fully accessible. I am just one more handicapped person amongst a lot of others.
When you only have one leg it makes an immense difference to take your grandchildren to a public swimming pool where I can’t use some of the facilities and I also look different from the rest of the people there, or on the other hand to go with them to the pool at Bet Halochem where I am just another person with a physical handicap….
”When my grandson’s sports teacher asked him to write about a famous sportsman he said he wanted to write about his Grandfather – me .The teacher’s curiosity was aroused and he invited me to come and meet the class, talk to them about playing wheelchair tennis and I gave them a demonstration on the wheelchair without a prosthesis and wearing a ZDVO track suit. The kids lined up and I hit a few balls with each one. It was a very exciting and moving event and the kids came away with a completely new attitude towards disabled people.”
From London to Israel
Much of Mike’s life remains untold. He was born in 1936 in Belgium to an orthodox and Zionist family of diamond merchants. When he was four years old and on the day that the German Army invaded Belgium, France and Holland in May 1940, the family embarked on a two-month long escape from Antwerp via France and Portugal to England, surviving bombing and machine-gun attacks by German fighter bombers. “Luckily, we were granted entry to England through the help of my mother’s family and due to the fact that my father, who was a diamond merchant, had an office in London from before the war. Due to German bomb attacks on London (two bombs fell near the house, but we survived) the family moved to the country till the end of the war and then back to London.”
Mike was much influenced by the War of Independence, the new Jewish State and the fighting spirit of the Israelis, and knew from an early age that he would make Aliya. In 1956 he studied Economics and International Relations for one year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, went back to London to study for his BSc degree in the same fields at University College. He became a member of the Israeli Students Association in London and also worked from time to time at the Israeli Embassy during the holidays. On completing his studies, he made aliya to Israel. Shortly after his arrival he joined the army within the framework of Mahal (foreign volunteers) in the Nahal Corps and then went on to serve in the Paratroopers Brigade.
Following his military service, Mike went down to Yeruham, an early development township in the Negev Desert and worked in the phosphate company for a few months. On a visit to Jerusalem, he met a friend who worked in the Foreign Office who told him about an interesting government job which he thought he was suited for with his background – especially knowledge of languages including English, French, and German. He applied, and this was the beginning of 35 years of fascinating work in the Defense Establishment.
Injury and rehabilitation
With all this, Mike took part in the Six Day War in the West Bank and on the Golan Heights with the Reserve Paratroopers Brigade. In the Yom Kippur War he was active on the Southern Front along the Suez Canal and beyond in ”Africa” (Egypt, west of the Canal). Mike married his wife Rachel shortly before the Yom Kippur War. Rachel, 13 years younger than Mike, had served in the Air Force. Her father, Dr. Yehuda Eisenman, was the leading Rehabilitation doctor in Israel building prosthesis for soldiers from the War of Independence and until after the Yom Kippur War. They went to live in Givataim where they raised their three sons – Shahar (43), served in the Paratroopers Brigade, Eran (38), and Eyal (35) both of whom served in Egoz.
You suddenly find yourself using a prosthesis and you aren’t a young soldier doing his national service who has to cope with this injury, but you are in your mid־fifties with a family, children’ and work.” – a very unusual situation.
When Mike was 56, and just returned from abroad and about to start a new job in his organization, he got some bad news. His right leg broke in a training accident and it turned out that this was due to a severe and rare cancer which eventually affected his pelvis. “I finally flew to the United States where there were experts in my type of cancer and they advised me that if I wanted to live a long life, the leg should be amputated as high as possible. So, I said – ok, take it off as high as necessary. I underwent a 13-hour operation in which my leg was removed up to half the pelvis. I was later fitted with a somewhat difficult prosthesis which permits me to walk. The doctors who treated me – at least those who are still alive – are amazed time and again that I survived and that I manage to walk with this special prosthesis and can use it during a whole day’s activities. I am considered somewhat of a rehabilitation phenomenon.”
Did the amputation change your career in public service?
“To some extent, but I was already near retirement age and nearing the end of my career and was supposed to start a new position for a couple of years before retiring. However, I did go back to work for another four active years but couldn’t do what I had wanted to do prior to my injury. In some ways it was disappointing as I had always been very fit – doing a lot of sport and training. Suddenly you find yourself in the unusual situation of being in your fifties – not a young-soldier who has been injured, but – with a wife and children and work, and having to use a prosthesis. However, the injury opened up a whole new and amazing life for me – including entering the world of Beit Halochem and the ZDVO.”
In the year 2000, on the eve of Hanukkah, the Guy family suffered a severe blow when their middle son, Eran, who was doing his national service as a soldier in the elite Egoz unit, was terribly injured in a car accident when he and other soldiers in his unit were given a short leave – two of his friends were killed and Eran suffered very bad head injuries.
“Eran is a very ideological person”, says his mother Rachel. “He served in the army within the framework of combined Yeshiva – Army, he was an outstanding soldier who was appointed as a “young” section commander (before actually doing a Section commander’s course) in the 12th Golani Regiment and then was sent to Platoon Commander Course following, which he went back to the Maaleh Gilboa Yeshiva for a year. He then decided he wanted to serve in Egoz having managed to persuade his regimental commander to release him (which he was reluctant to do as Eran was an outstanding soldier – “hayal miztayen”).”
The accident happened on a winter’s evening three months after Eran started serving in Egoz”, adds his father Mike. “They were on parachute course and due to the bad weather training was cancelled. Eran and his friends organized some cars and left the base for an evening’s leave to visit a friend nearby. An irresponsible woman driver coming from the opposite direction lost control of her car and smashed into them – two of his friends were killed and Eran was terribly injured.”
Coping bravely with the situation
Eran suffered grave head injuries, one eye was totally destroyed and the other has some impairment to his vision. He hovered between life and death for a long period of time. After several operations and treatment in the Neurosurgical Department of Tel Hashomer Hospital, he was transferred to Bet Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital where he stayed for about two years. After being released he came home and went daily for further rehabilitation (mainly cognitive) to the Feuerstein Centre in Jerusalem.
Currently he goes four times a week to the Marguza Zahal Rehabilitation Centre for head-injured soldiers in Jaffa, being taken there (in rotation) by his three very devoted attendants – and this is perhaps an appropriate moment to say a big ” thank you” to them who are caring for him 24 hours a day, seven days a week year in and year out and on whom Eran and we are dependent – and thereby making his and our lives bearable. Despite his situation Eran participates regularly in activities with the young disabled members of ZDVO in Tel Aviv.
“He also participates in special jeep trips run by Yoav Levite in conjunction with Beit Halochem,” explains Rachel. “Eran continues doing occupational therapy, therapeutic horse riding, he also enjoys rifle-shooting and table tennis at Beit Halochem. Although Eran suffers from speech difficulties, he does understand everything – an interesting conversation or lecture can enthrall him.”
With all this Mike finds time to follow a wide range of voluntary activities, some of which he initiated and leads. For example, he volunteered some twenty years ago to work in the Hagana Museum archives mainly on documents of the British CID from the time of the British Mandate and up to the establishment of the State of Israel, which were left behind when the British left the country. He is also a member of the Association for the Preservation of the Heritage of the First World War in Palestine in particular, and the Middle East, in general.
The highlight of Mike’s voluntary activities in the last eight years is the project he runs to be “a listening ear” to soldiers in “Military Prison 4”. “We are a team of some eight pensioners, ex-colleagues of mine, who come to the prison every week to listen to the problems of the prisoners as well as running workshops for them (and suitable workshops for some of the staff), Our main aim is to return the prisoners to their unit so that they can complete their military service in a positive way. We also help some to organize themselves in civilian life once they have left the army.”
And what is your role in this group?
“I initiated the whole project. I direct the activities of the volunteers and also run art workshops for the prisoners almost every week. One can feel the very positive influences of our activities with the soldiers. We bring them to open up and talk about themselves and their problems. Our greatest satisfaction was when we were told that thanks to our activities there was a significant decrease in the number of soldiers who returned to the prison for a second time – that’s in fact our main objective.”
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