A Journey
by: Mia Delgo
I
of Resilience
n the scorching desert heat, a platoon of soldiers pushes through grueling training, surrounded by the constant barrage of commands. They must stay determined to successfully endure days of extreme pressure and physical exertion. Lior Delgo, 19 years old at the time, had been serving in the Israeli Defense Force for two years. To this day, he will never forget the physically and mentally grueling process of training he went through prior to being sent to Rwanda in a special forces unit on a humanitarian mission. Lior’s role in the Israeli delegation was far from ordinary. As part of a select unit of only 15 soldiers, they was tasked with a dual mission: ensuring the safety of the Israeli team and aiding the Rwandan population still reeling from the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. Never would he have imagined that this experience would equip him with the resilience and adaptability to eventually become successful in navigating through the dynamic corporate world of the Silicon Valley. Upon departing to Rwanda, Delgo and the rest of the delegation left in a Hercules plane carrying medical equipment and 89 different people: medics, nurses, aides, and administrative personnel. Prior to Delgo’s landing in Rwanda, the entire Israeli delegation received education of the cause and results of the genocide, including reports from the area about the conditions of the local population. Despite this information, witnessing the horrors that were taking place firsthand was still profoundly shocking. Delgo explains that, “immediately,
the suffering, the real condition of the population on the ground, the scale of the death and the casualties were very visible, very apparent.” As the plane touched down onto ruins of what once was an airport, a crowd of people, including children, rushed towards it, their faces showing desperation, begging for food and water. Delgo recalls his reaction to this tragic circumstance: “someone that was born into this situation, having no influence, understanding, impact, say, and yet has found themself in the worst, most devastating situation that one can experience on planet earth, is something that is heartbreaking.” In order to alleviate the suffering that surrounded them, the team set up a field hospital, an emergency care unit, and a mobile laboratory all within 18 hours. In fact, the delegation that worked alongside Delgo included individuals with diverse backgrounds, ranging from seasoned soldiers to experienced doctors who were used to seeing severe suffering and trauma. Even then, despite all of their prior experience and knowledge, seeing and experiencing the genocide first hand was beyond anything they had gone through or could have imagined. The experience of being at war is “an enveloping, sustained, extreme auditory experience that cannot be replicated in another setting,” continuing that, “someone who has never been to war, cannot really understand it” (Lambrecht).