(JNS) “There isn’t a moment that I don’t speak of her or think of what could have been,” Rivana Tendler, the mother of Sgt. Maj. Keren Tendler, told JNS recently, almost 20 years after her death.
Sgt. Maj. Keren Tendler was a flight mechanic in a Yas’ur (CH-53) Sea Stallion heavy-lift transport helicopter squadron and the only female IDF soldier killed in an operational combat role during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
Tendler enlisted at 17, graduated from an Air Force course and was assigned to Tel Nof Airbase, where she trained and qualified as Israel’s first female helicopter flight mechanic, completing the program in January 2002. (She also became parachute-qualified.) A Yas’ur crew typically includes two pilots and two airborne mechanics, with a third mechanic added during combat operations.
“She completed missions inside and outside the country. She was very tired but enjoyed every minute,” her mother said. “During the huge fires in Greece in the 2000s, her commander called at 5 a.m. to ask if she wanted to fly there; she...
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