New IDF underwater combatants receive their pins — beneath the surface
After a full year of training, the newest fighters of the IDF’s elite Underwater Missions Unit (YALTAM) have completed their demanding course — and received their unit pins in a breathtaking underwater ceremony.
The journey to this moment is long, grueling, and packed with challenges. A training commander explained the five stages that turn a young soldier into an underwater operations fighter.
What seems to outsiders like an impossible ceremony is, for these soldiers, a natural step. After months of professional diving, they are fully prepared for a ceremony held on the seabed. As Master Sergeant M., a senior training commander, put it: “For us, it’s a very simple task.”
