Lieutenant General (Reserves) Dan Shomron, 13th IDF Chief of Staff, was laid to rest today in the Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv. The former chief of staff passed away yesterday morning, in the Beit Levinstein hospital in Ra’anana.  His funeral was attended by, amongst others, President Shimon Peres, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi and members of the General Staff Forum.

“I come today as defense minister and former chief of staff but foremost I come as a brother in arms that wishes to say one thing to Dan Shomron: Thank You,” said Defense Minister Ehud Barak. “Looking back, Dan Shamron was one the most courageous architects in the IDF. Dan was a man of results not just ideas, striving for victory was his achievement.”

Lieutenant General (res.) Dan Shomron was born  in Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov in 1937. In 1956 he was recruited to the Paratrooper Brigade and participated in operations and the Sinai Campaign. During the Six Day War he served as combat team commander that was mechanized in the Sinai and by the merit of his action during this war he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In July 1967 he was appointed Battalion Commander of the Paratroopers; in 1968 his rank was raised to Lieutenant Colonel. During the Yom Kippur War he commanded an Armored Brigade of compulsory service soldiers that played a central and effective role in battles that held the defense in the southern front of the Suez Canal. The brigade captured the Suez Canal and fought west of the Canal and completely surrounded the Third Egyptian Army south of the “Abbadiya” port. A year afterwards he returned to the Infantry Corps and was appointed head officer of the Infantry Corps and the Paratroopers.

On July 4th, 1976 he commanded Operation Entebbe, and in the same year Lieut. Gen. (res.) Shomron returned to the Armored Corps and was appointed to command the Armored Corps conscripts division in the Sinai that joined with the Armored Corps command course. In 1978, after he completed his studies at Tel Aviv University, he was appointed GOC of the Southern Command and supervised the changes of military and civilian distribution in the Sinai in accordance with the peace treaty with Egypt. In 1983 Lieut. Gen. (res.) Shomron was appointed the first commander of the Combat Corps Headquarters. Upon the establishment of the Combat Corps Headquarters, Lieut. Gen. (res.) Shomron said that, “these headquarters must be occupied with building the forces. Training the commanders to be independent, to take initiative, to be prepared to take responsibility and to take political risks, is the Combat Corps Headquarters’ main and overall outlook. In the end, it’s the lower ranking commanders who order the commands, it is their initiation and independent thought that are the necessary conditions to wining a war.”

In 1985 Lieut. Gen. (res.) Shomron was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff and was occupied with the changes in IDF deployment with the withdrawal from Lebanon and reduced the budget for military operations.

In 1987 he was appointed the 13th Chief of Staff of the IDF. During his service as the Chief of Staff, he led the IDF through the First Intifada and through the Gulf War. He concluded his IDF service as Chief of Staff in April 1991 and was then appointed Chair of the Administrative Council of the Military Industry. After the Second Lebanon War he was appointed to a leadership position on the panel that investigated how the General Staff functioned throughout the war.