66 years ago Shai Cohen served as a mechanic on the wooden ships • Now his 19-year-old grandson Omar is serving exactly the same job • Grandfather: "Today our fighters are ironmen too, but to my delight the ships have long been not wooden ships"

• Omar Cohen and Grandpa Shai

66 years after Shai Cohen served as a mechanic on the navy guard ships, his grandson Omar (19) completed his course on the "fighter in the West Bank" last Thursday and served in the same position as his grandfather.

"During our epoch, the Ironmen were on the wooden ships," says Shai, an 85-year-old resident of Tel Aviv. "Today our fighters are ironmen too, but to my delight the ships have long been not wooden ships."

Shay Cohen in his youth as a soldier on a cruise

Cohen served in 1955-1953 on the 5th Cruise, the Harpoon Cruiser. The grandfather's course was in the Air Force Technical, because at the time the engines of the ships were aircraft engines. At the end of the course he served on the guard ships.

"It wasn't a simple time," Shay says. "It's not like today. The Navy was a small force in its infancy then, and everything was patchwork.

"I remember that at the end of my service they left me a few more months when they took us to Ein Gedi, because it would have landed in the Dead Sea that its engines could not be cooled in Dead Sea water. Cool the engines. "

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Throughout the years, Shai passed on to his grandson Omar the love of the sea. Already at an early age Omar found himself in the youth movement of the Tel Aviv Sea Scouts, where he even served as a guide and remained until a few days before his recruitment last July this year.

Omar says excitedly: "I had no doubt for a moment that I would follow my grandfather to the sea arm, that's what I wanted all these years." The dream came true and became a reality, and he admits: "In the course, I realized that I had done the right thing and came to a place where I could combine both love for the sea and make a significant contribution to state security. I met people here who became my second family."