Zvika Greengold Zvi " Zvika " Greengold ( ; born 10 February 1952 ) is a national hero in Israel who fought during the 1973 Yom Kippur War as an Israeli IDF tank commander . He is one of only eight people who fought in the war to be awarded the Medal of Valor , the nation ' s highest medal for heroism . He is also a politician , and currently Mayor of Ofakim . Yom Kippur War . Born and raised on Kibbutz Lohamey HaGeta ' ot ( , founded by Holocaust survivors of underground and partisan combat against the Nazis ) , twenty - one - year - old Lieutenant Greengold was home on leave when Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack on two fronts . He was not attached to any unit as he was about to take a course for company commanders . Once he realized war had broken out , he hitchhiked to Nafekh , a command center and important crossroads in the Golan Heights , where he initially helped with the wounded , as no tanks were available . When two damaged Centurion tank s were repaired , Greengold was put in charge of them and sent with hastily - assembled scratch crews down the Tapline Road . Greengold ' s " Koah Zvika " ( Zvika Force ) spotted Syrian tanks belonging to the 51st Independent Tank Brigade of the Syrian Army which had broken through the line and were advancing unopposed northwest along the road to Nafekh . Greengold ' s two tanks engaged the opposing T - 55 s at 2100 hours , with Greengold destroying six . Later , he had lost contact with his other tank when he spotted the advancing 452nd Tank Battalion . He engaged the enemy , taking advantage of the darkness and moving constantly to fool the Syrians into thinking the opposition was stronger than it was . Greengold destroyed or damaged ten enemy armoured vehicles before the confused Syrians withdrew , believing they were facing a sizable force . Even Greengold ' s superiors were deceived ; as the fighting wore on , he did not dare report how weak he actually was over the radio for fear it would be intercepted ; at best he could only hint " the situation isn ' t good " . At a time when Force Zvika was only one tank , Colonel Yitzhak Ben - Shoham , the brigade commander , assumed it to be " of at least company strength " . For the next 20 hours , he fought , sometimes alone , sometimes in conjunction with other tanks , displaying an uncanny knack for showing up again and again at the critical moment to tip the scales of a skirmish . He had to change vehicles " half a dozen times " as his tanks were knocked out . He soldiered on , even after he was wounded and burned . When Nafekh itself came under attack from a fresh force of T - 62 s , he rushed over to bolster the defense . In a lull in the fighting , an exhausted Greengold got out of his latest tank and dropped to the ground , murmuring , " I can ' t anymore . " Afterward , he claimed 20 enemy tanks destroyed ; other estimates place his tally at 40 or more . Post - war . Until 2008 , he lived in a Galilee hilltop village . He was one of the founders of the vegetarian food company Tivall and the managing director of Frutarom chemical company . In 2008 , he was elected mayor of the Israeli city of Ofakim . He regularly speaks to people in and out of Israel , mainly high school children , about his courageous acts in the Yom Kippur War .