Fifty years after Entebbe, it is time to remember Surin Hershko—the often-overlooked hero whose sacrifice did not end on the runway in Uganda.

As a young boy growing up in Antwerp, Belgium, one of my closest friends invited me to his older brother’s bar mitzvah.

Among the guests was a young Israeli whom I had never met. He was confined to a wheelchair, yet he was one of the happiest people in the room. His smile was infectious. He laughed with the family, celebrated with genuine joy, and seemed completely at home despite having traveled all the way from Israel.

I knew right away that I was in the presence of one of the heroes of the Entebbe rescue. Yet, as a child, I could never have imagined just how profoundly that night had shaped his life—or mine.

My friend’s parents had been among the Jewish hostages aboard the Air France flight hijacked to Entebbe in June 1976. Throughout the years, they recounted the miraculous rescue that had saved their lives. Whenever they told the story, one name was always mentioned with profound gratitude: Surin Hershko.

They told me that during the daring rescue operation, Surin Hershko personally escorted them toward one of the waiting Hercules transport aircraft. A minute or two later, he was struck by Ugandan gunfire. The bullet severed his spinal cord, leaving the twenty-one-year-old paratrooper permanently paralyzed.

He had surrendered the future he had imagined so that another Jewish family could continue theirs.

He never seemed to dwell on what he had lost.

Instead, he celebrated what they had gained.

At the time, I knew I was meeting a hero.

It took me many years to understand just how extraordinary a man he was.

This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of Operation Entebbe, one of the most daring military operations in modern history. Much has rightly been written about Lt. Col. Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu, the commander of the assault force whose death became synonymous with the mission. His........

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