Living on a field base, Imun Palam, and overall thoughts.

Where I last left off, I mentioned that I was looking forward to being on a base down south for a couple weeks. Little did I know that this would be a field base, in the middle of nowhere, which several times did not even have running water, let alone hot water. We were also staying in large tents which we haven’t used in a long time. Sandstorms due to very strong winds were a normal occurrence. By far, the funniest thing that happened was on one of the first nights we were there. It was around 4 AM, and already several times I was woken up by the strong winds. All of a sudden, I hear a loud clanking sound, followed by very angry screams. Apparently, the tent right beside us was blown over and collapsed on top of everyone while sleeping. 

The funnier part is that it was a tent of fighter soldiers mixed in with around 5-7 drivers from the unit. It is known that the drivers are fairly lazy people and not the nicest. So while the combat soldiers spent the next hour screaming at each other trying to put the tent up in the dark of night, the drivers just stayed in bed pretending to sleep.

Food for this month was the usual field rations – tuna, corn, beans, pickles, halva, and canned fruit, with the occasional hot meal from a nearby base. This time though, I was prepared. You’d be surprised at how good tuna tastes with a little bit of lemon juice and sweet chilli, even after eating it for 3 meals a day for a couple weeks. There were no bathrooms either, although because it was a field ‘base’ and not exactly the field, I guess they felt it necessary to bring outhouses. It wasn’t exactly the smartest idea – reason number one: half of them were blown over by the wind, with their contents leaking out. Reason number 2: because we were in the middle of nowhere, they only came to empty/clean the outhouses once a week, if that. After the first days, I just reverted to ‘field habits’. And it was definitely the better way to go.

One of the weeks at this field base was spent concentrating on the role of the mifkada, or unit headquarters, during wartime. Let me just say that while many people, including myself, often disrespect the mifkada, if there is a war, they perform a job just as important as the fighters, and work just as hard. This obviously isn’t the case for the day to day life of the mifkada, which is a picnic relatively to the fighting platoons. Most of the week I spent commanding a Nagmash, or APC (armoured personnel carrier). It really is quite enjoyable, kind of like going on a jeep ride in the middle of the desert, driving over sand dunes and such. You also get to wear one of these nicely padded helmets.

Of course, the helmet is not padded to make it more comfortable to wear; it is padded to protect the radio equipment inside. Obviously, army bureaucracy was still there to ruin the fun. On the first day, we were told to be in the APC at 9 AM, which for some reason required a 6 AM wake up. After waiting half an hour, we left and went back to the tents to wait. This cycle happened another 4 times during the day, until finally at 12:30 midnight, a full 15 hours later, we actually left for the exercise. A typical day in the Israeli army...

The 2 weeks before pesach were probably the most frustrating I’ve had since I began in the army. It took a full week of asking my officer several times a day to speak to the platoon commander so that I can fly home for dental school interviews for him to finally meet with me. I had a huge argument with him because he didn’t want to let me go. His argument was that I was already gone for 3 weeks in November, and another 4 days beginning of March. He had the chutzpah even to say that because I am finishing the army this August, I don’t need to travel. It was very rough trying to reason with them. Logically, I was still entitled to another month because that first 3 weeks counted towards my first year. Even if I wasn’t allowed to fly, I still could not believe that they would actually not let me go to the interviews and make me waste a full year waiting for the next school year to start. Maybe it was their way of secretly trying to get me to stay more time in the army. Regardless, in the end it was a combined effort from many people, including one particularly high ranking officer, making a couple phone calls on my behalf to the battalion commander to let me go. Doesn’t matter how many times you hear it, I’ll repeat it once more so it sinks in. Whether you’re right or not, many things in this army run on proteksia (connections) so it never hurts to have access to those people to help you out when you need them. And yes, at some point during army service, every soldier will need it.

On an unrelated note, a couple weekends ago was the scheduled ‘flytilla’, where many pro-Palestinian activists were supposed to arrive in Israel to protest the usual issues. Israel apparently learned from their PR mistakes of the past, this time preventing the activists from boarding the airplanes in their countries of origin. In true Israeli style, they put their own cynical twist on it, apparently passing on this letter to those who were not allowed to board their flights. http://honestreporting.com/flytilla-fails-to-take-off/. Must have made some people pretty upset...

Since my service lasts only 2 years as opposed to the regular 3, I am getting to that point when I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and can’t stop counting down the days until the end. Thinking about how Israelis do a full 3 years or more (girls are required to serve 2) makes me respect them even more – doing my 2 years was hard enough, I don’t think I would’ve survived the full three. At the same time, I definitely value everything I've done over the past year and a half and do not regret any minute of it. However, the army schedule eventually gets so routine that people sometimes resort to doing very ridiculous things. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJs1zNmPOw0. I guess this was supposed to be the paratroopers’ response to the video of Nachal troops dancing to Tik Tok a while back. At least we weren't stupid enough to start dancing in the middle of Hebron like Nachal did!

I am now back in Israel after 2 awesome weeks at home, on base for the weekend, as well as Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut, for the second year in a row. At least this time around I’m not celebrating by doing a 50km march.... I also have a pretty good chance of being off base for the upcoming Lag Ba’omer and Shavuot Celebrations, which should be good.

Tafkid (?), Course Tznicha, Tarhat, and living in a shipping container!

Finishing the commander’s course left me on a real high for two reasons. First, completing the course means that I am now officially a commander (with the rank of sergeant) and second, because it finally allowed me to take a trip home, after not being there for over a year. It was bittersweet because I had to spend the first week or so studying for the DAT, but I still can’t complain.

Being home for these couple weeks allowed me the time to think about what I still want to accomplish in my second year of service. It was obvious – finally do the 2 week long parachuting course (yes, I have been in the paratroopers for a year already and still have not jumped out of a plane) and of course get a job (tafkid) as a commander. Getting them to send me to the parachuting course didn’t take much convincing. In fact, even if I didn’t ask for it they would have sent me anyways because we have a Tarchat (Brigade wide exercise) coming up in which around 1000 soldiers are parachuting and in their minds, the more the merrier.

Getting a tafkid, however, was not what I expected. Apparently, the rumours that I heard about them wanting me to become an intelligence officer were true, and supposedly that was the reason they sent me to the commanders course in the first place. After much debate with the Magad (battalion commander), it was decided that I would continue down the path of becoming an intelligence officer, although I made it VERY clear that I wouldn’t sign more time in order to do it. So as of now, I am sort of a jobnik, or to be more ‘politically correct’ a tomech Lechima, or combat support, in the intelligence of the unit. The main advantage of being there, as I see it, is a huge increase in tash (service conditions), having to stay on base much less, and requiring much less guard duty. The main disadvantage of it is that I am now in a different place than all my friends who I went through training with, and in general, the people who end up in the mifkada, unit headquarters are often not the best people. At least I am still technically considered a lochem.

After completing the parachuting course, I can finally say that I look like a real Tzanchan, having now received my wings! 

This is by far the best course you can do in the army, especially if you do it after your training (so you are there without having to answer to any commander except the group instructor). As if only having a schedule from 8 in the morning to 6 in the afternoon wasn’t good enough, most of the day you also see all the soldiers from tironut (basic training) being forced to run around organizing and cleaning their gear non-stop and do unnecessary tasks to fill up the remaining time in the day so they don’t sleep more than the normal 6 hours a night. The first week consisted of learning all about the parachute and how to resolve the many problems that can arise in mid-air. The majority of the week was spent jumping from towers and practicing how to open the reserve parachute and release your sak chazeh, your equipment bag. 

Normally, during an operation, everyone jumps with a large bag which ends up dangling a couple meters below your legs. In this bag you pack your gun and vest, and whatever else you need to take with you to the field. At first it is attached directly to your legs, and after jumping out of the plane, you have to release it. If not released in time (before you land), in the words of the instructor, 'the best thing you can hope for is not to break both your legs'. As if the whole exercise wasn't stressful enough...

The tower seen in this video (and yes that is me jumping) is one of the worst inventions ever. 

While it does help simulate the feeling of jumping from the airplane, it hurts significantly more than the actual jumps. There’s a reason why they call it ‘The Eichmann’, as you can see with my head flopping like that after I jumped. One of the many funny things during the course is seeing everyone after the course with huge hicky-like wounds across the sides of their necks from the rope harnesses burning them.

For my second and third jumps, I decided to be the first to jump. This means that for a couple minutes before people start jumping, you are standing there in the door with one foot and one hand outside the plane, waiting, on the verge of peeing in your pants, until finally you feel that not so small nudge to signal that it’s time to jump. Sometimes, if the plane isn’t aligned with the landing area, you need to wait for the plane to circle back and then you can jump. It doesn’t sound so bad until you’re standing in the door expecting to jump at any second. Then instead of the usual tap on your back you all of a sudden feel several hands grabbing you and pulling you back, all the while you get flustered and think it’s time to jump so you resist a little. But if you ask my opinion, jumping first is definitely worth it, especially compared to the alternative. If you are towards the end of the group, you see all your friends ‘fall out’ of the door within several seconds and have just enough time to think ‘what if...’ before you are pushed out too.

During the last jump, my friend actually brought up a very funny point. He has never flown anywhere, having lived in Israel his whole life. He said that he loves flying in the airplane, except for once he would like to reach the ground actually still in the plane. For those who will be doing this course, I highly recommend bringing a camera with during one of the jumps; it definitely makes for some amazing pictures and videos. I ended up filming two jumps while in the air, and for some reason, both times I ended up bumping into people midair, which is actually quite dangerous. I guess there’s a reason why they tell you that you’re not allowed to bring a camera, but where’s the fun in that!  For those of you who want to see these videos, you’ll have to ask me in person.

As for my current job in the army, it’s quite boring. I am not allowed to mention all of what I do, but often I feel like I am back in an elementary school arts and crafts class, except I make much more important things than drawings and school projects. My work is very sporadic. In the week before the brigade-wide exercise, I did more work than I have in the past two months. The good thing about my job is that at least when there is something big/important, like this exercise, I am still going out to the field with the rest of the unit.

 As I mentioned before, the reason why I didn’t have to put up much of a fight for the parachuting course is because at the beginning of January we had a brigade wide training exercise, in which around 1000 soldiers parachuted. This video sums it up quite well. Play close attention to 5:56, where you can see a soldier dragging his bag because it was simply too heavy to carry. Good thing they didn’t catch me on film.... The walk to the plane, as well as standing with that bag for the minutes before the jump was among the harder things I’ve done in the past year. My bag weighed in at more than 45 kg, and that didn’t even include the 20 kg for the parachute and reserve parachute. One of the other people who was carrying the same gear as me didn’t even end up jumping out of the plane because he pulled something in his back, just from standing with his gear for 5 minutes before jumping. Also of interest is around 10:50, where people start jumping, and many people are literally pushed out of the plane because they weigh too much with their gear on to allow them to jump. I guess these people must have been among the ~5% of people who got injured according to the stats.

The brigade-wide exercise was a little bit too hyped up, if you ask me. For weeks before, it felt like that was all the army, or at least the infantry wing of the army, was talking about. Once you jump out of the plane, it is really just like any other day and a half long exercise in the field. As always, the cold at night-time was unbearable. So cold that during the short downtime that we had between drills, me and my friends would fight about who would be stuck at the end of the ‘spooning chain’ with one side exposed to the cold. I guess the most remarkable part of it was that the army actually parachuted 1000 battle ready soldiers out of an airplane over a couple hours and that it went fairly smoothly. Although the paratroopers have parachuted only once in a real operation (55 years ago), I suppose it’s a good ability for an army to have, just in case.

As of now, we have officially left Hebron and are now in the middle of our 3 month imun (‘refresher’ training) up north in the Golan Heights. It is much colder here than anticipated, having even snowed once or twice already. 

It doesn’t help that we are living in the equivalent of a shipping container, with no heating either. Some rooms, if you can call it a room, don’t even have windows and instead have the holes where the windows should be, covered in tape to attempt to keep out the cold. At least we have one month of training on a base down south to look forward to...

Course makim, One year in Israel, and Gilat Shalit!!

So....I guess keeping this up was harder than I expected. But after a couple months, I am finally done course makim (the commander’s course)!!

Overall, the course was definitely a learning experience. It definitely attains the goal of preparing each of us to be a squad commander in wartime.  The problem with the course is that while you certainly learn a lot about being a commander professionally (lots of training exercises in the field), you are not necessarily taught how to be a commander on a day to day basis. By that I mean that in a couple weeks time, I could be put in charge of 10-15 new recruits and be responsible for each one of them every second of the day, and it definitely won’t be easy, at least at first. One thing that I have definitely learned over the course, as well as throughout my training, is what NOT to do as a commander. At the same time, I definitely feel like I have acquired the tools needed to succeed as a commander, and I know that once I start my job, wherever it will be, it will come to me naturally.

One of the best parts about the course is that now that we’ve shown we’re mature enough to be commanders, we’re given much more independence. Every morning, we're told the entire day's schedule. Don’t forget that it’s still the army, so it’s a schedule with the fine print of ‘subject to change a million times a day’. Nonetheless, it’s still a pretty good outline of the day and definitely an improvement over the previous 8 months of training where we had to report to someone every couple minutes. The general approach is very good - we're not given limited times to do everything. When there’s dead time, which happens very often everywhere in the army, we aren't given completely unnecessary tasks to do (not all the time at least), like we were previously. As a result, I've probably read more books in the last month than I have in the past year, which is a good thing.

Part of the training included weeks in the field training in different types of terrain including open field (shetach patuach), overgrown, bushy terrain, built up, urban areas, and more. During the open field week, I was the negevist. It was my first time experiencing the full brunt of this weapon and its accessories, the whole 30 kg of it, carried with you sometimes for exercises lasting up to 3 hours at a time, but it was definitely an experience. Although hard to imagine, you get used to the weight pretty quickly. The hard thing is getting used to the night vision you use, which covers only one eye. As a result, you lose your sense of depth and have to 'check how soft the ground is' so to speak, quite a few times before you can move about properly. People must have gotten a good laugh out of watching me when I first started walking. I probably looked no better than a drunk stumbling along the street late at night. But once you do adapt to it and learn how to walk properly with it on, nothing beats being able to see EVERYTHING going on around you while it is pitch black outside and your friends see nothing.

Our time exercising in wild, thick, and bushy terrain (סבך) was definitely one of the most difficult things I've done. One drill, in particular, will never be forgotten. In short, while the actual exercise only lasted about 30 minutes, getting there was a 3 hour process to cover just 3 kilometers. The reason: we were walking through unkempt, dense terrain. And when I say dense, I mean walking through bushes taller than me, shrubbery so thick that you get caught in so many branches that you can’t get out, even going back the direction you came from. Even worse, you can’t exactly pull the branches out of the way because they are covered in sharp thorns that get caught in your gear, not to mention poke you everywhere. I was leading the way for our group, ahead of our commander because I was with the negev. At some points I would simply get to areas where it was like a wall of bushes in front of you. I would turn around to my commander asking him where to go and he would look at me strangely as if the answer was clear, telling me to keep going straight through. Several times my commander, who was walking right behind me, had to take his gun and start hacking at the branches in order to get me out of the branches that were preventing me from advancing. It definitely taught me a thing or two about perseverance, army style.

Our training in urban terrain was definitely among the more useful things we learned during the course. Unfortunately, due to interruptions in our earlier training, our exposure to urban terrain was cut short so this definitely filled in the gaps. Starting from scratch, we progressed from taking a room in pairs to taking houses, to taking entire areas of a city. It really was amazing seeing so many people working side by side to conquer such relatively small areas. The highlight of the week for me was definitely participating in a complex exercise that seemed to me like a very high tech game of laser quest. It consisted of many hummers driving around, each one meant to simulate an entire division of troops for both sides of the battle. Each hummer was supplied with the equivalent of those vests you get at laser quest, and also a weapons system which you had to use to ‘shoot’ at the enemy. As soon as your hummer is hit, you are down. After the whole exercise is done, which takes a long time because it includes the whole ‘trip’ to the enemy and back to ‘friendly’ territory, the whole thing is analyzed to learn new strategies. While I did learn a lot from it, I was a simple pawn for the day, helping out with directing the hummer that I was in. I had a lot of fun being in the hummer driving up and down very large sand dunes, me being responsible for steering the driver in the right direction so that she doesn’t hit any large boulders and stuff. It also made for some cool pictures! 

The course was also filled lots of running and personal fitness exercises. Seeing as how I could be responsible for whipping new recruits into shape within a month, it would be pretty pathetic if I can’t keep up with them on a simple run. We progressed from running just 2 kilometers at the beginning of the course to a final run of 10 kilometers. As I have learned very well over the past year in the army, despite how often they tell you that the exercise is gradual and you will work up to it, somehow things always get complicated along the way. Sometimes we would run 3-4 times a week, and sometimes once in 2 weeks. But somehow, everyone managed to complete the 10 kilometer run at the end of the course, and it was great! We have also continued to run the obstacle course that we used to do in basic training, just with a small catch. It is now combined with a simple shooting test at the end, after you’re breathing very, very heavily. So in order to pass it, you have to hit at least 4 out of 6 bullets on target at the 50 meter mark. Luckily for me, I really did put effort into the runs that we were doing throughout the course, so the actual running of the obstacle course didn’t pose a problem. I improved from the 9 minutes 40 seconds I was doing in basic training to as low as 8 and a half minutes for the whole obstacle course. The catch is that one of the reasons I improved so much was that I ended up doing it 6 times throughout the course. Each time I would run it well, and then get to the shooting range and simply not be able to hit the target. I kept telling my commanders that it was because my gun wasn’t calibrated (meaning where I was aiming was not actually where the bullets were hitting) but they said to keep trying. Finally after doing the entire exercise 5 times over the course of the past 2 months, we were given a chance towards the end of the course to calibrate our guns. After doing that, I got through the obstacle course and hit 6 for 6 at the shooting range. Of course, nobody listened to me that my gun wasn’t calibrated but that didn’t matter now. Looking at the bright side, at least I will never have trouble getting over the wall or climbing up the rope...

Amidst all my ‘fun in the army’, I almost didn’t realize that I have passed the 1 year mark of being in Israel (since August 3^rd), and have almost completed one year in the army. Reflecting on this past year and comparing where I was before to where I was now, I have no regrets. The last year in the army and in Israel has been filled with so many challenges and new experiences that I could have never expected. When I first started the army, we would be given a task (like walking 80 km) or hear a ridiculous rumour about something you do in your army service and just think it’s not possible. Now, no matter what we’re told, the approach is just ‘okay, that’s hard, but I’ve been through worse, you just gotta do it’. You get to a point in your service when the tasks you are given, while very difficult and maybe even sometimes physically painful, just don’t seem that bad, no matter how hard it may actually be. Once during basic training when we were given a task to do and we said that it just wasn’t possible, my officer yelled at us saying that everyone just has to imagine they have a big ‘S’ on their chest, like superman, and that they can do anything. While it did sound corny at the time, I think I have gotten to that point, and whatever needs to be done will be completed. Over the past year, I have met so many amazing people who go through so much and make such large sacrifices to do what they do, that it really makes you appreciate what you have in life.

Which brings me to this week, and the most amazing thing that happened on Tuesday – Gilad Shalit returning home!!! I’m not sure what the media coverage abroad was like, but all I can say is that I am happy that I was in Israel for it. Over several consecutive hours of watching the news, nothing else was mentioned besides the events surrounding his release. Seeing the pictures of him landing in Israel, meeting Bibi Netanyahu and finally being reunited with his family were so heart-warming. While I do understand the ramifications freeing 1000 terrorists does have for Israel, both for those directly affected by them in the past and also the consequences for the future, I think Israel did make the right choice. From my standpoint, nothing can beat the feeling that an Israeli citizen, especially a combat soldier, feels, knowing that Israel will do anything to bring it’s people home and leave no one behind. For those of you who missed all the coverage, there are many videos posted on youtube of the entire thing. I also encourage you to read this opinion piece, which I think had an interesting angle. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4136659,00.html

As for me, I am happy to be finished my course and excited to start a new chapter in my army service. Early this week I will hopefully get a final answer on what tafkid (job) I will have for the next couple months – whether I will be a commander for new recruits just starting basic training, or a commander of soldiers who have already completed their ~8 months of training. Equally as important, I will hopefully be finalizing plans to fly back to Toronto for a visit and I expect to be back this week! So stay tuned to facebook for that!

Shavua Milchama (War week), Masa Kumpta (Beret March), Special vacation, a taste of Imun, and the Commanders Course!

Since my last entry, a lot of things have changed. Now that I have finished war week and my beret march, I am a considered a combat soldier for all purposes, on the same level as any other soldier (unless you ask those who have been serving for 2 or 2.5 years already who will say otherwise just to make themselves feel better having a year more experience but being no more qualified). I now get less condescending looks when traveling on public transit because the red beret shows that I have at least finished my 7 month period of training. In that sense, within the army hierarchy, I guess I have moved up from the 'basar tari' stage (fresh meat) to the 'tzair' stage (young) on the scale of service time in the army, which still doesn't say much.

The anticipation leading up to war week was unbearable. Many times when asked about the hardest period of their training, soldiers will often say war week. For paratroopers, it is a full week (7 days from Monday to Monday) of non-stop hard work, except of course for a break for Shabbat. Impressions of the week often include things along the lines of ‘the hardest thing you will do in your service’, or ‘I hope you’re ready for the ass-whooping of a lifetime’, or even comments such as ‘you will be torn a new asshole’. So as you can see, you can’t really blame me for being so nervous for the week to start. However, my overall impression of the week was that it really wasn’t so bad, except that may just be in hindsight. The week included many platoon wide exercises, which combined the work of not just our infantry unit but also helicopters and tanks. In general, we spent most of the night doing exercises, and for anywhere from 3 to 6 hours during the day we would get time to sleep under a hastily made shade area because it was simply too hot to continue. Of course, sleeping outside in 35 degree weather whether in the shade or sun is difficult in itself, but you learn to take advantage of it after being awake the entire night. In between exercises, we would have marches of anywhere from 2-10 km, in full gear of course. To simulate wartime, where people often carry tons of extra weight, everyone was weighed fairly accurately so that they were carrying an additional 40% of their body weight on them, which for me was around 32 kg (or 70 pounds) of weight on me for most of the week, including those walks in between exercises.

Ironically, one of the toughest parts of the week, for me at least, was simply eating. After 7 days straight (minus Shabbat where we got smoked turkey/salami) of eating 3 meals a day that essentially consist of tuna sandwiches, it got pretty hard to bear the taste and smell of tuna. But as is most effectively taught in the army, you just learn to accept it, deal with it, and move on. The week finished late morning on the 7^th day, with a seemingly never ending stretcher march of around 10 km back to base. Of course, around halfway through the march, when everyone starts to get excited because the area around you begins to look familiar, we take a small detour and come to a stop, where we are explained the meaning of the Hebrew word ‘baltam’ ( (בלתם, short for ‘bilti metuchnan’ (בלתי מתוכנן), meaning unplanned, or unexpected. As I have learned the hard way for the past 8 months in the army, כל תכנית בצבא זה בסיס לשינוי. Every plan in the army is a basis for change. And so, we were told that instead of continuing to the base, we would continue walking a different direction to where we had to complete one more platoon wide exercise (which take on average 2 hours). Hearing this was mentally crushing, especially after the sense of euphoria from finishing such a gruelling week started to kick in. Looking around I could tell that everyone was done mentally. But of course, as is the case with everything, there was no choice but to keep going. Thankfully, it was just meant as a psychological challenge, and after a 5 minute detour we began to hear music playing at a distance, and realized the end was near. Showering, and even just being able to sit down with nothing on your back never felt so good!

A week later we had our masa kumta, or 80 km march for our red berets. This is the most anticipated part of our training, with the red beret being THE symbol of Tzanchanim. This march went by fairly smoothly, being more of a routine than anything else, consisting of around an hour of hard work, and then about 10 minutes to down a 750 ml water canteen and eat a small snack before the next hour of walking. The atmosphere throughout was very exciting, knowing that only (yes only) 17 hours later there would be tons of people on the streets (family and friends) cheering us on to the finish. I was particularly excited because my dad and sister would be coming for the ceremony following the march. We were told that parents/friends could meet us close to the finish, which would be at Ammunition Hill, the site of one of the most significant battles of the Six Day War in 1967. After being awake for over 30 hours and walking for around 17 of those, you really aren’t aware that this point of the march is near. So I was pleasantly surprised when in the middle of nowhere, around 5 km from the finish, I see my dad, sister and uncle, smiling and waving me over to the side. I quickly run over to them, give them a probably very sweaty hug, say hi and bye, and then have to run back to the line to continue the march. It definitely lifted my spirits and helped give me a final push to the finish. Finally, we reached the point around 2 km away from the finish, where we would open the stretchers and make our way to ammunition hill. It was very overwhelming during those last 2 km. The streets were filled with people holding big signs saying things like כל הכבוד or מזל טוב, and of course lots of cameras. All the excitement almost made me forget to process the fact that I had just walked almost 80 km. It was all a blur by that point.

After finishing the march, we were given a short time to celebrate and eat with all the family and friends that brought food with them in true Israeli, over the top fashion. We then had time to shower at facilities nearby and quickly had to come back for a rehearsal of the ceremony to come. People were in such rough shape that not only was it very hard to stand through a full run through of the ceremony, but some people sort of fell asleep in the shower and almost fell over because of how tired they were. Thankfully, even though my entire unit had to continue on to our new base (of course, in true 890 style, closing another 21 days on base, even directly after the masa kumta), I got a long weekend off to spend with my family. I went with my family to the Dead Sea the following day to 'heal my wounds' so to speak, but pretty much just for some desperately needed rest and relaxation. Definitely highly recommended for the day after walking 80 km, if anyone out there is planning on it in the near future.

So after enjoying tons of food and spending some quality time with my dad and sister, I went to our new base for the last week of 'refresher' training of all of tzanchanim. Little did I know that I was in for a pretty nice surprise that would get me the weekend off! So there has been a lot of build-up to the end of our advanced training, because at the end the best or 'most qualified' soldiers get sent to the commander's course, considered the 'early offer' of the commander's course. I really didn't know what to expect because on the one hand, my squad specialty was mefaked hulia (like a mini commander) and it is known that almost each offer for the early commander course goes to someone who got this specialty. On the other hand, I hadn't had such good feedback from my commander about my performance as a soldier recently, and in general, it is pretty rare for lone soldiers to go to the commander's course, let alone be offered it in the early offers. The day of our beret march, I notice my commander and officer talking quietly and smiling at me, just as they signal for me to come over. My conversation with them went something like this:

My officer: Oren, you're serving for two years right?

Me: Yes.

My officer: Only if you don't become an officer though?

Me: Yeah that's right (at this point he starts to smile suspiciously).

My commander: And after your service you were planning on going back to school?

Me: Yea...

My commander: Unless you decide to take a year or two off of your studies for some reason.

Me: (finally realizing that he's hinting at me signing more time to become an officer) If I happen to sign more time in the army and delay my studies, you and I will both have my mom to answer to.

It was all a very awkward and funny conversation, mainly because my commander is 20, and I'm 3 years older than him. Although these commanders are very great people, and are obviously responsible enough to take the lives of 10 other soldiers under their wings, I still picture them as children who only 1 year ago finished high school, having lived at home their entire life and not experienced anything else between high school and the army. They also don't seem to understand that coming to the army for 2 years instead of continuing to dental school was a big deal for me, and if I were to sign an extra 2 years to become an officer, I'd finish my service around the same time that I could have finished dental school in the first place.

After all of this, I ended up being offered to go to the commander's course. Even though I made it clear that as of now I'm not interested in the position they wanted me for (which would have me go to the officer's course directly after the commander's course and sign another 2 years of service), I don't think the debate is over just yet... but for now I'm starting the commander's course in about a week, with the hopes of being a commander of Tironut (basic training) upon completing the course.

I've just finished 3 weeks of the preparation for the commander's course. The first week involved essentially going back to school, learning in a classroom for over 12 hours a day about things like the theory behind our guns and shooting, movement in the field, first aid, protection from chemical attacks, etc. It was surprisingly a very demanding week. Every day of the week started off with an hour and a half of exercise including a 5-6 km run with a varied pace and a strength workout. They even managed to squeeze in the obstacle course which we did a couple months back during basic training.  The most demanding part of the week was just having to sit through all those classes because there really wasn't a lot of material, it was just taught at such a slow pace, although not everyone seemed to agree on that. This was probably the first time that the fact that I have studied 4 years towards a bachelor's degree has helped me with something in the army. The second week of the preparation was spent learning about navigations. Naturally, the exercise immediately on wake up was continued, and following that we spent a couple hours in the classroom examining maps and planning the route we were going to take. The route usually involved 2 checkpoints, in addition to a start and finish point. You have to memorize the route, getting from the start to A to B to the finish only with a compass to help you and no use of a map. It is definitely a challenge the first couple times, but eventually you get the hang of it, especially when you find yourself lost in the middle of a forest at night time with only 10 minutes to go before you have to be at the finish. Of course, I can't complain because the navigations I do are child's play compared to what the sayarot (elite units) do. Some have more than 2 months of their training dedicated to navigations, including navigations of more than 30 km at a time, while we had to do a mere 6 km. The best part of the prep course was the third week, regila (a week off), which I have just finished.

I am now about to start the course in a couple days, which will take me to somewhere around mid October. The course complicates things in terms of my vacation home, which I was planning on taking at the end of August (every lone soldier is supposed to get 30 days to fly home every year of their service), but I'm hoping to get at least 2 weeks after the course finishes to fly home. I can only hope for the best, and of course bug them as often as I can in order to get it, as is the case with almost any of your so called 'rights' in the army. Here's for hoping!

Passover in Israel, Lots of Masaot, Avtashim, Yom Ha’atzmaut, and training in the Golan

Things have picked up somewhat since finishing basic training. I am now essentially done advanced training, with only 80 km standing between me and my red beret!

While many of you may think that Passover is awesome in Israel, because it is everywhere and that means food possibilities are much more varied, it may be true for most people, but definitely not for a soldier in the army. The week before Passover was spent in the field, very similar to our previous weeks in the field, only having advanced to exercises involving our whole squad (group of ~10 people). Towards the end of the week, we had a masa (march) of 22+5 km with the stretchers. Overall it was decent, except that after a week of eating tuna, corn, canned fruit, and beans, you get somewhat bored with the food and sort of lose your appetite. Normally, the masa would be okay because we have to have a hot meal before doing it, except seeing as how Passover began the next week, our base was already kosher for Passover so food options were somewhat limited. I ended up eating maybe 3 matzahs with some chocolate spread and cheese and an orange, and that lasted me for the next 27 km, although by the end I was SO HUNGRY! In short, Passover in the army sucks. The food consists of all you can eat matzah and mashed potatoes (which with a little bit of an exaggeration glows a fluorescent yellow from all the oil). Also because the dishwasher isn’t kosher for Passover, all the dishes are washed by hand so they are extra dirty.

The one plus about Passover in Israel is that there really are tons of snacks to buy. Everything is kosher for Passover, even many of the cereals and chocolate bars that are made year round are made kosher and taste pretty good. On my way back to base one day, I went into the grocery store just to buy a couple bags of bamba. When I got to the cash register, the woman in front of me saw that I was in uniform and let me cut in front of her. I handed the cashier the money for my purchase, and then that same woman grabs the money from the cashier, hands it back to me, and tells me that she’s paying for it and to go get a couple more bags. I was a bit taken aback, so just took the bags I had there, told her thank you probably a few times too many, smiled, and left the store. I felt very grateful.

Overall, advanced training is awesome compared to basic training, even though it is קריעת תחת (expression literally meaning splitting open the ass, but really just means something very hard), we are generally treated better. Instead of getting 2 seconds to do each thing, we have to complete several tasks by a certain time which is longer than we would previously be given. As is very characteristic of the Israeli army, even though the entire schedule for advanced training was set out in advance, week by week, the schedule seemed to change almost every week. We ended up doing a 35 + 5 km masa, and then the next day, we were sent to guard settlements throughout the west bank. This 40 km was the toughest yet, because for some reason I got huge blisters on my feet after the first 10 km, and pretty much had to limp the rest of the way. The biggest of them was the size of my entire heel. Anyhow, so the day after we finished that, without giving my feet time to heal, we were sent to guard a very small settlement of around 300 people. The main problem was that guarding this settlement involved doing patrols by foot for hours at a time, with me still having to limp because of the blisters I had, not to mention the almost daily runs that we were required to do as well in order to stay in shape. Overall, it was a good week because instead of being active for 17 hours a day, even when there is nothing to do (as is normally the case), we had a total of 10 hours of guard duty each day, and the rest of the time free. Meals were in our hands, so we weren’t limited to the same food on base and could actually cook what we wanted to eat. The bad thing is that things like fries or falafel don’t turn out very well when made using only a small hot plate which doesn’t get very hot. It was a very different experience sitting down to eat side by side with my commander, talking to him like an equal, at least almost equal, still being unable to ask him personal questions (which I discovered pretty quickly). In only a couple weeks time we will be breaking distance with him, at which point I will be able to treat him just like a friend.

One of the things I have really been looking forward to is experiencing Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut in Israel, especially as a soldier. Unfortunately, we were required to spend the holiday on base, but at least there would be some comfort in the fact that we must have some kind of elaborate assembly or ceremony. Or so I thought. My expectations of a motivational, very important 2 days were quickly crushed. They ended up being a very normal 2 days. The night of Yom Hazikaron we had a quick 20 minute ceremony and that was it. We then proceeded to spend the entire night awake, having to work on all our gear and equipment to make it function and look better/more professional. Finally, by the late hours of the morning (around 10ish), it was inspected by a high ranked commander (a falafel, as we call them because the rank of 1 ‘star’ that they have on their shoulder kind of looks like a falafel). This was followed by a very simple 10 minute raising of the flag ceremony to mark the transition from Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha’atzmaut, which from stories I’ve heard is meant to be very exciting, and obviously wasn’t. We then had a couple more hours to improve our gear with the suggestions/criticisms we got from the officer, although not effective because everyone was falling asleep in any position possible. Finally we were given time off until the next day in honour of Yom Ha’atzmaut. I thought it was kind of pathetic that my Jewish high school abroad puts on a more comprehensive ceremony for Yom Hazikaron/Yom Ha’atzmaut than the Israeli army itself, but what can you do. Interesting to note that even though everyone complained about it to each other, it was only the Druz soldier serving with us who actually brought it up to the commanders and ended up getting into a yelling match with them about how pathetic the day was. Obviously, the only response they could come up with was the too well known אין מה לעשות – nothing you can do about it. I’m sure it would have been better had I not been stuck on base, but it would’ve been nice to really experience this special day.

The end of Yom Ha’atzmaut was marked with something all soldiers could dream of... NOT! A 50 + 5 km masa, the last one in preparation for our 80 km masa for our red berets, which everyone keeps talking about. This masa was much better than the last, having learned my lesson and having used 2 pairs of socks this time. I still ended up getting some blisters, but they were very minor and didn’t really bother me, except the small one that formed on top of the previous one which had yet to fully heal.

The following week was spent helping a different paratroopers battalion with their ‘refresher’ training, so to speak. We did several exercises throughout the week, pretending to be enemies and ambushing these battalions, which sounds much cooler than it actually was. One night, they actually ended up completely missing us, and we got lost walking back to the meeting point, having to walk almost 2 hours, rounding it off with a 100 meter trek through deep mud and even a series of barbed wire fences, which were only discovered after the first person in line walked right into them. For some reason, even though we were staying on an army base all this time, they were not ready for us and didn’t have enough food, so we were required to eat manot krav (military rations out of cans). Eating the same food for breakfast, lunch and dinner takes its toll, and I guess it was the Israeli inside of me that made me suggest to my friends that we sneak over to the kitchen and ‘borrow’ some cheese, chocolate milk, and puddings for breakfast, which was a huge success. We got so sick of the food that one night during our free time we even ordered a couple pizzas to the gate of the base and devoured them on the spot, each one of us finishing half a pizza in about 5 minutes. It definitely rates among the best tasting pizzas I’ve had here.

I ended up getting out that weekend while the rest of the platoon closed Shabbat on base because my brother was in Israel leading a birthright trip. As I have noticed many times already, any right that the army sets out for soldiers, especially for lone soldiers, is subject to change without notice. Every time an immediate family member comes to visit, a lone soldier is supposed to get extra time off to see them. I was supposed to stay on base for this weekend and close the next one. They thought that they were granting me this right by letting me out this first weekend and closing the next, essentially just switching the weekends when I wanted both off to spend with my brother. Thankfully though, by the time I got to the next weekend, they forgot all about it so I got off for that one too!

Seeing my brother after not seeing him for over 10 months was awesome, and almost just as great was the huge bag of goodies from home that he brought with him. It was very moving to hear about the whole group’s experiences in Israel, especially their thoughts about their day at Yad Vashem and Har Hertzl which were very motivating and definitely inspired me to give my all during these last few weeks of training.

A while ago, it was parent’s day on base for the newest draft (the March draft). As part of it, they put on a demonstration including a sniper exercise, and a demonstration of how a group of soldiers take over a hillside. Luckily for us, my squad was chosen to participate. Even better was that it was meant as more of a show rather than an accurate depiction of the exercise, so we were instructed to use as much ammunition as needed to give a good impression to the parents, most of which wouldn’t understand anything anyways. In one of our practice drills leading up to the demonstration, the guy in the squad with the Negev (recall: ~18 pound Israeli made machine gun) got a bullet shell in his eye, and had to be taken out. It was very minor, but they took him to get checked out anyways because they didn’t want to take any chances. So we were stuck without a negevist. Luckily for them, I also did the training for the Negev and quickly suggested that I could take over, seeing a great opportunity to let loose with a few hundred rounds, all fired on automatic of course. The drill was very short, maybe taking a total of only 3 minutes, and in those 3 minutes, taking the commander’s instructions to use as much ammo as need to heart, I ended up shooting over 400 bullets. The funny thing was that at one point, as I was shooting and running at the same time, I just couldn’t advance up the hill. The gun was so powerful that I just couldn’t progress up the hill while I was firing on automatic. I had to let out a short burst, run a little, and then another, all the way up. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun participating in the demonstration.

I am now sitting here only a couple days away from my masa kumpta (beret march), in a bit of disbelief at how the past 8 months in the army have gone by so quickly. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to write about last week, the most important week of my training so far, Shavua Milchama (war week), so it will have to wait until my next update, at which point I will have also finished my 80 km hike and received my RED BERET!