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 7th 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!
