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...