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...
