Shin splints, Paratrooping course, Shavuz, and Regila

As many of you already know, the past couple weeks I had a minor case of shin splints. The army’s solution to this very common problem, which apparently happens to every combat soldier at some point during their service, is simply an exemption from strenuous physical activity called ‘Betim’. It essentially means that every time you have to do guard duty, you can sit. Every time you get 10 seconds to run here, 10 seconds to run there, you simply walk and are allowed to get there late. It does not allow you to do anything. It makes you feel like you’re a cripple not capable of anything that everyone around you is capable of doing. There have been many instances of people around me getting Betim for all sorts of reasons, and I've always seen them lagging behind the group. It never occurred to me that I would need Betim, to which people many times attach a stigma of laziness and evading the ‘hard work’ everyone else is doing, which is a terrible feeling. As happy as you are that you have time for your medical problem to heal, you really wish that you felt better and not left out of everything that all your fellow soldiers are doing. At least have a problem bad enough to deserve Gimmelim, which is a break at home for medical reasons, instead of being stuck on base. As much fun as it is to complain about how difficult things are, or how you really wish you didn’t have to go for that run, or for that 15 km masa, when it actually happens and you can’t go, and you see your friends come back from doing it, you really feel that you missed out on something.

On that note, 3 weeks ago, we left our home base to go to the Tel Nof Air Force base, where we would be doing our 2 week paratrooping course. Everyone had to go through a medical check before arriving to ensure that they are capable of participating because, as I’m sure you all know, parachuting out of an airplane is not the safest thing, and accidents often do happen. My Betim were scheduled to end a day before the course started, so naturally I was very excited that the timing worked out so well. After insisting several times on seeing the doctor to get the go ahead for the parachuting, I was simply informed by the medic that the doctor is busy, will take a look at my information, and update him. But of course, not to worry (famous last words) because it looks like I will be jumping. Two days later, after arriving on the parachuting base, they make an announcement: ‘anyone who was not approved by the doctor to participate in the course, please step to the side’. Seeing as how I had not heard any news, I assumed no news was good news so I remained in place. Of course you can see where this is going. A minute later my officer makes eye contact with me and signals to me with a movement of the eyes to go to the side that I am not participating. As you can imagine, it was very upsetting not being able to participate, and even more so, being misled by them and not being told what’s happening until the last possible second. Gotta love the army!

So basically, for the vast majority of these 2 weeks, while all my friends were learning all this cool stuff about parachuting, and practicing the jumping and rolling techniques, and of course jumping from a plane 5 times, I was secluded into a smaller group of 4-5 other people with Betim who would go to the kitchen from 5 AM until close, at around 9 PM, with a 2 hour break over lunch time. Being in the kitchen is one of the worst things you can do in the army (in my opinion), hence it usually is given as a punishment. However, for us lucky soldiers there was simply nothing else for us to be doing on base for 2 weeks, so we had the honour of working there. Working in the kitchen on base entails washing the same huge pots each a couple times a day, tons of squeegeeing the floors, making lots of schnitzels, and the occasional helping out with baking pastries or bread. Having to be stuck in the kitchen for so long really makes you second guess the reasons why you’re here and makes you think about the good life with family and friends you left back home. All these feelings can be summarized into one, very well known slang word in the army: SHAVUZ.

In Hebrew, shavuz is short for Shavur Zayin, literally broken penis. Like shin splints, it is almost guaranteed to happen to every soldier at least once throughout their army career, at which point they simply are sick of everything and just really want to do anything possible to get out of the army. I guess the most accurate translation for the word would be depressed. I recently found an excellent way to describe the feeling, written by another lone soldier on his blog:

“Like elderly men before Viagra, shavuz soldiers cannot rally any excitement to perform their tasks.”

Of course, there are several solutions to this problem. The obvious, but more challenging one is simply to remember all the reasons you came here in the first place and work yourself out of the funk. Evidently, this is much more easily said than done. Another, more temporary way out is to somehow legitimately get off base for a day or two, which can be done by getting gimmelim, or by getting some sort of referral to a doctor off base (specialist). I happened to employ both of these solutions. On the Thursday of my first week on base, after pestering the commanders quite a bit, I landed an appointment with the army optometrist. This was actually very legitimate, as I had been running after them for months to get to see him, all so he can sign a form enabling me to buy a pair of glasses at the army’s expense. As it turns out, the same day, a friend of mine from the garin was having a tekes (ceremony) marking the completion of his 3 month medic course. I of course really wanted to be there, and seeing as how it was on the same base as my appointment, and the appointment itself would only take a matter of minutes, I asked to stay for it. My mefaked, knowing that my appointment was at noon, and the tekes was at 4 PM, was a bit skeptical at first, so it took a bit of persuading. After asking him for permission to stay a bit longer so that I can attend the tekes, and seeing him think it over in his head, I decided to help him out. So I say to him ‘what happens if I just miss the bus back to base after my appointment. Also, I don’t exactly know how to get there and back, for all I know I could end up taking the wrong bus and arrive at a completely different place.’ Taking the hint, he looks at me, smiles, and says ‘you do what you have to do, as long as you’re back on base by the end of the day’.

I was thrilled, both to be able to attend my friend’s ceremony, and get off base and away from the kitchen for a day. I took full advantage of the day, visiting 3 other friends who also are on that base before the ceremony itself, and then even taking a quick detour to stop by at my family’s in Givatayim after the tekes. The buses worked as late as 11 PM, so I was planning on staying as late as I could before going back to base. Finally, around 9 PM, I get a call from my commander, saying ‘Oren, where are you?’ I reply “I am visiting my family in Givatayim”. He goes: "What the hell are you doing there? Don’t you think you got carried away with yourself? When were you planning on getting back to base?” So I go “I don’t know, I didn’t really think about when I would get back, the buses work until around 11 PM, so maybe 10, 10:30. You told me I have until the end of the day.” He just replies: “leave right now and call me when you get here”. So I left around half an hour later, and having my family drive me to base, I got there just past 10 PM. As I arrive to base, I give him a call. He picks up his phone, sounding as if I woke him up, and goes “You got here? Good. Go to sleep, and be ready tomorrow morning at 4 AM to leave base for home.” Like I said, gotta love the army!

After a great weekend, and a bit of brainstorming as to good ideas of how to get gimmelim so that I wouldn’t have to go back to the kitchen, I decided to use the old ‘vomiting and diarhea excuse’ which always works because there really is no way of verifying it, and not only could you spread it to others on base, but you could also yourself get dehydrated. I never thought I would be one of those people that have to pretend they’re sick to get out of the army, but drastic times call for drastic measures. The things we were doing in the kitchen were unbearable. (The fact that everyone else was on an adrenaline rush the entire week because of jumping out of an airplane everyday didn’t help the matter either.) Later on in the week, I had to scrub all the chairs in the kitchen with bleach, and also scrub the bird poop off the walls (for some reason, there are a large number of birds stuck in the חדר אוכל with us, and they manage to make quite a mess). I guess it is there way of cleaning and preparing for Passover, and all I can say on the subject is THANK GOD that I am not in the kitchen for the week right before Passover.

Finally towards the end of the second week of the course, I was able to convince them to let me go help out at the place where they actually parachute. They were already doing the last jump out of 5, but I was very excited to finally see some action. It was a night jump, so they would be jumping in the evening after dark, which meant that we would have to get there around 3 PM and stay until the last person completes his jump and then clean up the site, which ended up being about 1 AM. Even in the dark, it was a beautiful site seeing hundreds of people parachuting to the ground from right above you, and knowing that I will also be doing it in a couple months time made me very excited.

After finishing the jump course, we came back to our home base to close one more weekend, before we have a week vacation (called regila) until the following Monday. Nobody really knew the reason why we had to close, and most thought there was no reason, until we heard rumours that we would have a masa. Sure enough, Saturday night just after Shabbat finished, we set out for our masa samal. Before going out for it, I had to see the doctor in order to get permission because I never officially got the go ahead to continue with physical activity since my shin splints, even though the Betim period was over 2 weeks earlier. After a few simple questions from the doctor, he said that I could do the march, but that I would not be able to carry any extra weight (the stretcher or 9 L water pack). However, a question I was not prepared for was him asking me if I did the parachuting course. I answered no. And then he says to me “why not, your Betim ended two weeks ago, just before the jumping, why didn’t you see the doctor earlier?” All I could answer was “my commander never really let me see the doctor and the medic was supposed to take care of it; I was only told that I’m not doing the course after we got to the jump base and it was too late then.” The closest thing I got to an apology or sympathy was a weird face made by the doctor. Obviously it was very upsetting to hear it, after seeing everyone so excited about their jumps and seeing everyone walking around so proudly with their wings on their uniforms, but I didn’t have time to process it then because it was just minutes before the masa. The masa ended up being 18+3 km (the last 3 with stretchers open with around 70 kg of sand on each). Overall it wasn’t so bad, and at this point, I feel like doing a masa is just part of the army routine, and frankly, 20 km, 40 km, and 80 km are all the same, it’s just a matter of time before it’s over. This one happened to take around 4 hours (with a 10-15 minute break every hour). In true army style, the masa didn’t end up being a simple 21 km. After getting back to base, we immediately proceeded to the 400 meter obstacle course (including 3 meter rope climb, 2 meter wall, monkey bars, crawling, etc). And then it was over!

Ironically, the masa was exactly what I needed to get me out of the funk that has weighed down on me the past couple weeks. Either that, or it was the anticipation of a week off from the army, eating good food, watching tv, and seeing all my friends, some of whom I go without seeing for months at a time because of non-overlapping weekends off from the army. Right now, I am sitting here at the end of the shortest week of vacation I have ever had. Although I would’ve loved for it to be longer, I think that any longer and it would have made going back to the army at the end of it a serious issue.

Up ahead is advanced training for around 2-3 months, after which I am still hoping to be chosen for the early commanders’ course, which would last 4 months. Advanced training is more of the same of basic, except almost every week is spent in the field practicing more advanced manoeuvrings, and according to the schedule, I will be getting almost every weekend off, except for the first 3 weeks. Of course, recent events in the area, including 100 rockets and mortars being fired into Israel over the weekend do not bode well for the coming months, so things could change... but I can only hope for the best.

מפקד חוליה, שבוע מקצועות, Field week with a bonus, and Advanced M16 week.

 On the whole, the past 3 months have been very hectic. Being on base 2 weeks at a time, and then getting less than 48 hours at home takes its toll, and I find myself trying to take advantage of every spare minute during the weekend, despite how tired I am.

שבוע מפקד חוליה , or ‘sub-commander week’ started off with an introduction and several classes where we were told that we were handpicked, one by one, after special deliberation and consideration, as to who is suitable for this important position. Apparently, this job is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the long path to being a commander, and then possibly an officer. Of the 30 of us chosen, they told us that 15 get sent right after advanced training to the commanders’ course (called the early commander’s course because these are the ‘cream of the crop’ so to speak, who have potential to even continue on to the officer’s course). It definitely appeals to me to take this important step if I am offered to become a commander. How could it not be fun to order a bunch of 18 year old Israeli’s around, telling them when they can and can’t go to the washroom, and giving them 10 seconds to run 100 meters away and back...From what I’ve heard, I would not be required to sign more time to be a commander but then again, it’s the Israeli army and anything can happen and anything will happen. Either way, I have many more challenges to overcome in the coming months and these possibilities are a long ways away.

Sunday evening we went into the shetach, which I am slowly beginning to call my 3^rd home, after of course the base itself and my kibbutz. The first day consisted of dry and live fire drills, working in groups of 4 in the field, from 5:30 AM until 1 AM the next day. We then finally packed up our equipment, took down all our tents, and passed out in the middle of a huge puddle of water and sand. When I say passed out, I mean every single person fell asleep within 2 minutes, to the point where the only noise to be heard was some heavy snoring amidst the drizzle of rain. Finally, after 2 hours of sleeping in the cold, the transport came to take us and our equipment back to base.

After returning from the shetach, we spent a day in the shooting simulator. It mimics the shooting range as accurately as possible, to the point where you actually use M16’s, but hooked up to a computer via a long cable. To me it seemed like a souped up arcade game – lying in position with your gun shooting at the screen as moving terrorists approach and open fire on you. We were divided into groups, and each person had a turn to act as commander to practice what to do in a dynamic situation rather than the same drill that we did a billion times in the field the previous day.

We also had a day ofניווטים  (navigations), spent walking probably around 20 km the entire day. Since it was our first time, we did it mostly in a group, learning how to read a topographical map, which at first was very confusing, considering every hill/mountain in the desert looks exactly the same!! We each had our own turn to navigate the group to a given point between 1-2 km away. Using the compass and the map, I planned out my route and it ended up with a climb to probably one of the highest peaks in the area. I asked for confirmation that it was the right path – me trying to be efficient and save everyone having to climb up this monster of a mountain only to turn around because it’s the wrong way. Of course, I didn’t receive any help. I thought it was a joke because this hill was definitely too high for him to expect us to climb. I thought that the commander simply knew I made a mistake but wanted me to get everyone to climb up the hill anyways. Finally, after a very intense climb to the top, I got confirmation that it was the right one. I was very pleased, although I know that I have nothing to be proud of because we are going to get to the point where we navigate much harder terrain with much more weight on our shoulders, and for much longer distances. The week came to an end very nicely, me receiving a generous package of goodies from Israeli school children, sending chocolates and candy to lone soldiers for family day.

After finishing this week of training for my ‘specialty’ (sub-commander), I was under the impression that I would have the following week to relax. The week is known as שבוע מקצועות, or profession week, and seeing as how I already got mine, I thought I would just relax while everyone else went to the shooting range to practice with their new guns/scopes, etc. Boy was I mistaken. At the beginning of the week, they took everyone to the armory, and started dividing people into groups. Within a couple minutes, I realized that I was in the group that was going to sign on new weapons. 2 minutes later, I left carrying my new ‘baby’ for the week – the NEGEV! The negev is an Israeli designed light, emphasis on the light, machine gun, weighing in at a mere 7.6 kg. For those of you who can’t do the math in your heads, it’s almost 17 pounds. That of course doesn’t include another ~2kg for the extra barrel, and of course the ammunition, which adds on more than another 10 kg. Known to be the hardest מקצוע  (profession), demanding the most רבק (determination/motivation), soldiers given the “honour” of this gun end up carrying equipment weighing a total of around 30 kg for this gun. Imagine carrying all that during the final 80km masa! Luckily for me though, I was only doing the training for the negev as a backup, and there is someone else in my kita who will have it, which leaves me as a mefaked chulia (sub-commander).

Although it was very overwhelming at first, it was exciting to learn about this gun, probably THE most important tool the infantry have, and I slowly learned to appreciate its value and significance, as well as the responsibility being given this gun entails. The negevist is always up in front of everyone else when advancing, providing extra cover fire power, and despite the added weight, is required to move faster than everyone else. Some highlights of the week include:

• Night shooting – with a laser and night scope that almost makes it easier to shoot in the dark than in the daylight. With the scope on, you literally look like Robocop with a large scope attached to only one eye. It was a bit confusing at first because you see with night vision in one eye, and normal darkness in the other eye.

• At one point, all 13 of us doing the training were given a chain of 20 red tracers to fire on automatic, and that was probably one of the coolest things I’ve done in my service up until now. They call it שמים אדומים, or red sky, because the entire sky turns a bright red colour from these tracer bullets.

• After practicing fixing a certain type of jam in the gun maybe 50 times, I was able to fix the jam in less than 8 seconds, instead of my initial 30+ seconds.

• Spontaneously being given an obstacle course to run, including running, crawling, rope climb, wall climb, and monkey bars, all with the 7.6 kg negev on me.

• The most hyped up part of the week – the 300 meter crawl. This was definitely the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my entire life, having to literally pick up the gun in one hand and toss it ahead a bit, while I continue to advance at as fast a crawling pace as I can manage. Eventually, most people get to the point where you just can’t lift it anymore and resort to just pushing it on the ground in front of you as you crawl ahead. Once everyone finished this feat, in an average of 25 minutes, we were spoiled with some ice cold cokes, but of course not entirely spoiled because we were given only 2 minutes to drink them. We then filled the cans up with water, put them onto the 25 meter line, and each one of us had our turn to spray 20 bullets into their coke can. A big adrenaline rush, to say the least, especially coming off of the rush of crawling 300 meters with this huge gun!

The whole week was nowhere near fun and games. Just the act of taking all our equipment to and from the shooting range was difficult enough on its own. After being in the shooting range almost the entire week, practicing shooting as well as dry drills of operating jams in the gun, tons of crawling, rolling around, and running, we also had runs up to 6 km in between these drills every day. I got to the point where I would literally have half a loaf of bread with my meals, and still feel hungry 2 hours later, needing to snack on another sandwich or two in between meals.

The following week was spent actually practicing as a mefaked chulia in the field with my team of 3 others. We were also surprised, if the word surprise is suitable for a gift like this, that we would be doing a joint exercise with the air force – practicing boarding and disembarking a helicopter. And yes, it did include the actual helicopter ride. After a couple boring dry drills on safety and practicing doing it quickly, it was time for the real deal. From the time the helicopter lands, you have about 30 seconds for everyone to get onto it before it takes off again. It may sound simple, but everyone has a 20 kg bag (same as the one in field week) to take with them as well. Flying in the helicopter was an incredible experience. It was much different than flying on an airplane, and definitely a once in a lifetime experience (of course to be beaten by my upcoming parachuting course in 2 weeks!) At some points on the turns, I guess because the pilot wanted to show us a good time seeing how excited/nervous we were, he made ridiculously wide turns so that we were almost flying sideways. Overall, we flew twice in daytime, twice at night and also had one more practice evacuating the wounded via helicopter. Most soldiers don’t even do a drill like this during their entire service, so we were very lucky considering we’re still in basic training.

The weekend was a closed weekend, spent guarding in Hevron. Hevron is a mostly Arab city with around 150 000 Palestinians living around the only several hundred Jewish settlers. Every weekend, extra soldiers are sent to guard on Shabbat to ensure that these Jews and many more who come to pray in Me’arat Hamachpela (where the forefathers are buried) feel safe. The whole weekend was a mess, guarding upwards of 20 hours over both Friday afternoon and Saturday, sometimes for 7 hours straight, while in between sleeping around 6 hours a night. It was made easier by the fact that at least there is an obvious purpose to doing this guard duty – protecting and ensuring the safety of everyone there – both Jews and Arabs living there. Of course, the Jews who passed by were very grateful, wishing us a Shabbat Shalom and many giving us snacks to eat (which is technically not allowed but it happens all the time there, and who can refuse cake fresh from the oven). The irony of the weekend was that it was supposed to be pretty intense because of demonstrations, but because I was in a different area for my shifts, I didn’t hear anything about it even though I was in walking distance to the entire thing. Nor did I hear anything about it later on because of the very limited access we have to TV/internet.

Finally, this past week was spent doing advanced shooting. We spent the entire week, Sunday to Thursday, from early morning to late at night, at the shooting ranges. We even had to sleep there one night! The drills were much more intense and more advanced. We practiced shooting in the normal positions as well as shooting in irregular positions such as from behind tables/etc and of course fixing jams that can occur in the M16. We also practiced quite a bit at shooting at moving targets. It’s a big messy process to organize this specific exercise. In the shooting range at a certain point there is a huge trench around 3 meters deep. We were divided into 2 groups and the group that wasn’t shooting had to go down into this ditch and hold long wooden sticks attached to the targets, for the other group to shoot. It was a bit scary at first hearing the bullets whizzing by above you, but then it just became very funny to watch. The people in the ditch had to run left and right every couple seconds to keep the targets moving, and for the people shooting it looked somewhat like a puppet show with the moving targets dancing back and forth. In the end it was a worthwhile exercise and definitely useful to practice.

I am very happy because there are only 2 weeks left until we go to the parachuting course, and then I will be done with basic training and finally have a week off to relax. The next step after that is advanced training. I’ve heard it’s not as bad because we won’t be timed 2 seconds to do anything they ask, like they do now in basic.

Parents day, Field week (שבוע שדאות) , Advanced shooting, and Swearing in Ceremony (טקס השבעה)

There are many advantages to being a lone soldier in the Israeli army. I won’t go into all of them here, but for anyone who is looking into joining the army, I came across an excellent site that serves as an FAQ for anything and everything someone from abroad would want to know about joining the army: http://www.idfinfo.co.il

Earlier on in the month we had parent’s day at base. Normally, visitors aren’t allowed on base at all, with this being the exception. Naturally, me being a 'lonely' soldier, they didn't want my kind staying on base watching all the Israeli's have their parents come visit them bringing them snacks, home cooked food, etc, so they arranged a 'fun day' for all the lone soldiers on base, which for my draft is a whopping 70 soldiers. Probably one of the best parts about it was that we got to leave the base early in the morning, while everyone else was put to work cleaning the base to make it look cleaner than it normally does even for us. We had a guided hike through a part of the Negev close to Kibbutz Sde Boker, combined with a camel ride (as if we all missed feeling like tourists again), barbeque lunch, and a visit to a spa with an indoor/outdoor pool. Overall it was very relaxing and definitely beats most days on base, combined with the fact that we got out for the weekend from Thursday evening!

After my very enjoyable long weekend, I returned to base Sunday morning, mentally preparing myself for one of the most difficult/anticipated weeks of basic training – the first שבוע שדאות – or FIELD WEEK. If the week could be summed up in a sentence or two it would probably consist of the words: pick up a 20 kg backpacking bag, start walking up and down every hill/mountain/rugged terrain in sight, take a 7 minute break to eat, and then just keep walking up those hills for the next 5 days. We left for the Shetach (field) Sunday night, and that first night we had the privilege of sleeping in tents, which was surprisingly pretty decent. Four people per tent fit pretty comfortably, minus the fact that you're sleeping with all your clothes on, vest, and of course gun, and the fact that you get one blanket per two people to sleep in the middle of the freezing cold desert. The next day the fun began… I won't go into too much detail about what we practiced, but it pretty much consisted of non-stop walking up massive hills, while each pair of soldiers had to carry a 20 kg backpack in addition to all their normal gear (gun and fully equipped vest).

Meals in the field were an issue of their own. At the beginning of the day, we got the 3 boxes of military rations which would be our food for the day and had to be carried around with us. Each meal, we had on average 7 minutes to eat. This included the time needed to open all the cans of food, which would normally take about 2 minutes. Not only that, at all points in time we had to have 1/3 of us guarding, which meant that these people couldn't eat and just sat there watching, dreaming of the second someone would come switch them so they could grab a bite to eat. Needless to say, eating was chaos. Cans of tuna, pineapple, corn, tuna salad, and beans were passed around while literally being stuffed into people's mouths and swallowed, almost whole. One meal, I stupidly decided to waste a couple seconds spreading some mustard on my bread, but then I realized that I barely had time left to eat. I quickly stuffed anything I could reach into the sandwich, and after being halfway through it I realized I was eating a tuna/pineapple/mustard/bean in tomato sauce sandwich, and it may sound gross, but it tasted pretty good. That just goes to show how stressful it was even to eat our meals in the field, and how time-pressured everything was.

On the second day of field week, we had the privilege (and yes, it actually was a privilege) to do a מדס, a word used in the army for any kind of physical activity (usually run). We ended up running 4 km at a decent pace, but it was probably one of the easiest runs I have done in my entire life. Not only did I literally feel 20 kg lighter without all my gear on, but the feeling of taking off your boots, socks and uniform shirt after 2 days made me want to run at least another hour or two. It was the same excited feeling when we were told later on in the week that we have a session of Krav Maga, which is normally dreaded by most people, known for being quite physically taxing. Throughout the week, we had lots of practice building different types of fortifications, and I guess as their way of being efficient, each day when we built a different type of fortification (which usually involved digging quite a bit) we would end up sleeping there for the night. The sleeping conditions were probably even worse than the meals. It would be 4 people sleeping together in each fortification, which in sleeping terms translates into a hole dug into the ground. Each pair would get 2 blankets – one to spread on the bottom of the hole, which was usually covered in thorns first to add some padding – and then one blanket to cover them. Sleeping with your gun and vest on was feasible, being so tired that you can fall asleep in any position, but the cold was just unbearable. It was probably one of the few times in my life that I would wake up at night and just want the time to pass, not caring whether I slept or not because I was THAT cold. Of course, a night's sleep wouldn't be complete without 30 minutes each of guard duty, which everyone had to do once a night.

Another highlight of the week was the masa (=hike) we did on Wednesday night. I was pretty anxious before it, knowing that I had a pretty hard time doing the last one, which was 7+1 km, and that this one would be 10 + 2 km with the stretcher. However, I was put to ease with the fact that I wasn't carrying anything extra this time, with other people having to carry and run with the radio like I did last time, or the water pack, which is 13.5 L (or kg) of water. The masa turned out to be not at all difficult, and even enjoyable at times. There were no extremely steep hills this time, and anytime we would get to the slightest incline, everyone would pick up the pace and start pushing the guy in front of them. Even though I was also pushing the person in front of me, it felt like I was floating effortlessly up the hill and it didn't seem to require extra energy. I guess I was lucky that I wasn't the last person in the line... This was also the first masa that we did as a whole מחלקה, (around 45 people) instead of just my kita of around 15. Everyone was also much more excited about the masa, because although it was supposed to be a surprise, we all knew we were going to have a small tekes (ceremony) at the end where we would get our unit tags. For the last kilometer of the march, with the stretcher of course, we were walking toward the location of the tekes, and all you could hear was the music playing with the shuffling of quick footsteps in the background – it was a great feeling! The tekes itself wasn't anything special, although everyone was very excited to get our unit tags (the snake with wings I have previously posted). On a side note, the widely publicized reason behind the unit tag is that a previous Egyptian president is rumoured to have said that there would be snakes with wings before Israel would have paratroopers, so that is where the idea came from. Following every masa, there is always this sense of happiness, that we actually accomplished something difficult, and that they'll give us some extra time to recover or something, and usually this happens in the form of snacks after the masa along with some extra time to shower. However, this being field week and all, we merely left the field, walked the 12 kilometers for the march, ended up at the tekes, and once the ceremony finished, we walked back to our holes to sleep. Somewhat depressing… but that's field week. The next day we spent reviewing what we did the entire week and preparing for a final, comprehensive test which would last 4 hours and cover everything learned for the 5 days we were there.

Finishing this last activity, and being able to walk back to base very late Thursday night, regardless of the fact that it was close to 12 midnight, and of course freezing outside, was a great feeling. I don't know what felt better: knowing that soon we'd be able to eat normally, or the fact that we would be given time to shower and change clothes for the first time in the past 5 days, or the thought of not sleeping in a hole outside in the cold for the night. Amidst all these thoughts, we were surprised by the fact that, upon arriving at our rooms on base, there was a barbeque prepared and waiting for us! I don't think I have ever seen so many people that happy before. Everyone sat down at the tables, and tray after tray of chicken, skewers, hot dogs, burgers, were brought out for us to feast on. The fact that it was past 12 midnight didn't stop anyone from stuffing their faces, and I think it was well deserved. Of course, it must be noted that I don't think it was the army's idea to give us a barbeque. I don't think they value our hard work this much. I think it had to do more with the fact that someone in the Pluga had a parent who wanted to sponsor the barbeque, and why would anyone want to resist, even the commanders. Shortly after finishing to eat in a reasonable amount of time (compared to the 7 minutes we got used to), we were quickly brought back to reality by being given the very familiar 7 minutes to clean our faces from all the camouflage paint we had on, and of course, shave. This was followed by a cleaning session of several hours for all our equipment, returning some extra equipment, and cleaning up our rooms. By 4 AM, there was still no end in sight, when finally I was pulled aside and told I have 20 minutes to shower and get into bed because according to army rules, I need to have 7 hours of sleep before I leave base. I got special permission to leave for the weekend, while everyone else stayed, because my parents were coming to visit (another perk to being a lone soldier)! Of course, army rules are made to work around, and even though I was in bed shortly after 4, the lights were on in the room and everyone else was still cleaning up so I didn't go to sleep until around 5 ish, when everyone else did too, but I can't complain.

The following week was a week of advanced shooting. We have slowly progressed from simply lying down and shooting targets 25, 50, or 100 meters away to shooting targets at all distances in different types of positions and operating jams in our guns. We’ve also even practiced shooting with our gas masks on after sprinting 100 meters to get us breathing heavily. Unfortunately, this wasn’t too effective because in order to put on the mask I needed to take my glasses off, and without them, I could barely see the target 50 meters away. Another practice involved shooting a target 300 meters away. You don’t really understand how far 300 meters is until you have to run it several times with all your gear on (vest, gun, ammo, etc). We are not allowed to walk at all at the shooting range, everything must be done running. This includes grabbing all the equipment to set up the targets, running 300 meters out, setting it up, and then running back even though you’re not finished because you ran out of time. We then get more time to finish it, run out 300 meters and again run back, only to have the commanders yell at us because not everyone went to help. So as a punishment, everyone has to sprint out to the targets again, and then sprint back. I’m sure you can do the math, that’s 1800 meters run already and we haven’t even started the shooting exercise yet!

The week was interrupted by a visit by theדודות  (aunts) of Ramat Gan. Almost every unit in the army is sponsored by a different city in Israel, getting certain donations and gifts several time a year. However, nobody is as extensively supported as the paratroopers. Everyone received a pair of dry-fit shorts, and 2 shirts, all around 500 soldiers from my draft. As if that wasn’t enough, all lone soldiers were treated to an upgraded lunch, which for us soldiers means more than the miniscule amount of chicken usually given for lunch, and many more presents including a nice pair of sweat pants and shirt that say Tzanchanim on them, a flashlight, watch, wallet, and thermos. Of course everyone was very grateful and it was very interesting hearing their stories about their connection to the unit, whether it was them themselves who served in the paratroopers, or their family members who served as officers very high up in the unit.

Finally, at the end of the week, we had our Tekes Hashbaah, or swearing in ceremony. Quite a few hours went into practicing how to stand, march, and hold your gun during the ceremony, and you’d be surprised at how difficult it really is to teach 500 soldiers to move the exact same way. The day included a tour of Jerusalem for a couple hours, but with an unforeseen significance. We walked the route the paratroopers walked/fought through during the 6 day war in 1967, when Jerusalem and the old city were liberated from Jordanian control. It included a very detailed description of all the battles/gun fights along the way, and I felt very honoured to officially become a part of a unit with such a meaningful history. The ceremony itself obviously included the usual high-ranked officers talking about things that don't particularly interest us lowly soldiers, but it was still very exciting to be there and officially receive our guns and a tanach, symbolizing our commitment to the values of the Jewish people and Israel. Of course, no such event would be the same without some extra appreciation for lone soldiers. We had a separate, more intimate ceremony with the commander of the base and several other 'falafels', as people call them (the symbol for their rank is this circle, star-type shape which people call a falafel). They expressed their appreciation for the decision and sacrifice made by the around 70 lone soldiers now serving in the Tzanchanim. We also got another care package – more of the same clothes to keep us warm during our days in the cold shetach (field), along with letters from people abroad expressing their thanks for defending Israel. It reminded me of all those letters that I used to write in school for soldiers and made me wonder if they ever got here and what other soldiers thought of them.

Even though I am considered a lone soldier, or sometimes they even go as far as to coin it a 'lonely' soldier, I hardly felt alone. My kibbutz adopted family made the drive all the way from up north for the Tekes, and my parents managed to make it as well. Not to mention my coordinator from the Kibbutz, Avner, who manages to make almost every tekes (there were at least 5 in the span of less than 2 weeks) and several of my friends from the Garin who talked their way into a day off from the army, whether for a Yom Siddurim (errand day) or whatever excuse worked. And of course my friends from the garin who are also serving with me in the paratroopers, just in a different  battalion who were also participating in the ceremony.

This last week of January, was meant to be another week in the field. I was originally supposed to have Sunday and Monday off from the army to spend with my parents, and go back to base Tuesday, but obviously, nothing goes according to plan with the army. At 1 in the morning on Monday, I get a call from my commander. I decided to answer the phone, although maybe if I wasn't half asleep I would've chosen not to answer. He told me that he has bad news – that plans have changed and I need to be back at the bus station at 9 AM. Once I processed that it means I have to leave 6 hours from then in order to make it back in time, I got really upset and started arguing with him. After his reply of 'אין מה לעשות' several times (nothing you can do about it) I accepted it and hung up. 10 minutes later, he calls back, saying that because I am a good soldier, I can have another day, and only have to come back Tuesday morning. It was great news, and despite this unexpected issue, because I was so tired, I still managed to fall back asleep in probably a minute.

Going back to base was a bit of a shock. I went from being able to do whatever I want, eating great food ALL THE TIME, and spending time with my parents, to chaos in the field. I met all my kita, and heard all the horror stories from the night before, and the cold wasn't even the problem this time, even though it was still FREEZING. They all ended up getting up 2 hours before wake up because, halfway through the night, they awoke to discover that due to all the rain that was pouring throughout the day before, there was a stream of water running through the tent, and everyone was sleeping in their sleeping bags in this stream! Their sleeping bags were soaked through, and everyone was walking around in soaked uniforms. As bad as I felt being off base while they were all suffering (or should I say עושים כיף חיים, having the time of their lives) as my commanders like to call it, I was soaked and full of mud just like them within 10 minutes. The entire time we were there was spent doing drills working in pairs, conquering hills, and finally, by 10 PM, we started to fold up the equipment and tents. We made our way back to base earlier than planned because they were worried of more people getting hypothermia due to the cold and wet uniforms everyone was wearing. All in all, I guess it was an experience to remember, and hopefully not to be repeated. Of course, getting back to base we were greeted with the dreaded task of cleaning all our equipment from pounds and pounds of mud, which was done most effectively by simply taking it into the showers with us. Finally, by 4 AM we were allowed to go to sleep.

The next day was spent mostly in class, learning about different weapons and ammunition we will be using in the future, and studying for a test we would have the next day. All this time I was under the impression that although my kita would have to close the weekend on base, I would be getting out, and on Thursday nonetheless, because I have a Garin seminar on the weekend. Another perk of joining the army through Garin Tzabar is that 3 times a year we have a seminar, where everyone, no matter where they are serving, has to be released from the army. Because everyone in my group serves in different units, we all get out different weekends and sometimes I go without seeing some friends for months at a time. These seminars ensure that we all see each-other at the same time at least 3 times a year, and of course it never hurts to get another weekend off from the army. The first day is spent as a fun day, and this year, for some reason after voting, it was decided that we all go to a spa. However, as is typical of the army, at the last minute I was not told I can't leave on time because I have to do a test on all the information we learned the past couple days, and given an added surprise that I have to do the Bochan Maslul (obstacle course). This was the first time I did the entire thing, and I really didn't find it so hard. I got over the wall no problem, although I got stuck at the rope climb for about 40 seconds, when it should take probably 10. Despite this, I ended finishing in 10 minutes 20 seconds, and even though it's not a pass, (a pass is 10 minutes flat), I'm confident that next time I'll be able to cut my time by at least 20 seconds, and probably more.

As of right now, I'm mentally preparing myself for the upcoming week. Even though my kita hasn't gotten all their specialties yet, they are slowly starting to give them out, and mine is מפקד חוליה, which essentially means I'm like a mini commander, in charge of 3 other people in my group. Apparently, people who get offered to go to the commander's course and become a commander later on in their service are chosen from people in this position, so I guess it's a good sign. This was apparently the 'hushed' up reason for them not exactly cooperating with my wanting to go to the medic course. Either way, I'm excited for the next week and hope the weather will be alright, unlike last time.

צה''ל - The ultimate melting pot, Masaot, בוחן מסלול, l500 schnitzels, and tear gas!

Everyone always says that the Gdudim (regular infantry units) are the melting pot of Israeli society. You can’t really appreciate that fact until you experience it first-hand. My kita of 16 people consists of Olim Chadashim from Russia, North America, and Australia, Israelis, people aged anywhere from 18-24 (I’m not even the oldest!), mature and immature, religious and secular, kibbutznik and non-kibbutznik, and Ethiopians as well. I don’t think I ever expected this much diversity. Despite all this, everyone gets along for the most part (minus the occasional miscommunication due to a language/cultural barrier here and there) and helps each other out as much as possible. As these 3 weeks have gone by, I have already noticed that everyone is starting to work really well together.

Week one felt somewhat like I was back in high school – only with much less sleep and much more discipline. We had classes on the M16 and then began shooting at the shooting range. We started our מד''ס, or workouts, ranging from simple 15 minute runs with all sorts of strength training (all kinds of variations of pushups, ab workouts, and pull ups) to short runs with all our equipment on (vest with helmet, 6 full magazines, 1.5 L of water, and of course our guns).  We were also introduced to the בוחן מסלול, or obstacle course, which is a 1.5 km run including 500 meters of obstacles, run in full gear. The obstacles consist of a 2 m high wall, monkey bars, hurdles, crawling, climbing 3 meters up a rope, and then some. It may sound simple now, but for some people it’s moderately challenging doing the obstacles themselves, let alone attempting them in full gear, which is at least another 8 pounds. The whole 1.5 kilometer course needs to be completed in less than 10 minutes as part of training. We practiced the obstacles several times this week, and I managed to do the 600 meter run followed by 500 meters of obstacles in just under 7 minutes 30 seconds. For now, I think I’m on the right track, but I definitely need to improve my performance on the obstacles themselves.

After each of my first 2 weeks on base I was lucky enough to get the weekend off. Days themselves go by slowly because each day goes from wake up at around 5 AM to bedtime at 10 PM with only an hour of free time before lights out to shower, relax, and call friends/family. On the other hand, the week on the whole goes by fairly quickly because we’re so busy, especially come Thursday night when everyone knows that all that stands between us and home sweet home is a moderately intense cleaning session on Friday morning. One of the many perks of being a chayal boded (lone soldier) is that no matter where you live, you get to leave base 2-3 hours earlier than everyone else on Friday mornings in order to get home well before everything closes down for Shabbat and buy groceries for the weekend. As tough as it gets to be here every once in a while, the feelings come and go, and knowing that the worst, or should I say most challenging is yet to come helps a little bit – 80 km march in full gear and then some!! I can already see why Israelis on the whole are such amazing people – after going through the army, especially the approximately 7 months of training for a combat soldier, they have the ability to view anything as achievable and believe that nothing is impossible – as we are constantly reminded of everyday.

We have also started one of the most dreaded (or anticipated, depending on who you ask) parts of training: מסעות (marches). So far we have completed a 4, 6, and 8 km march. For the 8 km march, I had the honour of carrying the radio (yes it is considered an honour, all 20 pounds of it) for the entire march. As if the added weight on top of your basic weight of 8 pounds isn’t enough, carrying the radio means that you walk upfront with the commander and every couple minutes have to run back to everyone walking in the 2 lines behind you to fill them in on what the commander wants them to do. Doing so, you end up doing probably 20% more walking than everyone else. The walking is done at a fairly quick pace – 6-7 km per hour, and for the last kilometre of the masa, the stretcher is opened up and we load it up with around 70 kg of sand. At one point around halfway through, we reached a very steep hill. One of my friends who was carrying the stretcher on his back and was having a rough time the entire way starts to give up. He stops where he is, saying that he can’t do it and can’t make it up the hill. Immediately, my commander turns around to him, grabs him by the shirt, and starts pulling him up the hill, screaming at him “you are going to finish this masa... there is no such thing as I can’t... everything is possible.” He proceeds to drag him up the entire hill, along with the help of everyone else who pushes each other in order to help with the climb. I get the feeling that events like these will occur more and more frequently as training gets harder. Something viewed as impossible very quickly will change to a challenge and then once performed successfully will seem as no big deal at all. This is the kind of attitude being nurtured here, a good preparation for the 80 kilometre march which we will be doing at the end of our advanced training in 6 months, with some people carrying upwards of 30 kilograms on their backs. Even though it’s a bit uncomfortable during the march itself and of course a challenge, the feeling at the finish is worth it, especially arriving back to our platoon with tons of snacks waiting for us to feast on.

This past week we spent 2 full days in the classroom learning first aid, but with a more significant purpose in mind – each of us will be responsible for one another in the future and even something as simple as putting on a bandage to stop bleeding or a tourniquet if needed could save a friend’s life. Ironically, the next 3 days we spent at the shooting range, having advanced from calibrating our weapons to now practicing getting into different positions and firing 5 bullets on target in the span of 8 seconds. It is made much easier by the fact that we now have our scopes configured.

Each platoon in basic training takes turns contributing to the base itself in the form of kitchen duty and שמירות (guarding), and my second week on base it was our turn. We had already started on the previous Thursday night with a simple guarding shift from 12 midnight until 2 AM (of course after being awake since 5 AM doing other things). It was probably one of the more mentally challenging things I’ve done in the past 3 weeks forcing myself to stay awake, but I can definitely appreciate its significance. Not seeing or hearing a single person for 2 straight hours is something I’m definitely not used to especially after being in the army for 1 month already. It was almost like I had privacy for 2 hours. I then got to sleep for around 6 hours before I had to wake up for my next 2 hour guarding shift, which was many times easier considering I was guarding during daylight and after a normal (army) length of sleep. This was the first weekend I had the privilege of spending on base and it really wasn’t so bad. Friday night dinner reminded me somewhat of Friday night dinners at Chabad in London, only instead of a couple hundred people to feed, enough food/salads were prepared for 600+ people. Given the fact that we were around 100 people cleaning up the dishes (don’t forget we were still on kitchen duty), it took us only one and a half hours to clean up everything after dinner, including washing the dishes by hand because you can’t use the dishwasher on Shabbat, which is not so bad.

Having to spend the entire week doing guard duty and kitchen duty is probably one of the least interesting weeks you can have in the army. At one point during my day of kitchen duty, me and 3 other people were put into a room and assigned the simple task of preparing only 1500 shnitzels for the entire base. To top that off, the next day when those 1500 schnitzels were being eaten, me and my fellow soldiers were tasked with cleaning the dishes and cutlery needed for those 1500 soldiers to eat – not a simple feat at all. However, it was not bad at all because people here know how to have fun doing anything – even making 1500 schniztels. Anyone who came into the room must have thought it was some kind of audition for American Idol or Kochav Nolad, with the amount of singing going on there. Even when one person got fed up someone immediately jumped in with some words of encouragement to keep them focused on the task. The work was made much more doable by the fact that we were right beside the bakery part of the kitchen where they were baking fresh buns, which we would conveniently have someone bring in for us to taste test very frequently.

Every time you have a week of kitchen and guard duty, you get 1 day of the week to complete a part of your training that you did not get to complete, or work on something that needs more practice. For us, this meant finally throwing a grenade! As part of a combat soldier’s basic training, each soldier is required to throw a grenade. After having several hours of classes on the theory behind grenades, types of grenades, safety, etc, we were all geared up to throw them 2 weeks ago. We even had to throw rocks several times to practice the throwing technique and practice what to do if a grenade is accidentally dropped or thrown close by. However, only 4 people ended up throwing because too many grenades were being thrown and not exploding due to some unforeseen technicality. Throwing the grenade was VERY exhilarating, and gives a huge adrenaline rush, especially when required to run up a huge hill to the fortified area where you throw it. I was so caught up in the moment that after throwing the grenade and running back down the hill to the waiting area I realized that in all the excitement I still had the safety pin on my finger, so I decided it would make a nice keychain...

Finally, one of the last things we did this third week on base is אב''כ, or biological and chemical warfare. We had classes on how to prepare for a chemical/biological attack, and learned how to properly use our gas masks. In order to truly test our gas masks and be sure that they really are sealed tight, we were brought to the ‘gas tent’. After putting on our masks and running around for 5 minutes to get us breathing heavy, we had to enter a tent filled with tear gas. A couple push ups later (to keep us breathing hard), and after making sure we didn’t feel anything with our gas masks on, we had to take them off. At first I thought it was a joke, that there wasn’t anything in the tent. Then after a couple seconds I felt my eyes start to burn, and a burning sensation at the back of my throat. The commander inside the tent then asked me the simple question: what is your army identification number? I tried to list the 7 digit number, but got stuck after 3 digits, and really had to struggle to say the last 4. By the time my 10 seconds in the tear gas were up, I was gagging and coughing like never before, and proceeded to run outside the tent. There, my fellow soldiers who had just done it were waiting for me, with huge smiles on their faces, laughing at the hideous face I must have made when I emerged from the tear gas filled tent. Nonetheless, they approached me and helped me run into the wind to help clear it out of my system. Although it was a very uncomfortable experience, it only lasted 5 minutes, and going through it with friends made it much more bearable.

In the coming weeks, I have several things to look forward to. First, this upcoming week, is parents day on base. Me being a lone soldier and all, I am going for a “day of fun” outside the base along with the many other lone soldiers, while all the Israeli soldiers have their families visit them on base, giving them a tour and probably enjoying a huge home cooked meal. Second, in less than 3 weeks, I will be having my swearing in ceremony at the Kotel, which promises to be a meaningful and very moving experience. Finally, how could my army experience be complete without a week in theשטח  (field). Rumour has it that it is one of the roughest weeks during basic training, but I’ll leave that for my next update!