I just came back from war week. I honestly don't want to write too much about it. It was pure hell, lack of sleep, a lot of heat, dust, exercises, and not enough food. That being said, without going into too many details, doing war exercises conquering mountains with tanks are extremely awesome and very powerful.
We are closing in on getting our beret and just have three to four weeks left. The army has decided to send me to another driver's course so next week should be awesome. I will be sure to take pictures and post them, don't worry. Basically it is another armored personnel carrier, just bigger and better and safer so I am very excited to be able to learn how to drive this vehicle.
I actually decided to write on another topic today that shows you the daily grind of a soldier. Without further ado, here is my very limited introduction to army graffiti. Just as "the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls" (Simon and Garfunkel's song Sound of Silence), so too is life in the IDF as seen from the bathroom walls of my base.
(I am writing in English so much of the rhyming is missing unfortunately).
"Whores screw for money, we do it for free"
"Nov '13 (referring to the draft class) is tired", "Nov '13 are rookies", etc
"1 life, 2 short, 3 years, 4 what?"
"What you don't do well once, do twice!"
"Be happy, man"
"My last poop before advanced training!"
"How much more (can we take)?
"Base K- the world knew, and was silent".
And of course, the most prominent of them all. עד מתי
"Until when??!!"
Friday, May 23, 2014
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Pain
Imagine the situation. You are about to embark on a 34 km march, about 7 hours total of walking in the darkness. You are pumped up, full gear on, heart racing in one of those indescribable situations that only soldiers can know.
The first two hours you are on a roll. The night is warm, the moon is beautiful, and you are enjoying the surroundings when slowly, so slowly that at first you only imagine the pain, you begin to feel pain in your heels.Your skin feels like its being scrunched up, then stretched. Rinse and repeat.
Oh no. It is the beginning of blisters. And no, not little blisters with some red and raised skin. Blisters the size of your hand; filled with fluid, blood, G-d knows what. Blisters that are agonizingly painful with every step that you take.
Thank G-d, you make it to the second stop of the march. You wince as you make your way over to the medic of the pluga.
"Hey man, listen. I have got these blisters, can you do something for them?"
"The truth is, I can't really do anything about them. The only thing you can do is to grit your teeth and finish the march or drop out."
"Nothing? Well, how about some pills against pain?"
"Sorry, can't give you those right now".
"Ah, okay."
Now what? Dropping out means you spare yourself an excruciatingly painful march. But then you will have to make up the march at a later point, or even worse in your opinion, on the final march to get your beret, you will march less than your friends and feel like you somehow didn't truly deserve it.
And lets be honest, it is just blisters, right? It isn't like your friend who dropped out with a bum knee or bad back.
The commanders and sergeant are looking at you. They recognize you as someone with a big heart and a lot of morale. Surely you can't let them down. They tell you that this is something normal for infantrymen, just grit your teeth and get on with it, soldier.
Your fellow soldiers are standing around you, sweat pouring off their faces, filling up their canteens. They have just been carrying the light and heavy machine gun, stretchers, communications equipment, and water bottles in addition to their vests. In another 20 km, they will open stretchers and carry two lucky soldiers 4 km in addition to all the gear they lugged. They are silent. If you drop out, they won't say anything. They understand, but still...how can you leave your boys because of...blisters?
So you grit your teeth and continue the march. You think about everything but the pain emanating from your feet. Ex girlfriends, favorite songs, sports, literally anything. Thank G-d, its dark and you are sweating so that your fellow soldiers don't see the tears silently rolling down your face.
6 km, stop, 6 km more, stop. Two and a half hours. The pain has now enveloped everything. It is visceral, the only real thing in this world. It is existence. Every wrong step, every stumble over a unseen rock jolts the pain to the maximum level.
This has become ridiculous. Why should you continue this madness? But you've done 18 km, more than halfway done. If you were going to stop, you should have done it by now. You can't stop now. You have to continue. To prove a point to yourself.
The march resumes and you start to fall behind your fellow soldiers, the pace is outstripping your limping.
So your fellow soldiers start to push you and whisper you to close the gaps.
Yalla, you can do it! You can't let them down so you run to close the gaps. At this point, you can't hide your sniffling, your gasps of pain.
When you get to the next stop, you almost collapse from joy. Only 10 km left.
You are placed next to your sergeant at the very front of the line so that he can ensure that you don't fall behind and stay with the pace. You can't let him know that you have been crying. You are a man, a soldier- who does that?! So you make sure to exhale very loudly with every step to stifle all other sounds.
"Are you okay?", asks the sergeant.
What do you answer? The answer is no, but the sergeant can't do anything for you in any case.
"I have blisters, but I am not giving up".
"Very good. Just grit your teeth and it will pass".
You give thanks to the jackass for telling you something you didn't already know.
Final stop. 6 km left. The lights of your base can dimly be seen around the bend of the hill in front of you. At this point, you have nothing left but one mantra pulsing in your head. Finish.
The march is over. 5 AM. You are practically delirious. You limp through the stretches, the checking of your gear, the shower. You collapse into your bed and pass out.
Welcome to the life of a infantry soldier.
(if anyone has good anti-blister suggestions, please comment to help me out!)
The first two hours you are on a roll. The night is warm, the moon is beautiful, and you are enjoying the surroundings when slowly, so slowly that at first you only imagine the pain, you begin to feel pain in your heels.Your skin feels like its being scrunched up, then stretched. Rinse and repeat.
Oh no. It is the beginning of blisters. And no, not little blisters with some red and raised skin. Blisters the size of your hand; filled with fluid, blood, G-d knows what. Blisters that are agonizingly painful with every step that you take.
Thank G-d, you make it to the second stop of the march. You wince as you make your way over to the medic of the pluga.
"Hey man, listen. I have got these blisters, can you do something for them?"
"The truth is, I can't really do anything about them. The only thing you can do is to grit your teeth and finish the march or drop out."
"Nothing? Well, how about some pills against pain?"
"Sorry, can't give you those right now".
"Ah, okay."
Now what? Dropping out means you spare yourself an excruciatingly painful march. But then you will have to make up the march at a later point, or even worse in your opinion, on the final march to get your beret, you will march less than your friends and feel like you somehow didn't truly deserve it.
And lets be honest, it is just blisters, right? It isn't like your friend who dropped out with a bum knee or bad back.
The commanders and sergeant are looking at you. They recognize you as someone with a big heart and a lot of morale. Surely you can't let them down. They tell you that this is something normal for infantrymen, just grit your teeth and get on with it, soldier.
Your fellow soldiers are standing around you, sweat pouring off their faces, filling up their canteens. They have just been carrying the light and heavy machine gun, stretchers, communications equipment, and water bottles in addition to their vests. In another 20 km, they will open stretchers and carry two lucky soldiers 4 km in addition to all the gear they lugged. They are silent. If you drop out, they won't say anything. They understand, but still...how can you leave your boys because of...blisters?
So you grit your teeth and continue the march. You think about everything but the pain emanating from your feet. Ex girlfriends, favorite songs, sports, literally anything. Thank G-d, its dark and you are sweating so that your fellow soldiers don't see the tears silently rolling down your face.
6 km, stop, 6 km more, stop. Two and a half hours. The pain has now enveloped everything. It is visceral, the only real thing in this world. It is existence. Every wrong step, every stumble over a unseen rock jolts the pain to the maximum level.
This has become ridiculous. Why should you continue this madness? But you've done 18 km, more than halfway done. If you were going to stop, you should have done it by now. You can't stop now. You have to continue. To prove a point to yourself.
The march resumes and you start to fall behind your fellow soldiers, the pace is outstripping your limping.
So your fellow soldiers start to push you and whisper you to close the gaps.
Yalla, you can do it! You can't let them down so you run to close the gaps. At this point, you can't hide your sniffling, your gasps of pain.
When you get to the next stop, you almost collapse from joy. Only 10 km left.
You are placed next to your sergeant at the very front of the line so that he can ensure that you don't fall behind and stay with the pace. You can't let him know that you have been crying. You are a man, a soldier- who does that?! So you make sure to exhale very loudly with every step to stifle all other sounds.
"Are you okay?", asks the sergeant.
What do you answer? The answer is no, but the sergeant can't do anything for you in any case.
"I have blisters, but I am not giving up".
"Very good. Just grit your teeth and it will pass".
You give thanks to the jackass for telling you something you didn't already know.
Final stop. 6 km left. The lights of your base can dimly be seen around the bend of the hill in front of you. At this point, you have nothing left but one mantra pulsing in your head. Finish.
The march is over. 5 AM. You are practically delirious. You limp through the stretches, the checking of your gear, the shower. You collapse into your bed and pass out.
Welcome to the life of a infantry soldier.
(if anyone has good anti-blister suggestions, please comment to help me out!)
Sunday, May 4, 2014
David the Nachlaui
Hey everyone.
The past month we have really been getting into the meat of advanced training. Most weeks we are learning how to fight in ever bigger groups (2 men, 4 men, the entire citah or company) and how to incorporate different weapons and terrain into the missions. Its quite interesting and challenging so I am really enjoying it. The next few weeks promise to be extremely difficult as one of them is "war week" where the idea is to provide us with a feel for what war is really like including lack of sleep, long hikes with all of our gear on us, etc. In any case, we are also closing in on recieving our green beret of the Nachal division. The tekes (ceremony) is on June 26th according to my commanders so I am very excited as that date is less than two months away.
Enough about me for the moment. I would like to comment on the story that everyone is talking about and has been termed David the Nachlaui in Israel. A video was posted of a Nachal soldier on guard duty in Hebron. A Palestinian child goes behind the soldier's back in the video and in response the soldier cocks his gun at the kid. A few days later, the soldier was released from combat duty by the army. As a response, thousands of soldiers went on Facebook to support the soldier and his actions. As a Nachal soldier myself, I happen to know the details on this story.
The truth of the matter is that the soldier was released from combat duty because he was aggressive towards his commanders (throwing rocks and assault) and didn't follow orders, not because of what he did in Hebron. But what really gets me upset about this whole story is why he was there in the first place. Soldiers are not policemen. We are trained to fight and view the world through the lens of where potential enemies and attacks can come from, however depressing that is. Therefore while I don't condone what he did towards a child, what did we expect? A soldier perceived a threat and acted accordingly. I am not going to get into politics surrounding Hebron but I will say this. Soldiers are not policemen and are not trained to be policemen....so what did we expect to happen?
Other than that, life is good. The summer is beginning to arrive and I can't stop sweating. The heat is on a different level than in the States. It is oppressive and suffocates you and it will take time for me to adjust to the situation. Here is to hoping that I adjust sooner than later as the heat is only expected to get worse as we head into June, July and August.
On a final note, tonight begins Yom HaZikaron, the day of memorial for the fallen soldiers and victims of terror attacks in Israel. May their memory be a blessing.
The past month we have really been getting into the meat of advanced training. Most weeks we are learning how to fight in ever bigger groups (2 men, 4 men, the entire citah or company) and how to incorporate different weapons and terrain into the missions. Its quite interesting and challenging so I am really enjoying it. The next few weeks promise to be extremely difficult as one of them is "war week" where the idea is to provide us with a feel for what war is really like including lack of sleep, long hikes with all of our gear on us, etc. In any case, we are also closing in on recieving our green beret of the Nachal division. The tekes (ceremony) is on June 26th according to my commanders so I am very excited as that date is less than two months away.
Enough about me for the moment. I would like to comment on the story that everyone is talking about and has been termed David the Nachlaui in Israel. A video was posted of a Nachal soldier on guard duty in Hebron. A Palestinian child goes behind the soldier's back in the video and in response the soldier cocks his gun at the kid. A few days later, the soldier was released from combat duty by the army. As a response, thousands of soldiers went on Facebook to support the soldier and his actions. As a Nachal soldier myself, I happen to know the details on this story.
The truth of the matter is that the soldier was released from combat duty because he was aggressive towards his commanders (throwing rocks and assault) and didn't follow orders, not because of what he did in Hebron. But what really gets me upset about this whole story is why he was there in the first place. Soldiers are not policemen. We are trained to fight and view the world through the lens of where potential enemies and attacks can come from, however depressing that is. Therefore while I don't condone what he did towards a child, what did we expect? A soldier perceived a threat and acted accordingly. I am not going to get into politics surrounding Hebron but I will say this. Soldiers are not policemen and are not trained to be policemen....so what did we expect to happen?
Other than that, life is good. The summer is beginning to arrive and I can't stop sweating. The heat is on a different level than in the States. It is oppressive and suffocates you and it will take time for me to adjust to the situation. Here is to hoping that I adjust sooner than later as the heat is only expected to get worse as we head into June, July and August.
On a final note, tonight begins Yom HaZikaron, the day of memorial for the fallen soldiers and victims of terror attacks in Israel. May their memory be a blessing.
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