As I wrote, three weeks ago I was in another driver's course. It was wonderful. I got to have my phone on me at all times, the base had great conditions, and best of all my commanders weren't with me, so I had so much freedom I didn't know what to do with myself! The course was fun and the machine I learnt how to drive is quite fun. I graduated with "excellence" which meant that I got to leave on Thursday which was an unexpected treat.
The past two weeks I spent a lot of time cleaning a Nachal memorial in the North in preparation for a tekes (ceremony) commemorating fallen soldiers. It was menial labor- sweeping fallen leaves, hanging flags, moving chairs etc. Though this was not fun, it meant two easy weeks though not much to write home about. The cool thing about these weeks was the fact that I got off for every Shabbat and the chag (holiday) of Shavuot. I made a point of not going home to my kibbutz as I wanted to get out more, see people, and not just spend every free weekend with my garin, though I do love them. I got to visit friends in Jerusalem, Alon Shvut, and Kibbutz Lavi which was just wonderful.
This past week we visited Yad Vashem and had our mechin kumta (preparatory march, the penultimate march before the beret march). The visit to Yad Vashem in my mind was quite underwhelming. It seemed to me that our commanders rushed us through the museum and simply did the entire day because they had to, not because they wanted us to learn about the Holocaust which was unfortunate.
The march (45 km) was tough, but thank G-d, due to my preparations and my family's advice, I didn't get any blisters, so though I suffered from pain in the soles of my feet, I finished the march relatively well. When we made it back to base, our commander told us to take off our gear and start stretching. Then he yelled at us that the march hadn't finished, and that we had four minutes to get back on gear and place sandbags on the stretchers.
It turned out that we were doing what is called a masa tzevet- a march that one takes in order to become a tzevet-team. In the battalion that I am in, the team has great significance. The team is a independent unit capable of doing everything required of it. It is an organic whole and requires personal responsibility from all of the members in it. Up until this point, we had been an company but after doing a 3 km march with 3 stretchers with all the sandbags at basically a sprint we became a team.
The commanders gave us hats with our team name in an informal ceremony where we were all grinning from ear to ear though we had just spent the past ten hours on a march and the last half hour sprinting with weighting stretchers.
It was a wonderful moment for many reasons. One reason is that now practically all the discipline has disappeared. We now can say whatever we want, call ourselves what we want etc. But the real reason it was such a wonderful moment was because it marked a big step forward in our training, a moment that officially marked what has already been fact for quite some time: that a group of very different individuals from different backgrounds, beliefs, age and every other factor have molded together to become an elite group.
Aside from that, because we marched so far, we got a pin in our berets that says we are infantry soldiers. I know, we have been infantry soldiers for about 7/8 months, but now the whole world can see this on our berets.
Next week we are working on navigation, closing that weekend on the base, and then the next week is one big preparation for our final march to get our berets which should be extremely hard but fulfilling! Furthermore, my sister is planning on coming so can't wait to see her there!
Finally, by now I am sure you have all heard the horrible news about the kidnapping of 3 teenage Israeli yeshiva students by terrorists. Here is to praying and hoping for their safety and quick return.
N
