Thoughts on
Finishing the Army
I hold no regrets.
I do not regret my decision of
joining the army, nor the decision to do combat and not even the decision to
sign on an additional year of service to serve in the Palchan, the elite
demolition and combat engineering company of the Nachal brigade.
Very few
people can say at a young age that they set themselves an overarching goal,
devoted themselves to it and then achieved and surpassed their goal. After
spending a year abroad here between high school and college in 2008, I told myself
that one day I would make aliyah to Israel and join the army like every other
Israeli. I didn’t lose sight of that goal when I was in college. Over the past
three years I was able to immigrate to my homeland, learn the language, build
myself mentally and physically, and as cliché as it sounds, defend my people
and our independence. I served in an elite unit in the army, made incredibly
close bonds with my army buddies who are now my brothers, and somewhere along
the path turned into an Israeli. I could not have wished for a better
realization of my dream.
I honestly hold no regrets. Joining
the army was easily the best decision I ever made.
I appreciate all the lessons I
learnt in the army.
I am not referring to the material
learnt in the army, though that was interesting in of itself. I mean that the
army is a place where you delve into yourself and learn what you are made of. What
are your limits, how you interact with others, how you function under stress,
and do you back up your words with actions? The army is the place where these
questions are answered, sometimes unmercifully.
Another lesson that the army has
taught me is that happiness is only bought with pain. Success is only reached
through failure. The more you suffer and sacrifice for something, the more you
own and love it. There is a highway, highway 77, which runs from the Poriya
medical center on the Sea of Galilee west towards the ancient Jewish village of
Tsippori and the modern highway junction called Tzomet HaMobil. We had a full
week of solo navigation from that medical center to the junction. No help, just
being plopped down in the middle of nowhere and being told to navigate to
certain points within time limits. No help except for the starlight, moonlight,
and memorizing the route you learnt on the map during the day. I loved it.
Walking and tripping over boulders, getting caught on barbed wire fences
enclosing cow pens, slipping in mud and almost being charged by a wild boar
wasn’t a pleasure stroll but whenever I pass by that area, an unbidden smile
plays about my face as I reminisce of memories of a challenging week
successfully completed.
The greatest lesson learnt, though
perhaps the most obvious, is the importance of the soldiers around you. I will
be forever grateful for having the opportunity to be with my tzevet (team). It
is one thing to read of the bonds formed by soldiers through the shared
experiences of grueling training and long deployments and quite another thing
to experience it yourself. The average combat soldier’s training takes eight
months. He or she will learn how to shoot, take cover, fight in concert with
his/her group and specialize on a certain weapon or army vehicle. My training
took a year and two months. In addition to learning what every combat soldier
learns, we take a two month engineering and demolition course, learn
navigation, anti-terror shooting, fighting in shrubbery, urban warfare and
more.
For that entire period you are
together with your team, tzevet, and spend every waking hour with the same
group. The longer training enables, enforces and ensures that you form
unbelievably close bonds with these guys. Special forces in my opinion are
special not because they are stronger or smarter or quicker than the other
guys. We are special because we struggled and cursed and succeeded over a
longer period of more intense training.
The condescending cliché of you
can’t explain the army to someone who has not experienced it is unfortunately
true. Experiencing the crucible of the army with the same group of soldiers for
three years forces the development of incredibly deep and formative bonds
between us. When we tell each other “I love you bro”, we actually mean it. If
the only thing I took away from the army were the friendships I formed with
these guys, it would have been worth it.
My Zionism is as strong as ever.
As opposed to many blogs from
former lone soldiers would have had me believe, I am still idealistic, unjaded,
and a diehard Zionist- perhaps more so than ever. After three and a half years as
an Israeli citizen, I have taken off the rose-tinted glasses. I could write on
and on about the myriad problems that Israel contains: the never-ending
conflict, religious intolerance, Haredim not drafting, the poor school system,
the cronyism and corruption, bureaucracy, low salaries, horrifying death toll
from car accidents, and so and so forth. I could fill pages about the maddening
and illogical way the army is managed and the frustrations a lowly impotent
foot soldier feels navigating this cold unfeeling system.
And yet.
And yet after 68 years, Israel is
here. I moved here to be part of a Jewish experiment of creating and
maintaining sovereignty for the first time in over two thousand years in our
ancestral homeland. That motivation still burns strong in me especially when I
consider our country today. The country is strong, the people are happy, the
economy is booming, unemployment is low, and despite all the challenges Israel
is forging ahead. There is a vibrancy and depth here that makes this place the
best place for a Jew to live hands down. There is a purpose and meaning that
one finds here that I miss when I am in America. I don’t downplay the problems
that Israel faces, but I would rather help to solve them here in whatever way I
can than to sit on the sidelines.
Cutting the army ID card!
My tzevet upon beginning our final exercise in our service.
