The Dover Tzahal Tag

After basic, I was given a slip of paper to report to the Bakoum. For those who don’t remember, that’s the enlistment center where I spent my first day. What was supposed to happen was that I was suppose to see an assignment officer (or Kzin Miyun) and get my assignment and be off.

I ended up meeting up with my friend David from tironut (basic) on the way there. This was good because I never would have found the way on my own. Once I arrived I saw a few more faces I recognized from tironut which was nice. I had a wait ahead of me, which all in all was not too bad. There was a television, a covered area, and plentiful food- definitely better than guard duty. My wait only ended up being about 4 hours or so.

I was finally called in, and started to get nervous. This is the guy who was going to (finally) decide what I was doing. They said go in and tell him everything you need to say because you will only see him once, which definitely added some more pressure. I went in, and tried to sputter out in Hebrew everything I needed to say. How I was a lone soldier and volunteer, about all my skills, how I wanted to be in the journalism unit, how I was making a very hard decision. I think I got about halfway through before he stopped me and told me there was no way at all he could send me to Dover Tzahal (the Spokesman Unit). I thought that was the end of it, but he said he’d double check and sent me outside.

After another wait that seemed like forever, I got called to the window and was given a slip of paper. The paper told me to go to another office on the other side of the base with very shitty directions. After a long wandering walk (about an hour of being totally lost), I found a nice guy from the Air Force who showed me where I needed to go.

Once I had found I was in the right office, I was of course told to sit down and wait. There I met this guy named Zack- another volunteer from the states who had just finished his Ulpan (the army run hebrew language course). After learning about the program a little I was pretty glad I didn’t go. Apparently it wasn’t all that helpful and was pretty much like being in the army anyway- you wear a uniform and all the discipline and stuff is there.

Zack had been in the Bakoum for four days. I had heard of this happening, since volunteers like us are rare cases we can very easily slip through the cracks of the bureaucracy. Zack was very nice and we spoke a lot about our respective experiences. He wanted very badly to go to combat, but was getting held back by a mix of bureacracy and health problems. It was nice to have someone to relate to and wind down with, especially someone who had such a similar experience.

After we got back from lunch, Zack got his piece of paper. He was being transferred to a logistics support base where it would be easier for him to make the shift to combat once he got healthy. It was great to see him get what he wanted after such a long wait, I just thought how long would I have to wait.

A couple more hours went by and I finally saw another Kzin Miyun. This one was much nicer and far more willing to help me. After some phone calls to the unit I wanted and a little more waiting around- I got my golden ticket. I had the assignment paper in my hand, and was scheduled to go to the big army base in Tel Aviv the next day where I would start going through the bureaucracy to join my unit. I was elated, I could believe it. I started making my way home with a spring in my step and the world off my shoulders.

On the way home I got a call from a restricted number. I picked up and it was the office that gave me my assignment. They told me I’d have to come back to the bakoum the next morning, my assignment was cancelled because it turns out I was never suppose to be in their office in the first place. I don’t think my Hebrew was ever as fluent as when I was yelling at that man on the phone. I cursed, and yelled, and complained but nothing worked. All the guy could say was I’m sorry, it’s our fuck up, but you still have to come back.

So very reluctantly (and very worried that everything would fall apart) I came the next morning. There were far fewer familiar faces this time, but no less people. The place was absolutely packed, and apparently my four hour wait from the day before was abnormally short. The day started dragging on, before I knew it, it was 6pm and I had been there for 9 hours, without so much as a peep as to why I was there and why they had fucked up.

I had finally lost my patience and started trying to be Israeli. I bitched and moaned and complained and spoke to everyone, whether I was allowed to or not. I finally found some sympathetic ears and some people willing to fight for me. They were surprised I was still there, and impressed I had been so patient. Being a stupid American was paying off for once. I was finally admitted to see a Kzin Miyun again, who was a little more sympathetic this time. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t help all that much.

I told him my story again, and he started looking into it for me. Apparently the reason he had sent me to the other office was because he had no available assignments for Dover Tzahal. I explained that they had accepted me and were waiting for me, but that didn’t matter. The only thing he could find from them regarding me was an email that said my service length was too short. He also told me my profile was slated for combat. I started getting really flustered and tried explaining that I had already been through non-combat tironut. He said he had no idea why I ended up there and there looked like there was nothing he could do to fix my situation.

Finally I tried pouring my heart out to him, telling him my whole dilemma, and how I wasn’t sure what I wanted. About why I was here, and why I volunteered and about how I was determined to not waste my time here, and how I was worried I would end up in some dead-end jobnick unit. I told him I wanted something meaningful, either combat, or more-so Dover Tzahal, since it actually fit my skills and it was something I could start contributing right away. My Hebrew had not been this fluent since I yelled at the guy on the phone.

The guy definitely listened, you could see he wanted to help. He told me he was going to send me home. He gave me the night to make all the calls I needed to the officers, to try to forward whatever permissions they had for me to him. Then he said if it didn’t work out, he would do his best to clear up the nonsense with my .02 tironut and send me to combat.

I felt very nervous. I had a lot of calls to make that night. So I did, calling all the connections I had again and all my family to explain this shitty situation. I had gone from holding the ticket in my hand, to being on the verge of maybe not even getting either choice. I felt like shit, and definitely did not want to make the awful trip back to the bakoum early the next morning.

When I finally got there, everyone already knew me. I made some last minute calls, tried my best to check that everything was in order, then checked in saying I had done all I could. I waited another agonizing 5 hours or so before they called me to the window. Apparently, I wouldn’t need to see a Kzin Miyun again, they were just going to give me my assignment. I started freaking out, I was terrified I would see something I didn’t want to see on that piece of paper and would have no more chances to plead my case.

I sat for what felt like an eternity. It was probably only 30 minutes, but I was suffering. Finally I was called to the window again. It took me a few seconds to scan the piece of paper they gave me. But it was good. I got the assignment to Dover Tzahal, I was scheduled to report to Tel Aviv in the morning. Everyone congratulated me (I had made friends with most of the staff by that point) and I got on my way. I was elated and just hoped it would last this time. Now I only had to start thinking about making the move back to Tel Aviv.

2. Toilet paper is not nearly as optional as the army would have you believe.

3. Gun oil never comes off your hands.

4. Gun oil on your hands helps you remember your gun.

5. You actually can take all joy out of food.

6. Exactly how much spit the average soldier produces.

7. I can’t sing Middle-Eastern music well.

8. No one can really sing Middle-Eastern music will.

9. The kind of car you own is important to assholes everywhere, not just in Jersey.

10. There are no curses that are entirely out of bounds in Hebrew.

11. Ants rule the world.

12. Give anyone some power and they will act like they deserve it.

13. Having a watch, a notebook, and a pen will make you the best soldier in .02 Basic.

14. Stray Cats have no fear.

15. If you drop anything in the bottom of a dumpster, the smell will never come out.

16. Fresh bullet shells are very hot, especially on the back of your neck.

17. An hour disappears much faster when you are on break.

18. An hour drags on forever when the people who are suppose to replace you on guard duty are late.

19. How to assemble and disassemble a lot of Vietnam era equipment.

20. American equipment does not last 40 years.

21. Slipknots, lots and lots of slipknots.

22. Girls look hot in shooting positions.

23. Israelis love to talk about their mother’s cunt.

24. Shit doesn’t decompose as fast as you think.

25. 15 minutes is not enough time to brush your teeth, shave and shine your shoes.

26. Black people in Israel don’t have rhythm.

27. It’s a lot harder to remember 15 people than you think.

28. Musical Theatre does not exist in Israel.

29. Cottage cheese can look like very unhealthy diarrhea when coming from a bag

30. Chocolate milk from a bag can single handedly make your day.

31. How violent someone will get over the last bag of chocolate milk.

32. It is exactly half as violent as they will get over the last burekas.

33. The Druze males do not clean.

34. No one actually cleans.

35. A helmet makes a decent pillow.

36. A hot canteen of tea is an amazing seat warmer.

37. How to “fix” a tent with some string and a pair of safety scissors.

38. It takes 15 half-willing recruits and two exasperated seargents to put up a tent.

39. How many Israeli soldiers it takes to change a lightbulb. 3 one to change it, and two to convince the commander that dressing in the dark is dangerous enough to warrant a lightbulb.

40. It doesn’t rain in Israel, it only floods.

41. No matter how wet you are, you will dry off.

42. Washing 600 dishes will make you wet again.

43. It is never cold enough to fart outdoors without consequences.

44. There is always something wrong with the way you’re dressed/standing/talking.

45. Everything leaks.

46. Israelis have acronyms for everything, they are the kings of abbrevs.

47. The exact melody of every commander’s ringtone.

48. How to recognize a commander (hint, they are usually girls).

49. There is Israeli Military Jail.

50. Apparently, it’s a lot nicer than my base.

51. A damp piece of plastic can be your best friend in the rain.

52. Don’t get sick in the army.

53. Exactly how to look like you’re carrying a gun.

54. You can salute an officer without your gun and get away with it if you’re a clown.

55. It takes someone who doesn’t know me exactly two weeks to figure out I’m a clown.

56. Commanders have few options of dealing with complete douchebags.

57. It’s hard to focus on a sexual harassment talk when your officer is smoking hot.

58. I don’t recognize the gravity of heavy words in Hebrew.

59. Commanders losing their composure and smiling is the most endearing thing they can do.

60. No matter how badass and grown up you feel after an army course, you still make T-shirts.

61. I can rant, rave and curse in English all I want.

62. Take a lot of food, you’ll never know what is surprisingly inedible.

63. They slowly start taking away the edible stuff as basic progresses.

64. You start calling weird things “Fresh,” like the processed chocolate spread we get for snacks.

65. It always hurts to throw out full trays of food, no matter how bad it is.

66. The way you get what you need in Israel is to be a pain in the ass.

67. Cut at least 3 minutes off the time you tell Israelis (Dooley’s worse).

68. Nothing quite like a shower full of naked guys howling Israeli love songs.

69. You can take an M-16 into the shower.

70. How to say, “stop or I’ll shoot” in Arabic.

71. That some serious Israeli phrases sound like gibberish. I.E. “Tafseek Lazooz” means stop moving and is usually said in a very harsh tone.

72. Israeli girls are anything but polite.

73. Politeness isn’t a thing here.

74. Pissing inside empty tents is a thing here.

75. The smell of piss doesn’t go away.

76. Disassembling your weapon in the freezing rain and mud is never fun.

77. Fuckups are totally lovable.

78. Sunny and 70 degrees and hurricane weather are apparently 5 minutes apart.

79. Sometimes the M-16 feels like a 3kg necklace.

80. Israelis are obsessed with English movie quotes and rap songs.

81. .02 basic is a bunch of little bitches.

82. Israelis still read print.

83. Seeing an Israeli flag still fills me with pride.

84. I will be asked “Why are you here?” or “How old are you?” every 5 minutes.

85. All the stock phrases the commander’s are taught.

86. All Israeli curses are in Arabic.

87. Take the extra 5 minutes ahead of time to do things right.

88. Guard duty = playing with kittens

89. Commanders are always hotter on the other side of the base.

90. You will go crazy guarding three hours alone.

91. It’s really depressing to have to tell people there are no jobs in America and that it’s not really the land of opportunity anymore.

92. The army has it’s own brand of justice, and it’s unintelligible.

93. It is impossible not to play with your weapon.

94. For Israelis, poop time is also smoke and talk to your girlfriend time.

95. Israel is a very special place.

96. I cannot shave everyday- I have to anyway.

97. People will steal your shit, mostly your toilet paper.

98. Everything the army gives you is smelly and incredibly flammable.

99. They put soda water in the food to keep your from getting morning wood.

100. I am the foreign guy who messes up all the curses and idioms

101. You never really know what you’re capable of until you have someone pushing you.

Clowns, Clowns with guns.

So I kept a really simple journal over these past two weeks. I thought it would be a good idea, with just some simple notes on each day I could better recount stuff when I had time to write it down. And it’s not that it was a bad idea, I just found that what came out was kind of dry. The things I ended up remembering the best were the people, not what happened. I didn’t really need to take notes on the friends I made to remember them.

The best times were the down times, the Hebrew lessons in between the real lessons, the joking around, the cigarette breaks. (Sorry Mom, I didn’t smoke all that much, just when it was offered, it was kind of a camaraderie thing.) For those guys a break really isn’t a break without a cigarette. Even when it’s pouring rain, 10 minutes with a cigarette under a shitty open tent with a bunch of guys, commiserating, sharing pictures of current and ex girlfriends, telling dirty stories- saying anything really is what I’ll remember best.

I remember watching my friend dead asleep in his chair on guard duty as we walked over to replace him. I whistled as loud as I could to try and wake him, but it didn’t work. It took the Commanderette 30 seconds of saying his name straight in front of him before he jumped about 3 feet out of his seat.

I can still hear my friend spouting nonsense into the radio on guard duty, laughing my brains out as he told the war-room he had to take a dump and couldn’t understand why they can’t come replace him. I will never understand why they give the only guy alone on guard duty a radio to play with.

I still smell the burning gunpowder as some hooligans took all the live bullets they found on the ground and spelled “Until when?” in Hebrew on the concrete then set it ablaze.

I remember our Platoon Commander’s hidden smile as she couldn’t quite bring herself to yell at us for all our dirty jokes.

And then there was one time when everyone was singing loudly in the showers (as per usual), all singing Israeli music. And I decided that if I was going to join in and sing, I was going to sing what I like. So I threw caution to the wind and belted out “Fly Me to the Moon.” I couldn’t believe it but the shower went dead, and everyone listened. I assume it was because my voice was so different from the nasally quarter tones everyone else was warbling, but after that day, they never left me alone. They’d always ask me to sing whenever we had a minute. Everything from pop-songs to showtunes. I never liked singing for other people. It has always been a really private thing for me. But I had never seen people genuinely asking me to sing for them. So I did. I even learned some Israeli songs and butchered those.

That’s just one example of what I find so different about life here. It is so honest (sometimes brutally so) and without pretense. No one will blow smoke up your ass, and no one does platitudes for the sake of doing them. Whether it’s a blessing or a curse it’s sure as shit refreshing. I found myself growing really attached to everyone, very quickly

The guys were really interested in getting to know me, even the ones that weren’t from my platoon. They could not understand what I was doing there. There were times when I agreed with them. I left an amazing life in the states to sit in the rain, learn mostly unnecessary things, like how to march in straight lines, and how to eat shit from 19-year old girls. But by then end I communicated to them (and to myself) what I was doing there. It was a promise I made to myself, I wanted to be a part of something bigger than me. To give up working on my own life, and my own goals to contribute to something I really cared about. And in the end, I benefit as well. I get to move toward the person I always wanted to be. Although it really sucks at times, I don’t think I’ll ever regret doing this.

I got to meet amazing people. Like Oshrii and Moshe, a couple of lanky Ethiopian kids with infectious smiles who found everything funny. Even the commanders couldn’t help but laugh with them sometimes. Or like Shibli and Mohammed, a couple of carefree Druze who could make the best out of any situation. Or Roee, a religious guy with an endless work ethic who we called the Ramatkal (the highest general in the Israeli army). There was Dean, who could charm anyone. Kiril, who was so unwittingly hilarious. And David, one of the most well-meaning guys I ever met. There was Maoz, an incredibly well-educated American who kept my brain and English from withering.  Tamer, who wanted to be in combat so bad he would do anything to get kicked out of our Tironut. Shir and Ben would spend the day quoting Israeli stand-up comics, and loved to listen to me curse in English. Benny, a pro-wrestler with a heart of gold, who hated every second of basic (much to my entertainment). I almost feel bad naming people as everyone I got to meet had an incredible story.

And there were people who weren’t so great. Like my Commander, who was the definition of a hard-ass. He would bust on all of us like it was a sport, and he was very good at it. He would walk through the tent and try to steal our weapons if we didn’t have them on us. He would run us all over the base if we had a button undone, or if we moved during formation. The thing is I don’t resent him for doing his job, every platoon needs a hard-ass because most of these kids do really need to learn their place, and learn what it means to be a soldier. I guess my problem with him came when his job came at the expense of human respect. There were just too many times when I would not even feel like a person.

I suppose this comes with the territory. That is what is suppose to happen in basic, they break you down. And I have to admit, I did work harder when he was around. He pulled more out of me than any of the other commanders. And maybe it’s my own ego that makes me feel like I had less to learn about being a solider, that I was mature enough to jump right into it without him breathing down my neck and treating me like shit.

When I did tell him how I felt (I got a chance to break the distance a bit at the end) he said something to me that really stuck with me. He said that he knows he pushed us harder, and that at times it was unnecessary. But when we got back to the tents, and we laid down our weapons, or took our boots off, or had a cigarette, it was all that much sweeter. And it was true. That kind of hard work, far beyond what was necessary, made those downtimes I enjoyed so much. It pushed the envelope, and not just in what I thought I could do, but what I could learn to appreciate. And although he said good job very rarely- it meant the world to me when he did, in spite of myself.

Sorry Ma

Sorry these posts are getting a bit long, lot of stuff happens!

Although the first two weeks were somewhat of a cake walk, these last two weeks were trying. My friend Maoz may have put it best: Nothing here is all that challenging or difficult, it is simply the endless repetition and senseless redundancy that wears you down.

I checked the weather report before heading for the morning train on Sunday- it bode very poorly. Rain. Rain all fucking week. While this is normally a blessing in Israel, it was scaring the shit out of me, cause all I could think about was our torn and tattered 30+ year old tents. Somehow I didn’t believe that they would hold up, or that I would hold up. I was already feeling sniffly since Friday.

When we got in I made a point to go see the Doctor. We are entitled to see one, and are supposed to be asked everyday. The thing is, once you are in the army, you are literally the army’s property. You cannot go see a doctor that is not army approved or have any medical procedure done without the army’s knowledge. I suppose it makes sense, it’s just a little unnerving.

The Doctor was an unadulterated clown. It was painfully obvious he hated his job and had had it up to here with all the whiney bitches coming trying to come up with reasons to get a sick day (those exist in the army). I was already pretty full-blown sick: cough, stuffy, runny nose, sore throat, head ache, fatigue. Plus, I was also looking to get an exemption for a beard because my neck was starting to look like I used glass shards as aftershave. He blew me off with supreme distaste, giving me a prescription for what I later figured out was Aspirin, and a three day beard exemption telling me to get over myself and learn how to shave. I took it like a bitch (they kinda breed that into you), and just prayed I’d get better.

It’s as if God was listening, because the minute I walked outside the sky opened up. I had to make a mad dash to the psuedo-warehouse called the precasts. It’s where we normally hang out, eat snacks, and charge our telephones at night, but today we had lessons. I whole rainy day full of lessons. These were actually fairly interesting though. We had lessons in first aid, chemical warfare, drug policy, and how to use communication devices. This was one of the rare moments where I felt like I was actually learning things of value. It made the lessons much more fun.

However, when we got back to the tent, we found everything to be soaked. Water was pouring in from every angle and hole. We tried our best to move the beds to the dry spots, get everything off the floor, and dry out whatever we could. We ended up with an untraversable cacophony of beds. I went to bed hoping nothing would drip on my face, and that I could find a dry uniform hidden in my bag in the morning.

***

Monday was the day from hell. I woke up all through the night. I had the pleasure of watching myself descend further into illness. We woke up at 4am to a torrential downpour, which of course did not prevent us from cleaning our weapons out in the freezing cold. I was never going to get healthy.

When the rain subsided I bit, we got to work on patching the tents. It was a Sisyphean task. The commanders, though mildly experienced, still had no idea how to fix these run-down rags- yet we were still forced to try to implement their shitty ideas. I was in no mood for bullshit, but I held it together as best I could and trudged on through the day.

I hit a low point in the middle of the day. We were late to the food room (a place I grew to despise for robbing me of all joy I felt with food) and were rushed into the line. The line we were at had no hot food left, so we tried the other line. Since we had already waited on line once, we did what everyone else always did and squeeze ourselves into the line near the meat. Some 5 foot, snobby little comandress waltzed her way over to me and gave me (the only one trying to be polite in a sea of Israelis) a piece of her mind- telling me how I’m not as important as her soldiers and I need to wait like everyone else. I lost it. She may have been right, and I may have been wrong, but I just thank god she didn’t understand English. My platoon got a kick out seeing me so angry and out of hearing the stream of foreign profanities come out of my mouth. And then, like the good hearts they are, they tried their best to cheer me up. It took a while, but eventually it worked.

The next day I tried again with the doctor. I got stuck at the platoon medic, but it turned out to be a blessing. She gave me 4 hours to rest and sleep in the middle of the day. It was exactly what I needed. I woke up feeling almost 100% and with a whole new attitude.

***

That weekend, we were closing, which meant we’d be staying at the base for the weekend, and would be responsible for guard duty. To do so we had to take a class on what to do when guarding. It was an odd class. All of a sudden we went from talking about parts of a weapon and how to respect your commanders, to how to warn someone in Arabic, how to ask a war-room for permission to open fire, and the situations you don’t even have ask. I had a gun, but I was going to be given 3 magazines with live bullets and trusted to guard over a military establishment. It seemed like an absurd joke, I didn’t feel ready, and I felt like there were some people who would never be ready. I knew the odds of something happening in the middle of Israel were slim to none, but that wasn’t as comforting as it should have been.

The week marched on towards the weekend quickly. We had a ridiculous morning inspection with the Company Commander that drove me to the brink of insanity. We had a sexual harassment talk with our Platoon commander that drove me to the brink of tears with laughter. We had more rain than I knew what to do with. And then all of a sudden it was Thursday and we were starting the final cumulative test on all our lessons. I opened the Hebrew book and started to panic a bit. While I knew all the material like the back of my hand, actually sitting down to read and answer all the questions in Hebrew seemed impossible.

Luckily my commander came in, and called for me a few other guys. We were told to get our gear and meet him in 7 minutes (everything is done in 7 minutes in the army). We apparently got called up to replace some guys on early guard duty and were going for the briefing. I guess the test would have to wait.

The briefing was a bit of a joke. No one took it seriously, though it seemed like they really should have. It was just a review of all the rules we learned about guard duty. I had taken a tour of the base the day before, and picked out which guard stations seemed the most interesting. Although it didn’t matter, cause over the course of the weekend and next week I would see almost all of them.

Between the night and morning, we had 3 guard shifts, some 3 hours some 2 depending on whether it was day or night. When going up to my first guard duty, I was definitely a little nervous. However, about halfway through the first shift, I realized it was all for nothing. The fact that I was guarding an army base in the middle of Israel, near a strip mall and gas station kind of caught up with me. There was certainly the possibility of an event, but it was so remote it almost didn’t exist. It seemed like guard duty was really for getting to know whoever you were with. And I did. You can’t sleep (duh), you can’t sit, you can’t eat, you can’t read, you can’t use your phone. The only thing you can do is look and talk. The thing is if you talk, the time flies. The trick was wrangling a talker to guard with.

***

By Friday morning I was spent. I had slept a grand total of 3 hours between shifts, had rushed dinner, missed breakfast, and instead of getting to rest was called for another guard duty briefing. Apparently I was assigned to more guard duty, and you have to repeat the briefing every 24 hours. Needless to say I was in an awful place.

In order to explain what happens next, I have to explain a little about the gun we carry. As I’ve told you, it sucks. It’s hard to carry and you have to carry it everywhere. Abandoning your weapon comes with a pretty sever punishment. Needless to say, I forget it all the time. Luckily, up until now I’ve gotten away with it. I had mastered the art of looking like I was carrying it when I had forgotten it. I had even played little games of Metal Gear Solid when I sneak around the commanders, trying to predict their movement patterns and stay out of sight while I sneak back to the tent to retrieve my gun. I had even managed to salute the deputy company commander sans weapon and get away with it. I suppose my time had come, I just hate the way in which it came.

I told my commander how crappy I felt, and how I hadn’t eaten. He gave me 10 minutes to run to the canteen, grab something quick and meet him at the briefing. Well I went, but so did everyone else, the place was exploding with people. There was no way I was going to make it, so I went outside to take a good sit. I took off my helmet, combat vest, and gun for a second to breathe. I still had my hand on the gun, cause I know even taking your hand off it can count as abandoning weapon. Someone offered me a cigarette, so I got up to take it. Of course, my commander had decided that this was the perfect time to walk by. He took one look at me and told me I had 2 hours at exit. I just shook my head and taught the guys the English idiom “Fuck my life.”

***

Saturday is the Jewish traditional day of rest. The army purportedly believes this as well. They have all these rules about Shabbat that are designed to allow people the chance to observe. There is a lovely Friday night dinner, which was surprisingly good and very heart-warming. And there is no work, no saluting, no times, no marching, no anything really. OH, except guard duty, because that can be defined as danger to one’s life, which is a sufficient reason to break Shabbat. And kitchen duty… cause that’s… also life danger… I think…right? Well we’re not allowed to wash dishes!

We were told that because we did so much guard duty, we’d be stationed in the kitchen, but only for a couple hours. But those couple hours turned into us spending the entire morning and a good chunk of the afternoon working in the kitchen. But at least we were told we didn’t have kitchen duty at night, so no dishes! But after a grand total of four hours off, we were rushed back to kitchen duty again… because the assigned platoon was overwhelmed with dishes. So we ended up washing those dishes after Shabbat went out. Yay for the day of rest!

Sunday was supposed to be our second day at the ranges. But of course we spent the first half of that day… you guessed it! Working in the fucking kitchen. I was ready to kill something. It’s a good thing the stray cats are fast.

***

Once we finally got there, the range was a lot of fun. We had a lot of really interesting drills. We got to shoot in all the positions we practiced. We practiced clearing jams, changing magazines, and having to jump into positions and squeeze off rounds very quickly. I had to go second, which meant the sun was already going down by the time I shot, so I missed a few rounds, but still a lot of fun.

We had the night off, because in the morning we would be doing our Masa. A Masa is a very long hike in full combat gear that is supposed to simulate a march. For combat soldiers it’s usually a 15+ hour crippling ordeal that marches you up to 80km. It is the culmination of your entire training and as a reward you get your unit’s special beret. For us it turned out to be a whimsical romp around the base, 3km and half an hour. Amazingly, everyone still tried to get out of it. Everyone whipped out their ptors (exemptions) and behaved like this march would kill them.

It turned out to be a blessing because the only people left were the people who wanted to be there. I was chosen to be our platoon commander’s Kesher, which is essentialy the signal-man or person with the radio. Apparently it’s an honor, which is kind of cool. The hike was over all too quickly though. Because it was so short we ran a good deal of it but I still wish it was longer.

We marched back to the base with me feeling a bit… well to be honest a bit like a bitch. It wasn’t the experience I wanted. I wanted something more challenging, more meaningful, with everyone participating. I wanted to be pushed. I wanted to be a combat soldier. We moved to the flag poles for a bit of a closing assembly, with me still kind of down in the dumps.

Our company commander told us how proud of us she was. How she was happy we were there, and not sitting in the tent. She spoke about how this was the start of something. Then she said exactly what I needed to hear. How although we weren’t combat, we were no less a part of this army. How we should never give up on trying to push ourselves, and how what we are setting out to do for our country is every bit as important. She then read us a poem, I can’t remember the name or who wrote it, but it was a long list of what makes Israel Israel. Everything good and bad about it. How everyone can think of a million reasons not to live there, but can’t think of anywhere else they’d rather live. And most importantly, how it needs and depends on its people, how it wouldn’t be here without us. My heart swelled as we raised the flag and sang the Hatikvah. I was here, I had made it, and I was fulfilling a promise I made to Israel and a promise I made to myself. In the end, it was culminating moment of Basic it was always meant to be.

***
The next few days sailed by. I finished my test (with a little Hebrew help from the my commanders). We had all of our closing conversations. We found out our grades. We had another exhausting and interminable round of guard duty. And before I knew it we were returning our equipment and planning T-shirts.

The last big event before we were released was the ceremony where we took the vow to serve the IDF. It was essentially the big closing ceremony of Basic. We went over what the vow meant and what we were saying, then rehearsed a little. The vow was actually quite beautiful, but a little frightening. You were pledging your life to serving the country and to following all its orders and fulfilling all its goals. You were to take the Bible (old, new or otherwise, they provided something for each faith), put it to the gun and swear. Though they gave you another option if swearing is a problem

. You could swear, or you could say the equivalent of “I’ll try but no promises.”

When we got to the ceremony, I started to get the same feeling I did after the Masa- I felt really proud to be there. But as the ceremony went on, and people started coming up, I started to bum out. A lot of people weren’t swearing. I was surprised and a little sad. It was kind of a harsh reminder that a lot of people were here not by choice; their heart wasn’t in it. I was near the end of the line, but when I finally got up I swore. I had told myself my whole life that I would come here, and I finally made it. I had already taken this oath a thousand times over, I was just making it official.

***

The next day was the big release. We were to clean everything up, pack up our shit, return our mattresses, sleeping bags, and finally our weapons. Afterwards, we had officers coming from the assignment bureau and we would get where to report on Sunday. I realized that I was finally going to find out where I was going. Butterflies started creeping into my stomach, and I started getting worried. What if I didn’t get either choice? It didn’t seem likely they would send me straight to combat from here, but what if I didn’t get Dover Tzahal either? What if I ended up a secretary or worse a mechanic?

As a result, the morning dragged on for what seemed like forever.  After we finally got through all the morning errands we got into our last formation and waited. We got a little closing speech from our platoon commander and waited for the people from the assignment bureau. Once they showed up I didn’t have to wait long, I was one of the first names called.

It was partially handwritten (whereas everyone else’s was typed) and I had a hard time deciphering it. I finally figured out that I had no assignment. I was being sent back to the Bakoum (where I enlisted to begin with) presumably to finally meet a Kzin Miyun (Assignment officer). It was good news, I would have a chance to argue my case, and try to get where I wanted to go, along with pushing combat as a backup plan. The downside is I had a whole weekend of butterflies.

I said goodbye to everyone as they go on their bus to go. We already had plans to meet up again, and I’m sincerely hoping we all keep in touch. As they got on the bus I had to stay to serve my hours at exit. Stupid fucking gun.

Now imagine this in Hebrew

So I’m sorry it’s been a while, but between basic and the crazy week of actually finding out my job I haven’t had much time to write. But I guess I’ll pick up where I left off in Basic.

Getting back from the first weekend home was a little harder than I expected. Although nothing in Basic had been too hard up to this point, who the hell really wants to go back to 4am wake-ups and sleeping in a frozen tent. I managed to pack a little lighter trimming a lot of this shit I didn’t need- like books or any sort of fun.

Arriving at the train station was a bit of a trip. I ran into some of the guys from the platoon, which was really nice- reminded me that I actually like it here sometimes. But I also saw a couple of the commanderettes, which was a little like seeing a teacher out of school. Seeing them gab about earrings and nailpolish remover like the 19-year old girls they were didn’t really help the issue I’m having respecting their authority. Though to be honest, it’s not all that hard, most of them have worked quite hard on that “bitch-face” of theirs.

Sunday was the big day because we were preparing to receive our weapons. There was kind of an air of excitement and dread. People were of course excited to get weapons, who wouldn’t want a second penis. But at the same time, like a penis, you can NEVER leave your gun. You sleep with it (under your mattress), you shower with it, you dress, work, clean, run, and shit with it. So needless to say, we were a little worried about the burden and responsibility that came with it.

All morning we spent learning safety rules about the gun- all for very good reasons. There are about 10 vital rules, all pretty much common sense, that we had to learn by heart. They can be boiled down to one phrase: Don’t fucking play with your gun. Ever. The profanity is very necessary. We even watched a very melodramatic film made by the army (complete with young soldiers playing themselves, very poorly) about how not to play with your weapon, and the potential consequences.

As we were getting hyped and about to go get the gun, I was called away to do something else. I’d heard about this happening- being called away from incredibly important moments of training to deal with the army bureaucracy. Apparently- right then, at that very moment, and at no possible other time- I had to have a talk about my lone soldier status and the process of making Alliyah (the Hebrew term for officially immigrating to Israel). The thing is I wasn’t making Alliyah, and they wasted a lot of time trying to figure that out. Long story short, I didn’t get the gun. I also missed several vital lessons, on how to disassemble, clean, and maintain the gun.

It was a little lonely at first being the only guy without a gun, but only for about 5 minutes. It was far more of a pain in the ass than the guys had expected. It’s an M-16 long, which is an old Vietnam-era relic of a gun- heavy, long, and uncomfortable. It took a whole week to find a comfortable way to carry it, and within minutes my friends had bruises from accidentally whacking each other in the legs, ribs and head. I slept fairly well that night, without the barrel digging into my spine.

The next day I started making up the lost lessons with the commanders, which actually turned out to be a blessing. Thought I missed some breaks and personal time, I got one-on-one lessons which drastically helped my Hebrew and understanding. I also learned on the commander’s guns (they carry a much more comfortable short M-16).

Later, I finally got the gun and it is as much of a pain in the ass as everyone said. It’s incredibly unnatural to carry, and I forget it constantly. Unfortunately forgetting the weapon is an instant punishment of 2 hours at exit (basically when everyone goes home you have to work and clean for two extra hours), and you can get the punishment many times.

Though I have to say, the gun is certainly very much like a second penis. You become mildly obsessed with it once discovering it, and can’t help but play with all the time though everyone tells that doing so will make you go blind. All the machismo power trips that they play up in the movies are totally true. For the first few days everyone carried it in the most badass (and usually least comfortable) way they could think of. Everyone’s posture got better, puffed chests and all. People started running in full gear and gun with a lot of gusto; everyone took pictures (see below). Basically, we looked like a bunch of assholes. I imagine the commanders laughed frequently.

Though what I liked the most was disassembly. There was a certain Zen to quickly taking apart the weapon, cleaning it and putting it back together. We did it at least once a day, usually at 4 in the morning in the freezing cold in our pajamas. I still liked it, though I don’t think I ever properly learned all the Hebrew names for the parts.

***

Tuesday we were thrown back into the kitchen. While I was a little more used to it, it still sucked. You work all day like a dog with few breaks, and almost everyone sneaks off and tries their best to do nothing. I’m really shitty at that, and I can’t really do nothing when there is a lot of work to do, so I was a good little boy and took on all the work that the others slacked off from. I will say most of my platoon stayed and worked hard. I started to see that we may have been the harder workers (or as some call the Friarim) of the Company.

One of the worst parts of the kitchen was throwing away the food. There was always too much food, and at the end of every meal we had to chuck all the stuff that wasn’t eaten. While I barely consider what they serve us food, it still broke my heart every time to dump trays and bins full of perfectly edible (sort of) food. The other American in the unit (Maoz) has a Masters in non-profit management so it hurt him especially that there was nothing we could do. The lunch we had was actually good for once, chicken and pita bread and stuff, and we were about to dump trays full of chicken into the garbage. I had already argued myself out with the commanders over breakfast (and the previous kitchen day) about finding a solution to throwing the food, so I resigned myself to the dismal task.

As we were about to start dumping, the commander came running and said to stop. We brought the food back and I saw this adorable older woman running and saying in terrible American inflected Hebrew that she hoped she wasn’t too late. Apparently there is a group of mostly American and Canadian volunteers that rides around to army bases and collects the extra food for needy individuals and new immigrants. The woman was named Debbie, and she was accompanied by this surprisingly spry older man who was a veteran of both WWII and the Israeli War for Independence. It’s a great program, but they get almost no help from the army. We helped them load up all the extra food and me and Maoz had a lovely chat with Debbie. We tried to help them out by telling them better times to come and Maoz took a special interest in improving their system. It was a nice little heartwarming event.

***

Thursday was the first day we were going to the firing range. For prep on Wednesday, we had a ton of classes on the firing positions and something called a Beemeet. It was some kind of practice run of the firing range, except you did it with lasers. It wasn’t until I got there that I realized the Commanders were just reading the name of the kit, it was called Beam-it. It wasn’t all that complicated, and actually kind of fun. You worked on your prone position (lying on the ground) and learned to calm yourself down, clear your mind, clear your lungs, relax, aim and fire. Shooting itself was also kind of a Zen experience. At least it was without the bullets.

In the evening I was pulled again from lessons to take a Hebrew Placement Test, It kind of scared the crap out of me because I was afraid doing poorly could complicate my job assignment. But it was also supposed to determine if I needed extra help in lessons or with test-taking, which I very much did. Taking the test I realized that while my spoken Hebrew was certainly improving drastically, reading and writing definitely needed a lot of work. Though by the end of the test, I was pleasantly surprised with how well I did.

We were then supposed to move onto our next Krav-Maga lesson. The guy who was teaching it was running late, so we were handed newspapers and told to hang out for a bit and catch up on world events. That day was the day the UN Atomic Agency released it’s report on Iran, which obviously has a lot of resonance in Israel. We all started talking (in Hebrew, yay for me!) about the political ramifications of what had happened. What Israel should do, how people were feeling, how it was different that we were having this discussion in uniform. It was kind of surreal but I also realized something very important. Israeli 18 year-olds were first off way more informed than most 18 year olds I know (including some of the people from universities). Secondly, there is a certain mandatory maturity and pragmatism that comes with being in uniform. Since what is going on directly affects you, some of the petty politics and personal opinion fades away to a wider perspective. While there were certainly still the war-hawks and gun crazy kids, the whole debate was far more mature than I would have ever expected. Incredibly right-wing and frightening, but mature.

***

Our day at the ranges came. Our platoon commander had worked at the ranges previously, so she was running the shooting drills for the day. She was deadly serious, but it was very clear she loved what she was doing and loved guns. Since it was our commander, we shot first.

My abusive commander was there to walk me through my first exercise. Luckily, enough he dropped the rough exterior to talk me through my first bullet. At first it was all the very familiar zen-like experience I had with the Beam-It. Pop in the magazine, get into position, charge the weapon, breath out, relax, find the target, adjust the sights, flip the safety, wait for the order, then pull the trigger. Suddenly, the world exploded in my hands, all my senses clouded with the experience. There was a bright flash, my ears rang, my hands buzzed, an acrid smell of gunpowder hit me, and adrenaline rippled through me. It was incredible.

I had hit the target, and would for the rest of the day (we were only shooting at 25 meters). As drill wound down, I find myself enjoying it more and more. It scared me a little how much I liked it, but I chalked it up to the little boy with guns syndrome. As I finished up I saw the others still shooting. I felt the shockwaves coming from each bullet and It was the first time I began to appreciate how powerful and potentially terrifying the pain in the ass under my mattress was.

Later in the day we had a lesson on cover and camo. At the end of the lesson, our commander gave us 7 minutes to gather up whatever we could find and camo ourselves, offering a prize to the winner who showed he’d absorbed the most from the lesson. Most of us dashed to try grab up branches, muddy our faces, and cover up shiny stuff. We then got a chance to pick a place in the open field to hide. It was days like this that really made me want to do combat.

Friday came and we were going home one last time before the home stretch of two weeks to the end of basic. Like usual we packed up, returned our equipment, cleaned ourselves, cleaned the base, and reported to turn in our weapons before heading home. There was another event over night before we left though. We found out that more rockets had fallen in the south, and that we should be near our phones in case we needed to be called back to base. That sat with me as I went home on the train.

The first day (after a weird night of sleeping in a freezing tent with people I didn’t know) was bizarre. We started learning the ropes. We had a lot of what they call opening conversations, where the different commanders of the unit introduced themselves all the way up, giving you their army background, their expectations, and their pet peeves.

We also had interviews with all the different commanders. Most of the company had interviews up to platoon commander (the first officer), but for some reason me and the other American kept moving up the chain up to the company commander. It might have been because we were lonely soldiers or because we had high Kabah scores (Kabah is your mental and psychological quality assessment, it’s based on testing and interviews in your army process and takes into account upbringing and background, it’s a strong factor for acceptance into a lot of the selective army units). The thing was meeting all the commanders was interesting, although it was the same questions over and over again. They are all surprised that I am here, that I came alone or even came at all. I can’t tell whether it’s because of their low expectations of Americans, the fact that all they do all day is deal with 18 year olds who don’t want to be there, or because what I’m doing is harder than I realize. Either way, it’s nice to be appreciated off the bat.

The first days also introduced us to a lot of the discipline that exists. The big one is Digum, or how you dress appropriately. Digum is incredibly important to them, and incredibly annoying. Every button must be buttoned, the shoes must be tied a certain way (thank you Russian Ex-special forces man), the belt and shirt buttons must align, Sleeves buttoned or crisply rolled, beret must be folded properly, pants hemmed right above the boot, Hat on outdoors, off indoors. It’s maddening. I slip up constantly. I’ve gotten into the habit of randomly patting myself down in the right places to see that everything is in order. Except there is so much to check that it kind of looks like the Macarena.

We also have Alerts and Alarms. They call they alarms Hakpatzot, which literally means being jumped. Basically at anytime of the day or night, they can yell “Hakpatzah!” and we have three minutes to show up outside, at our posts, in our boots, with a list of where everyone is. They love to do it about 15 minutes before we are suppose to wake up.

On Tuesday, my second full day at basic, we started to get some of the equipment. Beyond the “mattress,” sleeping bag, and flea-ridden blanket we got on the first night we were assigned a whole mess of other stuff. We got uniforms, thermal wear, and awful coat, a dusty rain slicker, helmet, and a combat vest. It is all visibly old and tattered, much of it covered in dust, and all of it from Vietnam-era America. They definitely don’t waste the good stuff on the kids in basic.

The worst part about getting all this equipment is having to keep it in order. About once or twice a week we have an equipment check, where we have 15 or so minutes to get all our shit down flagpole (about a 5 minute walk in itself) and arrange it in a very specific formation. The first time we did this was a nightmare. The commander walked up to me and said, “Listen to me, you are responsible for making sure all your friends get here on time and everything is in order, get it? Your responsibility.” And with that I ran like an asshole lugging everyone’s shit all over the place, frantically trying to put it all in order. By the end of it it had taken almost 35 minutes and I was sweating like a maniac. We got chewed out for a solid half hour. Though I just don’t see anyway we could have done it any faster. I think they just give us impossible tasks every once in a while so they have an excuse to chew us out and run us around.

On Tuesday we also learned how to march, the whole left-right-left thing is totally legit. If you think stomping your feet in time would be easy, you’d be right! But it’s amazing how little rhythm some people have. They fuck up their feet, can’t be on time and all in all complain bitterly about it. They march us to and from the dining room, they claim it’s a way to show off our discipline, formations, and show the whole base “who we are.” It’s bullshit. I mean I “get it,” but it’s bullshit. It turns a 5 minute walk into a 15 minute odyssey. In order to pass the time I use the even tempo to sing to myself any show tune in 4/4 that I can think of. It only helps so much.

Wednesday was the day from hell, we had Kitchen duty. All of the Ptornickim left us high and dry by getting out of almost any type of cleaning. Which basically left me a 3 other guys stuck in the dishwasher for 11 hours. We washed by hand the dishes for an entire Brigade, twice. By the end of the day I couldn’t stand, my feet had swollen and blistered (partially because of my awful unbroken-in boots), and I was soaking wet. They still marched us home.

Cleaning in general is an amazing pain here. I know it’s not actually the case, but sometimes it seems like we are the only platoon that ever fucking cleans anything. Supposedly the bathrooms are our responsibility. What this translates to is me cleaning shit 2 times a day. When it gets really bad I keep muttering to myself “I have a degree, I have a degreee.”

I know the Israeli army is mandatory and thus has few standards. But as a personal project, I’m going to try to make it a requirement that you be able to shit in a straight line before you are given the option to shoot in one. I swear the number of people who “miss the toilet,” or don’t understand what “out of order” means is astonishing.

Thursday was the first day I really felt my Hebrew was inadequate. We had a lesson on the M-16 from our fast talking platoon commander. While this would sound like chinese to any 18 year old without weapon experience, it was doubly hard for me to try to keep up. While I managed to get all of the salient points in the lesson, taking the test at the end was supremely difficult. I just didn’t have time to really read through all the questions, and I ended up getting a 60%. She let me retake it (I think she had to in order to let me get the damn thing), and I did much better with more time. In general though, I do much better with visual lessons over classroom ones. They help me connect the Hebrew to visual things and I understand much better.

Friday came around faster than expected and it was already time to go home for the first weekend. We got up early, did all our cleaning, shined our shoes, put on our Aleph uniforms (cleaner nicer uniforms for ceremonies and going home), shaved and stood in assembly for the Rasap (the discipline officer of the whole company) to evaluate us. He grounded a lot of people to the base on the spot for bad digum or not shaving. Then the Mem-Pay (Company commander) came out and informed us of a pretty disturbing event.

Since Gilad Shalit has come home, Hamas, Hezbollah and really any terrorist group operating around Israel has vowed to kidnap more soldiers in an effort to exact another prisoner exchange. That morning at Nitzanim (another base for basic training) a car pulled up to a soldier waiting for a bus and offered him a ride. After he refused, two men jumped out of the back and tried to abduct him. Luckily he got away.

It put in perspective what I was doing there. How important it was, and how dangerous it could be. I kept my eyes open the whole way home and spent a lot of it really thinking about what I’m doing here, and why. When I got home I thought I wasn’t all the tired. I ended up passing out for a 5 hour nap before waking up for dinner and going back to sleep.

The commanders of the unit make up a weird reality show-ish cast of characters. I’m not sure how much I can get away with saying here (god forbid they read it) but I’ll try. There’s the sweetheart, the foxy hard-ass who loves guns, the drill seargentess who breaks and laughs constantly (then makes up for it by running us all over the place), and the abusive father I’ve never had. The last seems to have really taken an interest in making sure I get the “army experience.” I’m usually one of three guys actually running and doing everything properly (to the best of my ability), but the guy still picks out every tiny minor mistake I make. It’s ridiculous, I find myself fighting for his approval at times; I have to remind myself constantly that he’s 2 years younger than me, and probably a regular guy on the weekends.

I love my platoon, it’s the greatest mix of guys. Maybe I’m stuck in a little infatuation, but even the ones who don’t want to be there are just downright good guys. It’s an amazing mix of all Israel has to offer. There are a few Druze, who are hilarious and speak this bizarrely beautiful blend of Arabic and Hebrew. There are the Ethiopians, who are so good-hearted, but just don’t understand the army culture – the result is incredibly funny exchanges with the commanders which usually end up with very unjust punishment. Everyone sticks out in a funny way from the russians, to the Arseim (the israeli equivalent of the guido, loves Mizrahi music, fast cars, gold chains, and generally being loud). There is another American, a 26 year-old with a masters degree, who is great to have around. He’s an excellent break from most of the guys because I can have a real conversation with him unencumbered by my language handicap.

It’s kind of made me realize how much of a melting pot Israel is becoming, and how important of a role the army plays in integration. Giving all these kids a common experience to go through is probably the best thing this country can do (though giving them all guns I will never understand). The army is the first place a lot of the richer ashkenazi kids will meet an ethiopian, or a kid from Ashkelon will meet a Druze. They all get along surprisingly well and really enjoy getting to know each other, but there are some serious culture clashes at times.

One example comes from meal times. We only get about 10-15 minutes to eat our food at every meal. While this isn’t a problem for me, most of the guys don’t finish. One time the commanderette had told us as usual to get up and throw our food out, but the Ethiopians had not even come close to finishing. She insisted and shouted and the guys retorted. The fight got larger and larger until one of the Ethiopians just shouted, “you assholes have no respect for food.” While this definitely landed him a pretty serious punishment, I understood instantly. He wasn’t being contrary, or trying to disobey an order- this was a serious offense for him to not be given the time to eat.

There are other things as well, for instance in Druze culture (and religion I suppose) men don’t clean. Period. As you can guess we clean a lot of toilets. A lot. of. toilets. But here the army is more accommodating. Because it comes under the monicker of religion, there is actually an order from the top of the Israeli Army that Druze soldiers are exempt from cleaning.

There are a lot of people who try to play the system though, and get away with doing the absolute minimum of work. There are exemptions for most things in the army called Ptors. They can exempt you from anything like shaving to running or pushups. In my platoon (and moreso in others) there are a ton of Ptornickim, or kids with a lot of ptors. When PT comes around my already small platoon of 15 kids usually drops to about 5. In every marching line you will have a lot of kids bringing up the rear limping (sometimes fake sometimes real). It gets annoying at times, especially when it gets you stuck doing an insane amount of work by yourself.

Every once in a while I’ll get a harsh reminder of how much older I am than everyone else. Most people think I am a commander at first, until they look to my arms for ranks. I’ve also come to see how much maturity a few years can grant you. I end up taking in stride what a lot of people get all bent out of shape about. It’s also fun to see how much some of the guys really enjoy the army stuff like shooting and camo lessons. I enjoy it to, but there is a child-like giddiness I see in them every once in a while. In the end though, I’m not nearly as alienated from the younger guys as I thought I would be. Some of my favorite times so far have been dicking around on break and commiserating about how shitty it is here sometimes, or comparing weekend plans and ex-girlfriend pictures. There are times when it really feels like every stereotype I had about the army.

More to come!

The base I’m at is called Machaneh Shmonim. It’s an old, old base- a relic from the British occupation. I sleep in yellowed, torn tents at least 30 years old, all clearly demarcated by a US ARMY stamp. The whole place looks a little run down, with frayed roads and barbed wire fences littered with clothes and shoes. But it’s set in an absolutely beautiful area on the hillside town of Pardes-Chana, which overlooks Ceasaria. The air is clean and the view is spectacular. The base is full of Eucalyptus trees and on break I often find myself marveling at just how beautiful it is. I’m not on break often, but when I am it’s helpful to sit back and come back to myself a bit.

My Tironut (hebrew for basic training), is only one month and under the classification of .02. This denotes the weapons training and is the lowest a man in the army can do. This means that the basic they shipped me off to is for General army staff. This is a good sign that I’m on the right path to the journalism unit, but as I’ve learned in the army, nothing is certain until it’s signed in blood (like I did at the Bakoum). I don’t meet with the placement officer until the end of training, so that’s when I’ll know for sure. I’ve already put in a request with my commanders that if I don’t get it for some reason, I want to be transferred to combat, which I’m pretty sure won’t be a problem. They love throwing guys in combat.

Life in general here isn’t bad at all. I may be jumping the gun a bit (I get one tomorrow), but so far basic has been easy. My platoon has turned out to be pretty special, and I already have friends here. The commanders, while dicks, are somewhat good at what they do. And getting by here really isn’t all that difficult once you learn the rules of the game. But there are some downsides.

The food is terrible. Like exceptionally awful. I actually prefer the Manot Krav (combat rations) they hand out over the food they serve. Breakfast is usually cheese from a bag served with “fresh” cut vegetables, hard boiled eggs, and maybe a yogurt if you’re lucky. Dinner is the same except sub the hard boiled eggs with some “pasta.”

The weather is also incredibly bizarre. Most of the day it’s a beautiful 70+ degrees- sunny and warm, with plenty of very cool shade. There’s always a brisk breeze and it actually feels like fall sometimes. The problem comes at night. It’s fucking freezing. It drops down to like 30 or 40 every night and since we sleep in tents you feel every degree. I’ve found a system, I sleep in thermal pants and a thermal shirt, under more pants and a sweater, under a coat, in a sleeping bag. I still can’t get up in the mornings. It doesn’t warm up until 8am or so and since we wake up 3am-5am it’s cold as balls. Crawling out of my clown cocoon is the hardest part of the day.

On the other hand, sleep has been better than expected. We are guaranteed 6 hours a night and surprisingly enough, actually get it. Apparently the “Army Moms” have been putting up a huge fight with the government complaining about the treatment their precious babykins get from the army. The result is that the tales of the old IDF- coming back with scars and having commanders shoot at your feet- are pretty much gone and replaced by a commanding staff handicapped by how they can punish/abuse soldiers. Granted I’m only seeing .02 basic, but I’ve heard similar things about combat training.

But even with the 6 hours, the sleep is erratic at best. The place screws with your head a little bit. Between the cold and the fact that your in a tent with 10 other guys who all have their own bizarre sleeping habits makes getting solid sleep difficult. Also, I’ve been having bizarre half-awake dreams thinking I’m on alert, or should be in formation.

In general though, following orders is not so bad. It’s really like a big timed game of simon says with guns. You just have to learn to say the right thing at the right time to the right person with the right tone and you got it. Time is the big thing here though, you’re literally always on the clock. For you to do anything (and I mean anything) they have to “open you time.” What that means is they sync your watches and expect you to show up somewhere at a certain time. You get time to eat, to walk, to rest, to piss, to sleep, to anything. It’s never enough and very weird at first, but you get used to it.

After a while you start to see the commanders’ training a little bit, and you start to recognize it for what it is: an elaborate piece of theatre. The entire base is almost like a well rehearsed play. Every commander, soldier, new recruit plays his individual role. No matter how insignificant that role may feel sometimes, it is important. And if someone doesn’t do their part right, it sticks out like a sore thumb. There are rehearsed lines, and the better the commander is, the more it feels genuine and honest. There are always rules and guidelines, but the deeper you fall into it the less visible they become. They construct this odd atmosphere that somehow makes you fall into being a soldier.

It’s kind of amazing actually. I’m probably in the oldest 1% of the entire base. Who would have though you could take a bunch of 18-19 year olds, give them guns and a vague set of rules and end up with an army base and soldiers. Sometimes the commanders break and laugh a little and have to control themselves, which reminds you that their still kids. You always expect that the next level up you’ll finally see someone pulling the strings but it’s just not like that. It’s kids all the way up the hierarchy, each just a little bit older (like a few months) with a very slightly broader role of responsibilities.

The commanders do keep an odd distance from us though. It’s as if the worst thing in the world that could happen would be for us to be friendly with them. I suppose I understand it, but to be honest it bothers me a lot. But they do their job well (for the most part), and I really never begrudge them doing their work. I just think you can treat someone like a human being at the same time.

The commanders seem to have their own language of yelling at you. Stock phrases like “Open your watches” “Stand like you should” “What does it look like to you?” “Raise your tone!” There is also all the stereotypical punishments like push-ups, running, and being grounded at the base. They call the physical punishments Caders, a hebrew acronym for “learning through the legs.” You march, you shout, you salute. It’s all beaten into you with a rough tone and some Caders thrown in. The commanders kind of all live in this weird little movie stereotype of the army. From what I understand from everyone else, the army stops being like this after basic.

The bottom line is it’s necessary. Most of the kids flat out don’t want to be there and don’t understand what the army is or their place in it. This might be something specific to my level of tironut, since almost all of people who are here go into jobnick (daily work) units. Combat ends up being a little different, people are far more dedicated there. A lot of the people I’ve met tend to resent the army service, and view it not as an experience or a rite of passage but as a 3 year prison sentence that must be served before they can get on with their lives.

That being said it’s amazing to see the kind of change they go through in a single week. After one week you see some of the nonsense start to stop. Soldiers give less lip, they actually start being on time, wearing the uniform properly, screaming back the orders like they should.

When I first got here, I felt like the only asshole giving 100%. It wasn’t hard, and it didn’t really bother me since it was my choice to be there so I just did it. It didn’t really alienate me from the other kids either. Most of them find me to be a mystery. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase, “Why the fuck are you here?” Luckily that’s translated into people trying harder to get to know me. It’s made the whole experience much better. I was really worried after leaving all the Brits and Americans at the Bakoum that I wouldn’t have friends. But as it turns out, I’m making just as many friends now. My Hebrew is working out and I can actually feel it improving, getting more idiomatic. I’m also finally learning some curses.

All in all I have to say I kind of like it here. We’ll see after the month is up, but this kind renews my desire for combat. The worst part is that all the mental melodrama has to continue for another week.

The first fuck-up of the day came when I had to wake up at 5:30 so I could drive to Jerusalem only to hop on a bus back to Tel Aviv. There was a screw up in my first Army testing assignment, and I was placed in Jerusalem even though it was two hours from where I lived and I gave them a secondary address in Tel Aviv. This meant that no matter how hard I tried, my enlistment was in Jerusalem. Either way, I spent the car ride trying to close my eyes and grab some sleep for what I knew was going to be a long day. Didn’t work.

When I got there I was still coasting on a very labored sense of calm. I looked around and realized that most of the people who were there to enlist were not speaking Hebrew. As I listened closer I started to realize that the enlistment date seemed to be for new immigrants and people in my machal program (volunteers from abroad). I calmed down a bit, realizing I’d probably have a chance to be with other Americans, at least for the first part of basic. I said good bye to my dad and hopped on the bus.

On the bus I got to know all these kids from Britain and the US and Finland and they all had similar stories to mine. Some were more religious, some did more intensive training programs that simulated basic, some were more prepared mentally, but at least I was in the same boat with people. And for the first time since I got here I was making friends easily. It was nice to be able to keep pace in conversation and crack jokes again. I knew it was going to be bad for my Hebrew, but it was a huge relief, I felt like myself on a day when I was doing something entirely foreign.

The guys kept me company throughout the day, as I went through the haphazard process that was enlistment at the Bakoum (enlistment center). The Bakoum was inside a huge army base near Tel Aviv called Tel Hashomer. It made a serious attempt at organization, with a kind of assembly line of stations you had to hit to get enlisted. You had a barcode, and a path number and were kind of handed off from station to station getting vaccinated, inspected, and registered. It was hard not to feel like a piece of meat, but it was nice to have people to laugh at the absurdity of it with.

I had a different track number from everyone else in the machal program, which worried me at first. They were all bound for a pre-basic training program at Mikve Alon (the place where they train new immigrants) where they would spend some time together getting accustomed to army life with people they knew. It sounded like a great idea and I was a little worried I wouldn’t end up with them because of my different path. I quickly found out that it was because I was supposed to meet the Kzin Miyun (placement officer who tells you what you are doing in the army) at the Bakoum, whereas the other guys had to wait until the end of their pre-basic at Mikve Alon. It gave me some hope that I was on the path towards Dover Tzahal (journalism, PR unit).

They shoved us headfirst into the process. First up was an introduction speech with an incredibly genial old man who was surprised we were all foreign, and evidently very proud of us. Then we had the hair check, to see if we needed the army haircut. Most everyone had gotten their haircut ahead of time after hearing the horror stories of the bored barbers who just wait all day with their dirty clippers for some shaggy headed asshole to wander in so he can royally fuck up his head. It was all true. The one poor kid who wandered into the barbershop came out looking like he lost a fight with a blender.

After that was the meatpacking conveyor belt. First you get your photo taken, then your finger prints and dental records are taken. A set of mouth X-rays are done in case your body is burned beyond recognition and they need a way to identify you (I wish I was kidding). You give some blood for DNA samples and a very nice program where they try to match you for kids who need bone marrow doners (a lot of the drug users chicken out of that one). Then you get your shots (three fat ass needles, my arm hurt for a week), and finally your dog tags. You get 2, one for your neck and one to break in half to place in each boot (for more dismemberment recognition). The morbidity continued with a brief interview where they ask to whom you would like your letter and money transfered to upon your untimely demise.

The whole day was made lighter by the guys. We all had fun ripping on the ridiculousness of it all. All of the incongruently pretty girls working awful awful jobs, they all looked they wanted to die. Taking the intimate details of a bunch of rowdy teenage boys all looking to make them laugh/piss them off.

Then came the moment I’d been waiting for, the interview with the placement officer. I was lead to a room and told to wait at the door, while another overly pretty female soldier asked where the officer was in what seemed to be a panic. Apparently he wasn’t there, and wasn’t coming in until later. I was told to wait on line to get my uniform and see him after.

We got a lunch break after an hour of waiting because the uniform people had gone out to lunch without telling anyone. The food was surprisingly good, apparently it’s about as good as it gets in the army save the Airforce and small companies. When we got back the mad rush for uniforms made us wait another hour.

This is when things kind of went to hell for me. I got separated from everyone and handed a lot of things that didn’t fit. I tried to fight to find a space in the very very over crowded dressing rooms, and ended up far away from any officers or really anyone who could help me. I had problems with everything, the shirt was too big, the pants were too billowy, I didn’t get the rubber bands to adjust my pants, I couldn’t work the belt, I couldn’t tie my shoes, and my Hebrew was failing me left and right. Finally I found an ex-Russian Special Forces operative whose Hebrew was as broken as mine and together we deciphered how to tie the boots and put everything on. I managed to make out one word from the group of Russians examining their uniforms: “Chooenyah,” which I’ve been told means covered in dicks.

After this, we received a gift bag (full of razors and bamba) and were funneled into a courtyard and told to wait. After conversing with the guys for a bit, I realized something was wrong, my path also had me slated for a different unit and bus than the rest of them. I started searching for someone who could tell me where to go and what to do. I was supposed to meet with the placement officer but couldn’t find him and no one knew where he was. I badgered everyone with ranks on their arm and after and hour or two of this was told to sit down and wait, I’d see him eventually. I knew it wasn’t right but I figured, it’s the army time to start following orders.

The guys started filtering out and got on their bus and left, leaving me feeling pretty alone and worried. After a few hours at roughly 6pm I was finally lead to the line to wait for the placement officer. The woman leading us spoke very very fast Hebrew but I’m almost certain I heard her mutter “Shit! How could I forget!” After another hour of waiting patiently, (and meeting another kid from Broooklyn who looked as lost as I was), they came out and gave me an update. Kzin Miyun went home, that’s it. They said there wasn’t enough time and I’d be sent home to come back the next morning. After all the bullshit, the hype, and the drama I would have to wait another day.

Just as I was coming to terms with it, an officer comes out with some papers and my ID and says, “Here get on this bus.” I asked him where the bus was going and he said, “To Basic.” Boy was I surprised. Not only did I have no idea where I was going to serve, but I was going to a basic training for which I wasn’t even sure what the level of it was. It certainly wasn’t with the guys I’d been with all day. I asked and asked and questioned and pleaded with the commanders that there had to be some mistake. I shouldn’t be going to basic, I didn’t even know what kind of basic I was supposed to be in. But at one point one just told me “It’s the army, what are you going to do?” He was right. So I got on the bus.

On the bus I sat next to a couple of wise-guys in the back speaking a blend of arabic and hebrew. The commanders got on the bus and started their schtick immediately. The guys were not having it and the whole bus ride was an agonizing back and forth of orders and retorts. As I looked around I realized these guys were going to be my platoon for the next month. No one wanted to be there, not the Druzim I sat next to, not the commanders, not even me.

Army haircut? Check!

I enlist tomorrow.

Weird right? The last two months have felt surreal as I’ve waited for, anticipated and dreaded this day. I’ve put my life on hold for this one thing that has become so important to me, and it’s felt as though I’ve hit a pause within a pause. I know tomorrow is going to storm like hell, which is probably why I feel so calm today.

I still don’t know where I’m going to be going. After two weeks of frantic phone calls I am still going into tomorrow somewhat blind. I’m scared, I hate feeling so helpless and out of control of my own life. Which is ironic considering tomorrow I sign my life away for the next year and a half.

It’s not for lack of trying. I have been calling everyone left and right pulling every string I can get my fingers around. New People, old people, my program, other programs, every friend and friend of a friend who might  be able to get my name mentioned on the right lists. My program (Mahal) up until 2 days ago was supremely useless. I’ve realized I sort of fell through the cracks with them, after two weeks of trying to reach them I finally got them on the phone. They didn’t even know I had gone to Tzav Rishon two months ago. Somehow I had managed to navigate the entire process of enlistment without any help from them. I had ass backwards fallen into dealing with the army bureaucracy the right way, just call and call people until you get what you need. They were impressed with me, but I was terrified. It was like thinking you had training wheels on the whole time, only to find out you’ve been riding under you’re own power. Now they’ve been a little more helpful and are working to make sure I get where I want to go.

The process tomorrow is I go, I enlist, and after some testing and whatnot I meet with the placement officer. I will have to not only make sure my name is on the right list and going to the right place, but will most likely have to fight the push to put me in combat. From what I understand from everyone it should hopefully go well, and I want to take this chance to thank everyone who’s helped me. It’s been incredibly comforting to know I have all these people pulling for me.

The two paths are about as different as you can get. I know I’ve been pulling very hard for Dover Tzahal, but the thing is both paths have their ups and downs. Combat is an incredibly experience, and I would definitely never find any other like it. I’ll come out with friends, and an inner and an outer strength that I can only dream of. Dover Tzahal though is the opportunity to do some real, tangible good right off the bat, something that would contribute to a career- and the lifestyle of really living in Tel Aviv would be amazing in it’s own right. I know I probably shouldn’t be saying this on the eve of what will be a hard fight to get into Dover Tzahal, but I don’t know which would be better for me. I want to do both and if I had all the time in the world, I might.

But at the same time I’m scared of both options. Scared of both things I’d be missing out on, scared of the challenges, scared of not being able to make this choice myself.

It’s a heavy night, but I keep thinking back to Milan Kundera’s book The Unbearable Lightness of Being. These life-changing choices we make, we can look at them as light or heavy. They are heavy when we see all the eternal significance of the choice we make, as if we are doomed to repeat it in endless iterations of our life on a repeating video tape. And in some sense we are, since we are forced to live with this choice every day. And they are light when we realize that we will never know the other path. How can you be so focused on how this choice has changed your life, when you will never know how your life has changed. It is a happy accident of fate that you are the way you are, and you will never exist like this again. You almost free yourself by acknowledging your insignificance.

All these doubts may be fairly unbecoming of a soldier, and I’m sure this would not bode well for me if by some crazy chance an IDF officer stumbled upon this blog post while making the decision to place me in the army. But I’m going to take that chance that between tonight and tomorrow this will go unseen. And for tonight I’m going to be human, scared, nervous, hesitant, and drowning under the weight of a choice that I ultimately will not make, one that is ultimately entirely weightless.