From beneath the cows to above the clouds

I dropped to the ground, covering my head with my hands as my unit began to count the seconds until the light stick "grenade" would explode. The mefakedets were screaming to get down and lie still. After our counting, the MemMem yelled to start crawling, forward towards the front of the two lines. It was a free-for-all; if you were faster than the guy ahead of you, you tried to maneuver around him without having his boots kick you in the face. You didn't pay attention to what you were crawling over (mud, rocks, cow shit); you just focus on getting to the front as fast as possible, ignoring the pounding of your heart, muscles screaming for relief, and stones cutting into your knees. What were we doing in the middle of the night, slogging through a heavily muddied path, through cow fields, carried people on stretchers? It's called a 'masa', a hike led by a commander intended to practice and simulate patrols, complete with springing into different firing positions, shouting orders, and running. The night was cloudy and I had no idea if I was about to step onto somewhat solid ground or plunge my boot into a foot of water. I had my head down, looking at the guy's boots in front of me. I knew if we were about to sprint based on the sound of the soldiers ahead of me; the quickened pace sounded like an oncoming rush of water. In total, we hiked about six or eight kilometers. That's not significant distance by any stretch of the imagination, but what made it difficult were the conditions. And personally, I had also just completed a two hour shmirah shift.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was going to spend two straight weeks on base. It was time for my plugot to do shmirah, or guard duty. After a month with no guns, we went to the armory on Tuesday to receive our weapons. For the next week, the guns were not to leave our side. What's more, we had to always have our combat vests on, complete with two filled canteens and three magazines, each with twenty-nine rounds. Yes, I was packin' heat all week: eighty-seven 5.56 caliber bullets, ready to be locked and loaded if I noticed something suspicious while on guard duty. Every day, the MemMem spoke to my machlekah about guard duty: protocols, tips, sanctions, etc. In total, I pulled six, two-hour guard shifts. Twice I was the solo guard for the armory, another two times I was by myself at a post overlooking a valley, and another two times I was with another soldier at the "bunker", an isolated location on top of another hill, protecting Mikveh Alon's ammunition cache. Shmirah is good and bad. At some times I feel very proud to be protecting something, even if it is only Mikveh Alon (I swear, if Israel's enemies ever find it necessary to launch an assault on Mikveh, then Israel is already lost). It is also probably the only opportunity to be alone and have time to think. But the bunker is a great place, too. Its isolation makes it easy to see if a commander is coming to check on you, but, as in my case, I was paired with Russians both times and for two hours we spoke Hebrew. Shmirah, in general, is boring. It's also a huge pain in the @$$ getting up at 3:30, after four hours of sleep, to be ready for guard duty from 4-6 in the morning. After one of these shifts, I got back to my room at 6:15, we were to get up at 7:15. I just took off my vest, laid my gun down on my bed, sat down, leaning against the wall, and closed my eyes for an hour.

So what's the protocol if someone suspicious shows up at our guard post? If we don't recognize the person, we first ask, in Hebrew, "who is it?" If there's no response, or the individual appears to be a threat (pulls a weapon, starts running towards you, or, frankly, is Arab), we shout "stop!" in every language we know. They taught us how to stay "Stop or I'll shoot" in Arabic. The next step is to cock our gun twice, although without it loaded. Hopefully, the sound itself will frighten the individual. If that doesn't work, then we can load our guns with a magazine. Then we're allowed to shoot two warning shots into the air. If still that doesn't work, then we can shoot the threat in the legs. Thankfully, I never saw anyone I didn't know and never had to go through those steps.

For the two hour shift, we're only allowed to sit for the last ten minutes of each hour. The rest of the time I either stand in place or pace back and forth, counting the number of tiles on the ground, cows in the fields, or street lights in nearby towns. It is an automatic Shabbat (meaning you stay on base for the weekend) if you're caught sleeping, sitting, smoking, eating, or drinking (anything but water) during your shift. A friend had given me a candy bar before my first shift when I was solo at the armory. After the first hour I was bored of pacing back and forth and was starting to get really tired, so I made it a challenge to secretly open the candy bar with one hand in my pocket and break off small bites. The whole operation took a good twenty-five minutes. Quality use of time.

Throughout the day we had our normal Hebrew classes. Soldiers would leave in the middle of the day to report for shmirah duty. That's why we had to have our vests on at all times. One afternoon, after our MemMem gave us our daily shmirah briefing, the siren sounded. If that happens, we have exactly seven minutes to get from wherever we are (even if we're sleeping) to a predesignated spot and form a chet with the machlekah. After the formation, with our helmets on and canteens filled, we were told to run to the perimeter of the base. We spring to our designated spot, shouting war cries and running over people who are too slow; our excitement in pretending to be doing something important is evident. I run to some brush and lay down in prone position, aiming my gun at some random things in the distance. The drill was fun, if pointless. We were told we did a good job, and that was it.

The day after our nighttime masa, we had a competition between the nine tzevets in the plugot. This was one of the highlights of the week. First we had a "jeep" run: one soldier wrapped his arms around two others and draped his legs over the shoulders of a third. We sprinted about fifty meters, then had to answer a question in Hebrew from a mefakedet. Then we were to run to the next location around a bend. We started at a full on sprint, then realized it was a good quarter mile away. Most of us made it huffing and puffing. After another question, we had to crawl fifty meters over hard pavement, littered with rocks. I still have scabs on my hands, two weeks later, from the cuts. People's knees were bruised for days. Crawling isn't supposed to be as "bloody" as it was for us, but because we have no training, we just do whatever it takes to get to the finish line. Then we had to consume a can of beans, write "tzevet 3" with sticks, and spring to the flag for the final leg. In total, the competition was about twelve minutes, but it was fun. I always enjoy getting my blood pumping with competition and sport. We haven't had much of it over the past two months, so this was really enjoyable.

Finally, on Tuesday morning of the second week, we woke up at 2:30 AM for the masa of the MemPay, the officer in charge of the whole plugot. This turned out to be the easiest thing. We were bused about forty-five minutes to a random spot in the road, formed our two lines, and starting marching....on the road. In total, we walked about two kilometers, sometimes running, but never dropping down to a firing position and never crawling. At the end, we finished on top of a mountain overlooking the Kinneret, a lake in the north and Israel's main source of freshwater. The MemPay talked about the area, we grabbed some photos, then had a ceremony in the parking lot with the higher ups of the base present. It was nice, but unnecessary to wake up that early just to see the sunrise.

At the beginning of the two weeks, I was excited to do shmirah and spend my first Shabbat on base. A lot of guys were apprehensive about the two weeks without a break. The truth is, during kravi service, it is common to spend two to three weeks at a time on base. And Shabbat was fun. We had a great Friday night meal, and Saturday (aside from waking up at four for shmirah) was a lazy day. No one could order us to do anything. If we wanted to sleep, we could. If we wanted to exercise, it was no problem. Some people watched movies on their iPods, I read a book ("Brotherhood of Warriors" by Aaron Cohen, it's about Cohen's experience as an American in the IDF [sound familiar] in the mid-90s when he was a part of Duvdevan, an elite unit charged with infiltrating the West Bank), or we just talked about nothing. When Sunday and Monday rolled around, I felt completely at ease on base, as if we had not already spent seven or eight days there. It became routine. So long as you're with your friends, life becomes a whole lot easier.

Finally, after our week of shmirah ended, we left our base to go to Jerusalem. On Wednesday, we boarded a bus and drove to Har Hertzl, Israel's Arlington Cemetery. I was there a year ago on Birthright, but this time was completely different for me. I looked at the graves and the most off-putting thing about the place, is that most of the soldiers who lay forever on that hillside were between 18 and 23 years of age. When I say most, I mean if there's a row of ten graves, seven will be in their late teens or early twenties. One guy was born three weeks before me and was killed in action in 2006 in Lebanon. I remember a year ago thinking about the young age of the soldiers. I now thought....well, I'll keep that to myself.

Next we went to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum. Again, this was my third time within a year. But it's always an important place to go to if in Israel. If you haven't been to a Holocaust museum, please find one to visit. There's a great one in Washington, DC, and one recently opened near my town in northern Chicago. Yad Vashem, and my tour guide, really hammered home the point that the Nazis made the Jews out to be non-human, something aside from humanity. I could talk for hours about the museum and the Holocaust, but suffice it to say, as I've mentioned before, it reinvigorates me with a renewed sense of purpose in my service.

Afterwards, we went to Gush Etzion, an area in the Judean hills in the West Bank. The story behind Gush Etzion, briefly, is this: during the aliyahs of the early 20th century, many Jews wanted to settle this land that is believed to have been a passageway for Abraham and Isaac before they reached Mt. Moriah for the binding; King David slew Goliath in these hills; and other biblical stories. The climate was difficult, the soil rocky, and the surrounding people hostile. During the War of Independence, one day before the State of Israel was created, all the defenders of Gush Etzion were massacred by the Jordanian legions. The children of these Jews, having been evacuated weeks earlier, grew up and vowed to one day resettle the land. That opportunity came in 1967 when Israel reclaimed control of Judea and Samaria. Now, there are a few thriving communities in the area and a yeshiva for the study of Torah. It is a great testament to the will of the Jewish people to reclaim their land, a story of yearning and a hope fulfilled.

The next day, we were given a "tour" of Jerusalem's Old City, courtesy of our mefakedets. Hardy the best tour of anything I've ever received. I've lost a lot of respect for my mefakedet. At the yeshiva, my tzevet sat in a chet and our mefakedet asked us about our day, what we thought of Har Hertzl, Yad Vashem, Gush Etzion, etc. I told them, point-blank, "I feel like I'm on Birthright" not in the freakin' IDF. I'm sorry, but I don't really care to talk about what it was like to see twenty year olds buried in the ground with an eighteen year old girl who doesn't know anything about me, what I'm thinking, or who I am. What a load of crap this place and these people can be at times.

But on a high note, we were given time to ourselves at the Kotel, the Western Wall. And as the sun was setting, my entire plugot formed a big chet on the plaza in front of the Wall. We're about 100 soldiers, plus thirty or so commanders; needless to say, we took up a considerable area. We're standing with our berets on, at attention in formation, tourists stopping to take pictures or video, wondering what was going on. We all shout responsively in unison at the appropriate times, creating a small, thunderous echo off the surrounding buildings. The MemPay spoke some words, which I couldn't hear, but at the end of the ceremony, we were each given a military-issued Tanach, a book of the Torah, Prophets and Writings, essentially Judaism's entire Written Law. And its pretty awesome because it has the IDF insignia on its cover. This is just another example how I can be face-down, crawling through cow droppings one day, and standing in formation, in front of the eyes of Jerusalem, receiving an IDF edition Tanach.

Finally, that night, I ate dinner with another soldier with a family who lived in the area. Before we left base, the HaSammelot asked us who would want to eat dinner with a family who wants to get to know lone soldiers for Thursday night. I volunteered, and it was great. I got a great meal, spoke Hebrew the whole time, and now have some people who were genuinely interested in helping make my life here easier. Israelis can be incredible people.

A lot happened over the past two weeks. I'll leave the heavy thoughts, feelings, and emotions for next week. I'll just say that now it's getting to crunch time to deciding whether I want to go to the Tzanchanim gibbush, try to get into Nahal with my medical profile, or go to Totchanim (Artillery). The HaSammelot gave us a presentation about each of these units before we went to Jerusalem. I think we're going to learn more this week, but that is still to be determined. And I feel completely out of world events. Apparently the Arab world is on fire. We'll see what that means for Israel in the comings weeks. 'Til next time, you stay classy!

PS- if you want to get a quick look into what my life is like, check this out:http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Video/Article.aspx?id=207527