the TARCHAT התרח''ט

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 was a historic day in Israel.  No, sorry, no peace treaties were signed with Lebanon or Syria.  No agreement was reached with Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah.  And I regret to inform that Hamas did not rescind the clause in its charter stating that its purpose is to destroy the State of Israel.  None of those things happened.

Instead, the IDF held a brigade-level Paratrooper exercise for the first time in fifteen years!  Historic?  I think so, but then again I am certainly in a bit of a biased position.

At the cost of seven million shekels (which, at today's exchange rate, is about $1.85 million), Tzanchanim put on a two-day display of our prowess and ability to be deployed from airplanes, organize and strike at an enemy in a rural environment and a urban environment, simulating battles in Syria and Gaza, respectively.

This exercise was known as a Tarchat, a Targile Chativah, a Brigade Exercise.  If you recall during my advanced training, each week in the field built upon the previous; we first started exercises as part of our squad, then the platoon, then company, which culminated in War Week.  Soon, we will have a Targad, Targile Gdud, Battalion Exercise, which will consist of just the 202nd battalion.  The Tarchat included my battalion, as well as 101, 890, and Special Forces.  Around 1,000 paratroopers partook in the drill.

And it began for us on Sunday.  We went to Tel Nof, the paratrooping base near Rehovot, for a day retraining on how to jump, land, and set up our equipment.  If I never go to that base again, that will be just fine with me.  At the end of the day, being there means you have a jump coming up.  And that does not always fill me with excitement.

But the five hour drive back to our base in the north was, in a word, glorious.  I suppose that's a perk of having a base way up in Timbuktu: any drive to another place will take hours.  And if it's on the military's time, then that's great, because it's just time to sit, sleep or completely escape.  But if it's on your time, such as returning home on Friday morning, it kinda sucks because it takes a long time to get home.  It's a double-edged sword.

We returned north that evening and did a silly exercise supposed to simulate what it would be like to regroup after the jump.  Hummers drove us out into the wet and muddy field outside our base, dropped people off every couple dozen meters, and we had to rendezvous at a specific location, which for me turned out to be about thirty meters from where I was dropped.  Was a stupid waste of time and we got to sleep really late.

The next morning, my entire base went on a seven kilometer run with our battalion officer.  A Birthright bus passed by us, with all of the tourists gawking at us.  How I would have loved to be on that bus!

Instead, we spent the day preparing our equipment.  The jump instructors from Tel Nof came to our base in the afternoon and helped everyone pack their jump sack.  And this was what made everyone nervous; we were jumping with a lot of weight attached to our legs.  Much more weight than what it was like when we jumped in September.  I was to jump with my machine gun, the MAG, and a vest full of ammunition.  Other guys jumped with hiking packs wrapped in the sack.  Still others had stretchers, light machine guns, or other equipment.  Although my sack, plus the main and reserve parachutes, and harness weighed around seventy percent of my body weight, some other soldiers, smaller and lighter than me, carried around 100% of their body weight.  I had always been nervous to jump with the MAG, and this was to be my first jump with it, but put in perspective, I had it a bit easier than some of my friends.

We left before dawn on Tuesday to drive down to an air force base in the Judean Desert.  We were to land in an area just south of the city of Ramat Hovav.  By midday, all of Tzanchanim had arrived and the commander of Tzanchanim, a colonel, gave a speech to us.  Reporters took photos and video throughout the day.  Around six in the evening, the first units started off towards the planes to jump.  First went the special forces, then 101, then 890, and finally us, 202.  Around nine, we donned our harnesses and waited for the planes to arrive.

Here's a fourteen minute video that reporters took of the jump.  And here's a Jerusalem Post article about it.

And again, I never care to hear the drone of the C-130 Hercules' propellors ever again.  I was very nervous before this jump.  I hadn't jumped in over four months (although for some other guys it had been a year or longer) and this was my first jump with much more weight.  The landing was not a concern; I figured once I get to the ground, I'm golden, even if I do hurt myself.  For me, jumping was what made me nervous.  With the extra weight, I wanted to make sure I jumped far enough from the plane, that my legs would go above my head or I wouldn't lead with my upper body, causing me to flip, and that my parachute would open smoothly and without problems.  I did not look forward to this jump.

The plane eventually landed for us to board.  First though, the doctor who was in our group was called over and we saw a guy being led off on a stretcher from the plane.  An hour earlier, another guy who was carrying his sack collapsed to the ground and was led away.  Welcome to the Tarchat.

I was to be the tenth guy out the door.  (I had a few laughs earlier with Adam, who was initially posted to be the last guy out of the last plane.  In essence, he would have been the absolute last Tzanchan to jump in the entire exercise.  But then he switched with his commander, so he became second to last.)  In this exercise, the plane would make one pass over the drop zone and all twenty-five guys for each door would jump; they wanted to get everyone out in one minute.  I walked onto the plane and sat down on the makeshift seat.  Some guys needed help from the jump instructors to carry their heavy sacks.

After a few minutes in the air, we were told to stand up.  And so began the single most uncomfortable experience of my life.  I couldn't stand straight up for more than a few seconds without straining my lower back.  So I would rest my sack on the floor and lean over, but that meant that I was getting hit in the head by the guy in front of me as he, too, constantly shifted position.  And the guy behind me was the same way.  The jump instructors worked quickly to hook up our yellow cords, but we stood like that for close to ten minutes.  Finally, mercifully even, the two minute warning came.

Then came the green light.  First guy was out.  Then the next.  And the next.  No time to think.  Just get to the door and push your body out.  Don't resist the jump instructors as they literally throw you out to help with the extra weight.  Just go go go.  The noise is deafening.  How can I get in the door and make it through this blustering wind?  Two guys ahead of me.  Now he's gone.  Michael, my MAG partner, in front of me, throws his cord to the end of the line, stands in the door, jumps and disappears.  I throw my cord, turn to the doorway, don't look down don't look down don't look down...and I'm out, twisting and turning as the yellow cord pulls on the parachute and it opens beautifully above my head.

The night sky is dark.  No, it's pitch black.  There is no moon out but I can make out my chute over me and everything looks fine.  I look down and can barely make out the ground over 1,000 feet below me.  I pull on the hinges that hold my sack and let it fall fifteen feet below me, feeling a sharp tug as it runs out its line and pulls me slightly faster towards the ground.

The guy who jumped after me is floating back and forth above.  I'm nervous that his sack will hit my chute or the cords get twisted.  As I near the ground, I start to navigate to where I want to land, but the wind whips me dangerously around and I just let it take me where it wants.  I don't feel comfortable in my harness.  I keep saying out loud, "get me down, get me down, get me down," but with some cuss words thrown in.  Suddenly, the ground seems to light up as my eyes have adjusted and it rushes up towards me.  That's the thing about landing: the ground suddenly seems to run faster towards me the closer I get.  I get in position to land, my sack hits the ground and then a second later so do I.  I fall to my side and throw my legs over, my first time to complete a perfect landing.  The parachute falls behind me and lazily wafts down as it hugs the ground.  All is quiet.  I breathe a very deep and very long sigh of relief.  I'm safe.

Now the fun begins.  I had to pack up my parachute, open my sack, take out my machine gun, put it together, don my combat vest, roll up my sack and make it back to the rendezvous point.  It was a lot of weight to carry.  Awkward weight too.  As soon as I landed, I heard cries of "chovesh! chovesh! medic! medic!"  Michael, my partner, I found lying on his back against a sand dune, draped in his white reserve chute, his main chute strewn twenty meters behind him.  He hurt his back and had been calling for a medic for the past hour.  Other guys were injured as well.  I heard about four were hospitalized with injuries to their back or legs, while others needed medical attention and could not continue the exercise.  In talking with guys later, many pulled their reserve chute, had twisted cords, flipped over when leaving the plane, or other difficulties which made the jump the scariest moment of their lives.  I was so thankful to have made it from the plane to the ground without any problems.

I made it to the gathering point around midnight and a few hours later, while most of us had met up, we set out through the night.  We had been told that once seventy percent of each battalion had met up, they would start off.  I think all of my company was there when we set off, but one guy needed help with his equipment bag so my platoon got separated from the rest of the unit...and that would have dire consequences.  As it was, we were supposed to walk throughout the entire night to the location of the first drill.  My group ended up walking an extra two and a half hours!  And all our walking, while it was supposed to be only ten kilometers, turned into fifteen, and the sand made it that much more difficult.  In fact, compared to other hikes, fifteen is nothing.  But it was through deep sand, the kind you find at the beach.  My legs got quite the workout.  And I really realized some of the incompetency of my officers.  They had no clue where we were going and wouldn't listen to any suggestions on paths to follow.  Frustrating.

But we finally met up with the rest of 202.  I went ahead with my Sammal (sergeant), the other MAGist, and the communications guy to a forward point to shoot up a hill.  I lay down in prone position, put a belt in my gun, and let it rip.  All told, I shot around 400 bullets.  My strap happened to be resting on the barrel and it melted in half.  I had to makeshift a knot so it would still work.  I shot all the ammo in my vest, and the rest of the exercise was a little easier because I carried less weight.

The drill ended a couple hours later and we rested and ate lunch.  Then we started off on another hike.  We hadn't slept the night before and weren't sleeping now.  Our sleeping came every hour or two when we would stop for some reason or another, sit down, konk out for ten or fifteen minutes, then the order would come down the line to get back up on our feet and we would start off again.  And it continued like this for two days.

We ate "dinner" at 7:30 and then started off again at 8.  Earlier in the day, my commander said, "you see that really tall building off in the distance?  That's where we're headed."  Now, at this hour, the sun had already set and that building was a series of green lights.  Between us and our destination were kilometers and kilometers of open sand.  And we started off.

The day was hot and the night was frigid.  We wore thermal tops and bottoms under our uniforms, but that was it.  If we kept moving we would be warm enough.  I also had a hat, neck warmer and gloves that I rotated wearing.  Eventually those green lights turned out to be minarets, mosque towers that broadcast prayers five times a day.  We were walking to a city the US had built for the IDF to train in urban warfare. As we got closer, around four in the morning, rockets were fired from city as if to warn the "inhabitants" of our presence; flares filled the night sky.  We heard the rattle of small arms fire as one battalion started to take the city. My company set off towards the buildings as my platoon, the ones in charge of covering fire, stayed back.  I lay down with my MAG in prone position, and lowered my head, and fell asleep.

It started to rain when I awoke and we put on rain gear under our combat vests.  We received orders to move indoors and made our way across the city outskirts to a nearby building, moved into a room, lay down, and passed out.

And that was my Tarchat.

Around noon, the drill had ended and the entire Tzanchanim brigade gathered on a clearing outside the city.  There had been a lot of action in the urban "battle", but I missed all of it.  I would have anyway even if I stayed awake.  My unit would not have been involved.  But I was able to sleep for a few hours, which was a blessing.

We were served a nice lunch with great food and then had a tekkes, a ceremony.  The head officer of Tzanchanim again spoke to us.  There we all were in a giant chet formation, combat vests and painted faces, sleep-deprived and foot sore, our red berets on our heads, and it was a great sight.

After every week or few days in the shetach, the field, I always had a feeling of great accomplishment and satisfaction.  Unfortunately, it wasn't so with this exercise.  I felt like shit most of the time.  I tried to put in perspective that we were simulating a war, with little sleep and great distances to cross, that I was a small part in a big machine...but that only went so far.  Our officers couldn't navigate, I never saw the rest of the machine, and it seemed like a waste and an unnecessarily drill.  But I'm no general.

We went back to base that afternoon, sleeping on the bus most of the way.  We cleaned our guns and turned in our equipment, then left the next morning.  I went to Tel Aviv and did laundry at David and Amy's.  Then I came to my apartment in Jerusalem and spent a nice Shabbat, the first time all five roommates are together.  We ate last night at the Jerusalem Great Synagogue at a free meal offered to lone soldiers by the Lone Soldier Center.  It was great.  My first one.  Once a month, the Lone Soldier Center hosts a free meal for lone soldiers.  I am so thankful to everyone who donates to this organization and allows us to eat a nice warm meal.  Thank you.

Today I met up with Shai, the babysitter for David and Amy's kids, at a hotel in Jerusalem as she was on a Birthright trip.  I talked to a few of the guys and girls on the trip and some seemed interested in joining the IDF.  But it could just be because they are on Birthright.

Then this evening after Shabbat, Caroline Glick, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, gave a lecture at the Jerusalem Great Synagogue about Israel, the US, and the Arab Spring.  It was interesting and informative.  And, of course, I asked a question.

Tomorrow I return to base for two weeks.  See y'all later!