Mivtzayit and Purim

After nearly a year in the paratroopers, I have moved to a new company: Mivtzayit.  After finishing maslul, my company broke up, with different platoons being assigned to new companies.  First, allow me to explain a little more about the make-up of the IDF.

In Tzanchanim, there are four companies (plugot) on active duty: maslul, mivtzayit, palchod, and misayat.  These, respectively, mean or refer to: training; operational; the point; and cover or support.  The first year of a soldier's service is in maslul.  He's with the same guys he's trained with from the first seven months on the training base and the next few months in operational status on kav (as I was in Shchem) or for continued training (as I was just now in winter training).  After these first eleven or twelve months, the company, made up of three platoons, is split up and various platoons are sent to one of three new companies.

Shmaya, Shmuel and Gidon trying to pay attention
during a lesson about chemical weapons

In each company, there are still three to four machlekahs, or platoons.  However, each machlekah has a certain special weapons or training assignment, such as urban warfare, explosives, anti-missile weapons, etc.  My machlekah, as it turns out, is מחלקת רובאית, Riflemen.  Nothing.  We don't learn any new skill or weapon.  We are, to be blunt, nothing special.  Which is kind of funny because my machlekah takes up half of the platoon.  As it turns out, the two machlekahs that came to mivtzayit from maslul have combined into one machlekah and boasts about forty guys.  In mivtzayit, there are about seventy fighters total.

Anyway, this will be my new home for the remainder of my service and the Israelis' new home for the next two years.  And the first thing I did with my new plugah after returning from regilah was learn how to fight in trenches.

We returned to base from our week off on a Monday and Tuesday got ready for a day in the shetach.  We took a bus high up into the mountains (although we were already pretty high to begin with) to a fort that overlooks Mt. Hermon and the Syrian border.  There was snow everywhere.  I wasn't too fascinated, but the Israelis went ape-shit over the stuff.  We started having snowball fights; they couldn't get enough of it.  Basically, the day was spent learning how to clear out trenches in bunkers.  It was interesting stuff, even if we had to clear trenches that were filled to my chest with snow.  At the end of the day, we were dropped off again at a location a number of kilometers from base as we had to complete our masa aliyah, a hike to go up to the new company.

Adam begging for some food
(don't worry Steph, he's on the phone
with you)

Wherever we are in the army, it always feels like we are tzairim, young.  Although we are in the new plugah, we are not officially accepted until we complete this masa.  It was actually it quite difficult, despite being only eight or nine kilometers.  It was on a road that went steeply uphill and then downhill.  Then the second half was carrying stretchers, and most of these Israelis don't want to help because the stretchers are heavy and they are lazy.  So me, Adam, and Jesse all spent most of the time carrying these damn things.  But finally, at the end, the rest of the plugah came out to greet us outside the gates of the base and "welcomed" us as brothers.  We received the company gun strap and dog tag cover, officially now recognized as members of Plugat Mivtzayit.

The next day was a fast before Purim.  The story, in a very small nutshell, is that years ago in the land of Persia, a man named Haman, who had the ear of King Ahashverus, decided to plot to kill all the Jews.  The  king's wife was a woman named Esther, who was Jewish.  Her cousin, Mordechai, found out about the plan and told Esther to convince the king to stop the planned massacre.  Unless specifically summoned, someone who went before the king could be executed, even his wife, so Esther told Mordechai to have all the Jews fast and pray for three days before she went before Ahashverus.  They did, then she did, and then Ahashverus stopped Haman and the Jews were, literally, saved from annihilation.

So Wednesday was a fast day, which was awesome because they can't make you do anything; it's a free day to chill in the middle of the week.  That evening, there was a reading of the Megillah, the Book of Esther, in the dining room of base.  Afterwards, we broke the fast.

On Thursday, we had a bochan plugah, a company test.  We do these things every now and then.  It was relatively simple, but not very easy.  We were in full combat gear, had to run two kilometers, then one more with stretchers.  Then we had a shooting test where we had to run four hundred meters and shoot six bullets within a certain time limit.  Our company didn't do so hot.

That evening there was a Purim celebration in the lunch room.

And on Friday we were let out.  Now, Jerusalem is different than everywhere else in the world: it celebrates Purim a day later.  I'm not exactly sure why, but for me it meant that when I returned to my apartment on Friday, Purim celebrations were in full swing throughout the city!  Shmuel, Jesse and I didn't get back to Jerusalem until around noon.  As Shabbat was coming in a few hours, we didn't have time to go to my apartment, change and then make it back into town before the festivities starting winding down.  So, that meant we were staying in uniform to enjoy the celebrations.

Jesse and I during the reading of Megillat Esther 

Purim in Israel is like Halloween back home.  It's a holiday for costumes.  It's a holiday of rejoicing that we were saved from certain destruction.  It's a holiday for drinking.  It wasn't fun to carry around bags and a gun when all I wanted to do was be in civilian clothes and drink.  Jesse and I bought a few bottles of wine, intending to open them for Shabbat meals that evening, but couldn't exactly help ourselves.  It's illegal to drink in public while in uniform, but it was Purim...so....don't tell anyone!

Shimson helping himself
to some snacks during
the Purim party

I made it back to my apartment not exactly sober later in the afternoon, had an hour to chill, then went out again for Shabbat.  Shmaya was staying in Jerusalem and he met up with me, Shmuel and Effy as we went to a few different places to enjoy the last couple hours of Purim, davened (Yiddish for prayed) evening services, then had a great meal with a lot of young adults.  Talked to guys about joining the army, met some girls, it was a fun time.

Shmuel and Shmaya: lookin' good guys!