Lebanon

The hummer bounced along the gravel path, kicking up clouds of dust in its wake.  The early morning sunshine pierced through the lush green canopy, showering the dust in bright, yellow light.  The slight breeze made the dust dance a slow accompaniment with the quiet, lazy tempo of the morning.  Everything was peaceful on this mid-summer's day.

A soldier inside the hummer tugged at his uniform collar in an effort to expand his chest beneath the stifling combination of the ceramic bullet-proof vest and combat vest.  Mercifully, he gulped down a large breath of air, a brief respite amidst the vehicle's stifling heat.  The hummers are known to collect two things: heat and dust.  He glanced to his right and saw his partner doing the same.  Looking past him, he gazed longingly at the pleasant rolling hills and short mountains that swept across the Israeli north from the sea to the Golan.  His eyes swept back to his left, and out his door he could see the terrain continue well into the north.  This truly is a beautiful place, a holy land, he thought to himself.  Just why must this fence be there, snaking a barbed-wire cut across these hills of green?  And why must Lebanon be on the other side?

At a near U-turn bend in the road, he could see the leading hummer, a few hundred meters in front of them, cross between shadow and sunlight and back again.  The MAG machine gun attached to the roof pointed off to the left, north, as if to remind them which way was the enemy.

Although they were just starting their eight-hour patrol, they were nearing the end of their assigned fence to patrol.  He closed his eyes, preparing to drift off into a slumber and think about..."how did it go with that girl this weekend?"  

He groggily turned his head and smiled, "Y'know, it went well.  I think we're dating now."  

"Really? You asked her?"  

"Haha, no not quite.  But she spent the night, so...." 

"Well done, bro.  But I do have to say, 'bout time for you two."  

His officer turned around from his position at the front seat, "this a new girl of yours?"  

"Yeah, met her a few months ago..." 

"And it took this long, haha," his partner leaned forward to include the guys in the front seat in the conversation.  "I mean, two months before 'being' with this girl, and she's gorgeous!  Honestly, some of us were starting to wonder about..."

BOOOOM!!! The sound of an explosion tore through the morning stillness, cutting him off mid-sentence.  All eyes whipped forward as they saw the first hummer spewing smoke and flames from its engine.  Suddenly, they heard the deep crack of a rocket-propelled grenade being shot.  A second later, it slammed into the side of the hummer, exploding and twisting the roof outward, as if a giant fist punched through it from the inside.  The doors slowly opened and the soldiers stumbled out, spewing blood and collapsing on the ground.

The officer shouted for the driver to move closer and for the soldier's partner to man the MAG machine gun on the roof.  As they sped towards their friends, he saw a flash of fire from the trees and a streak of smoke as an RPG zeroed in on their hummer.  "Swerve!!"  He felt the impact before hearing the RPG tear into their vehicle.  He felt the hummer being shoved violent to the left, and at the same time heard a scream being cut off.  He looked up and saw clear sky, the hatch having been blown off and his partner nowhere in sight.  

In a daze, he tried to open his door, giving pause for a second because he heard what he thought was raindrops.  Heavy raindrops hitting the hummer. Hitting the side of the hummer.  Hitting with such force that they ripped through the windows and doors...and through his officer in the front seat.

He finally fell out of the hummer, narrowly missing the machine gun fire that finished the job the RPG had started.  He crawled around the back and knelt into a firing position and shot at the trees where he thought the RPG had come from.  He could see the flash of the machine gun, and had to duck back as the large caliber bullets landed all around him.  He could see two other soldiers firing back from the first vehicle, until small red clouds appeared around one guy's chest and the other's helmet went flying.

He slumped against the back of the hummer, and just then realized that he was wounded.  Blood ran from wounds on his shoulder and leg.  He crawled to the far side and looked around to see some guys set a charge to the fence and blow it open.  They streamed through and ran towards the hummers.  They saw him lying in a pool of his own blood, but grabbed his arms and legs and threw him into a car and back across the border into Lebanon.

This dramatization took place on July 12, 2006. Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were taken hostage from those two hummers.  The rest of the Israeli soldiers were killed in the surprise attack.  Thus began the Second Lebanon War.

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Adam and Ravner demonstrating the Maklar,
the automatic grenade launcher

After the two days for Pesach, I returned to our transition base south of Haifa.  We had a couple more days of training before finally returning to life on kav, on the "line," at Lebanon.  We did some drills where we ran as a company with combat vests on and stretchers opened to carry a couple "injured" soldiers, followed by shooting drills.  Look at the video in a few previous posts for the shooting drill.  Finally, on Wednesday of that week, we packed up our equipment, boarded a bus, and drove north to Lebanon.

Now, we didn't actually enter Lebanon.  If we did, that would be the beginning of a war.  Instead, we are located on a base so close to the border that the only separation is a gravel and paved stretch of road that runs the entire length of the fence, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Syrian border on the Golan Heights.  The fence itself is fitted with electronic sensors that detect if pressure is applied to it.  In addition, the fence area features coils and coils or barbed wire as extra precaution.

The fence itself is actually not the true Israel-Lebanon border.  Instead, the Blue Line is the political boundary between the two countries.  It is the demarcation line of Israel's withdrawal in 2000.  In 1982, Israel involved itself in the Lebanese Civil War.  The First Lebanon War lasted until 1985, although Israel maintained a military presence in southern Lebanon as an effort to expunge the PLO from the country.  In 2000, Israel withdrew back across the border, and now UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, marked the true border and has small bases stationed between the two countries.

The fence itself largely hugs the Blue Line except when the topography of the land makes it impossible because of ravines or hills.  In this case, the fence cuts back into Israeli territory anywhere from ten to one hundred meters.  As I mentioned, a road runs the entire length of the fence.  And we patrol it.

My base is small; it holds my company, a unit from Sheriyon (tanks), Modi'in sadeh (field intelligence), and some other random soldiers.  Also, unlike every other base I've served on, including the one at Shchem, this one is a bunker.  There is one large building in the center of the base.  You walk inside and feel like it's some Cold War relic, or a place where the president would go if in danger...except not nearly as nice, I would imagine.  Our rooms are tiny: six guys sleep in a room half the size of my college dorm room.  Three guys share a three-level bunk bed.  We get nice and cozy in there at night.

Life on kav Lebanon is pretty chill.  It has been obvious that the hardest, physical challenges of my IDF service have been over for a while.  Now, things are easier.  There are not many responsibilities on this base.  We have patrols along the border, a couple guard posts on base, and then the regular tasks of army life, such as kitchen duty or base maintenance.

Because we are finally out of maslul (the newest company of the battalion), when we have down time, the commanders don't run around finding stupid crap things for us to do just for the purpose of not having us sit around doing nothing.  I've read the Game of Thrones series with a vengeance, in part because they're an easy and fun read, although incredibly long books, and in part because I have the time.  I work out with an equal vengeance.  And Adam and I tick off the days until we are done with the army.

On Tuesday of the second week on base, we received a surprise: instead of going home on Thursday as scheduled, my platoon would leave on Wednesday because of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.  But first we had to wake up before dawn to go for a four kilometer run.  Then, on the bus ride to Nahariyya, we all slept.

I went to Tel Aviv for the weekend to spend the time with my cousins, David and Amy.

Shmuel demonstrating how a lone soldier dries his
laundry, in Shmaya's apartment

The next morning, I woke up, made myself some coffee, opened my computer, and sat at the table next to the window overlooking Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean.  At 10:00 am, a siren sounded, and the entire country froze.  People in the streets stopped what they were doing.  Cars stopped moving.  Even traffic on the highway sometimes comes to a standstill (look at clips on YouTube).  For two minutes, every soul in this little country remembered what happened to our nation over sixty years ago.  We remember, and we don't forget.  See my previous post.

That evening, a bunch of us lone soldiers met up at Shamaya's apartment in Givatayyim, right outside Tel Aviv, to celebrate Shmaya and Jesse being released from the army.  On Sunday, they had come to our base to turn in the last of their equipment, and they were done with our company and Tzanchanim.  On Wednesday, April 19th, they finished their fourteen month service in the IDF.  They served under the same program that I serve, Machal, but they did not do the three months ulpan (Hebrew learning) at the beginning of their service.  Basically, they started later and ended earlier.  We celebrated their freedom and 4/20.

Stayed the rest of the weekend in Tel Aviv.  Friday night was Tomer's birthday.  He's one of my best Israeli friends in the army.  Sarah and I met up with him and Yuval, another of my best Israeli friends, at a club near the sea.

And one more really awesome thing happened in the past few weeks.  But you'll have to wait for my next post, probably in a few days, to find out...

Yuval, me and Tomer