שטח Shetach: the End of the Beginning

Cold. Rainy. Windy. Chicago? Nope. New York? Uh-uh. London? Not at all, well, actually maybe yes. But those three words describe the weather for me in Israel this week. I could also add cloudy, tired, dirty, fun, different, exciting, adventurous, legit-military stuff, and so on. Not exactly the adjectives I would have used for the previous three weeks, right? So why was this week different than previous weeks? Because it was the climax of Mikveh Alon's tironut, basic training. For three days, the entire base went to the Golan Heights to train on a Golani base for a shetach, like military exercises. So what exactly did we do? Well, most of the time we did absolutely nothing. Like I wrote about in a previous post, we all enjoy this down time. It's a time to sit on our asses and do nothing; nobody telling us to run somewhere or form two lines or a chet; nobody yelling at us not to move or talk; nobody telling us what we can or can't do.

But let me start at the beginning.

I leisurely awoke on a quiet Monday morning at the pleasant time of 3:45 am. I had a spring in my step, a twinkle in my eye, and a bright moon waiting to greet me outside. As usual with every morning, it took us the better part of two hours to clean our room. Then we were told to get our Bet bags and clothing for our trip north. Every soldier has two sets of uniforms, with a corresponding bag: Aleph א and Bet ב (the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet). The Aleph uniform is like a dress uniform, which is only worn off base. The Bet uniform is more like a combat uniform, is worn only when on base, and each base has their own stock of Bet uniforms and equipment. I received my Aleph uniform and bag on December 15th and will have it throughout my service; my Bet gear changes with each new base.

Anyway, we were told (many times each day over the previous week) that we were going to Golani and should prepare appropriate warm clothes. Sunday night we got our clothes in our Bet bag and were ready to go. The ride took about an hour; we arrived late morning, ran off the bus and into formation. The main purpose of the next three days would be to learn how to shoot and be introduced into life outdoors, military style. Three tzevets (units) comprise one machlakah (company). Each machlakah was assigned to a firing range. Now, don't be mistaken. These are ghetto ranges. They are positioned alongside each other on a hill, with high earthen embankments separating each one; essentially, the ranges are level depressions cut into the slope of the hill leading up to the Golani base. And, in true IDF style, the targets were anything but state-of-the-art: we hammered stakes into the ground at the 25 and 50 meter lines, used twine to attach wooden poles and then stuck the appropriate cardboard target onto the pole through precut lines. Clearly, truly an indication of one of the greatest armies in the world.

The first time I fired a gun was a year ago August, when Eric and I visited Kimberly in Los Angeles for a week. There, we fired a few handguns (including a .44 Magnum) and an M1 Garand rifle. But firing the M16A1 (M16) is a completely different animal. First manufactured by Colt in 1963, it made its way to Israel in 1973 and has been a staple of the IDF. It was originally 97 centimeters in length, although a newer model features a shorter barrel. The M16 weighs 3.5 kg (about 7.5 pounds) and fires a 5.56 mm NATO caliber bullet. The IDF sports a 29 round magazine while in the US and other militaries use 30 bullets. Why the difference? Because Israel reuses its magazines and recycles its bullet casings and, from what I understand, a magazine with 30 rounds fits too tight to make the mags reusable. The rifle has three safety settings: safe, semi-automatic, and automatic. For more information, see Wikipedia.

We had received intense and elaborate instructions on protocol for firing our weapons. We are only to point the gun at a certain direction, cannot put our fingers on the trigger until a commander says so, can only fire when told, and so on. We first fired from schiva (prone) position. Each soldier got down on his stomach and we had a commander walk us through each step, where to exactly place the gun, how to breath, where to aim, etc. I felt very comfortable for my first shot. I remember being nervous when Eric and I went to the gun range. We had never handled a gun before; after we selected which guns to fire, the guy at the counter pointed us to a different room and said "have fun." Needless to say, we had the guy walk us through how to actually fire a gun. In total, I had 30 seconds of actually holding a gun and learning how to fire before popping off my first rounds. Here, I've lived with the gun on my body for three straight weeks and feel very comfortable handling the assault rifle.

I slammed the magazine into the bottom of the gun, locking it in place, and pulled back on the charging handle, loading a single round into the chamber. I placed my hand firmly on the grip and with my thumb switched the safety to semi-automatic. I tried to slow my breathing to minimize involuntary bodily movement, but my heart, beating rapidly with excitement, negated any attempt at absolute stillness. I looked down the gun at the yellow sheet of paper twenty-five meters down range and aligned the rear and fore sights at a spot immediately below the black semi-circle at the top of the page. After holding that position for a few seconds, I curled my forefinger around the trigger, gave a quick smile, and fired.

In total over the three days, I fired about forty rounds over five or six sessions. I think we were going to shoot a lot more but the weather wasn't too cooperative. Either way, the first day we just practiced schiva. The second day we mixed in kria (crouching) and amidah (standing) positions. Sometimes we fired at a cardboard silhouette of a full person, or just the torso, during the day, or at night, from 25 or 50 meters; sometimes they loaded six bullets, but the third one was an empty casing or loaded backwards: we would fire the first two from amidah, when the gun intentionally jammed we quickly kneeled into kria, had to pull out the magazine, eject the extra bullets in the chamber, reload the magazine and fire the remaining few rounds. After each round of firing, we would run to our targets and a commander would come around and mark off our shots: how many we hit and their spread across the target. My first five shots were spread 6.5 centimeters across at 25 meters. I got that down to 3.5 centimeters distance the next round. Most of the time I didn't have any particular spot to aim, just a general area on the target (like I'd rather hit the torso or face of the target than the legs), so I didn't often concentrate on creating a tight circle of bullet holes.

Shooting at night was really fun, and difficult. We moved closer, to about 20 meters and were simply told to hit the targets. My last shots I fired were at night; out of a ten round clip, I hit all ten! Not bad for a guy with a health profile of 72 because of my eyesight! The row of twelve rifles being fired rapidly at night is quite a thing to see. The M16 has a flash suppressor at the end of its barrel, but still, inevitably, a small flame bursts out as the bullet is fired. It's so quick, in fact, that I didn't always notice the flame on my gun as I was concentrating on the target. But when I finished my clip, I looked to either side of me and marveled at the beautiful sight of small fireworks jumping out from the incredible machinery each soldier wielded.

Most of the rest of the time in Golani was spent repeatedly practicing getting into the three firing positions. When one tzevet was shooting, the other two were either on break or practicing. But the other purpose of our shetach was to learn how to be a soldier in the field. We learned eight different ways a soldier can stealthily approach an enemy. Most of it is obvious, like not leaving footprints, not using light and hiding reflective objects, wearing camoflouge, etc. We also went for a two hour hike one night where each tzevet was lead by its mefakedet in two lines. At random times, the mefakedet would pretend to spot a terrorist, assume the amidah firing position and we would go to kria, or kria and schiva, respectively. Other times she would shout "grenade!" and we would fall to the ground, cover our heads, and count a few seconds.

It's interesting to note, and I think this may be the case of perhaps only the IDF, that whenever we practice firing our guns or we when we went on the hike, there isn't any mention of "enemy soldier." Instead, what springs us into action is the shout of "terrorist!" And that, unfortunately, is true; Israel doesn't face the threat of war with any of its neighboring states. It has peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994). The last time it fought Syria was in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and since Israel invaded Lebanon in the 1980s, the only threat from its neighbor to the north has been Hezbollah, the terrorist organization that is currently running a state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon. True, Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, but it wasn't to fight the Lebanese army; instead, it was to stop Hezbollah from continuing to fire rockets into civilian populations in northern Israel. In my opinion, Israel did the world a favor (although unsuccessfully) by trying to root out the parasitic group that currently creates amusement parks glorifying its victorious wars of resistance against Israel (and no, I'm not kidding, see my entry on November 15th, "One Month!!!"). Be that as it may, it's always a little unnerving, off-putting, and exciting/realistic to hear "terrorist" as opposed to "enemy."

A major element of my experience in the Golan was sleeping in a tent outside. Doesn't exactly sound like a big deal right? I'm sure plenty of you guys have been camping before, where you slept in tents, too. Haha, well, the similarities, my friend, end there as the differences in our experiences are enormous. These military tents are essentially two sheets of some heavy material, like leather but not leather (sorry couldn't be more helpful, haha), and we snap or button them together, hold it up by two slim pipes at the front and back, and drive stakes into the ground, using twine to connect at the corners and front and back. They are about four to five feet in width, three feet tall, and seven feet deep....for two people. And we're not sleeping on some soft forest floor, but rather the rocky and sandy top of a hill, unprotected on all sides from wind or rain. And it did rain. We went to sleep around 11 and my tent-mate and I had guard duty at 2 am. A mefakedet came to our tent, shined her flashlight through the flap and told us to wake up. We had to be in combat attire, complete with equipment vest and gun. Although our guard duty was only twenty minutes, it was in the middle of our sleeping time. We were sleeping by 2:45, and up again at 5:00 am.

At the end of our guard duty, it began to rain, and didn't stop for a few days. The rain wasn't constant, but it was hard. In fact, oftentimes it would rain heavily for a half hour, then the sky would completely clear for an hour, then back again. Other times, half of the sky would be as dark as the night with imposing rain clouds, and the other half would be sunny, with a rich blue sky. Only in Israel.

The shetach wrapped up the tironut. Overall, the shetach was fun. A little rough and unexpected because of the weather, but enjoyable. We had to sleep with our guns, constantly wear equipment vests where we carried our canteens and mags, and lots of layers of warm clothing. We got back to Mikveh Wednesday night and were told to dress in our Aleph uniforms the next day. We thought it was because our Bet outfits were completely dirty and/or soaked from the Golan. After lunch on Thursday, they told us we were going home. What an incredible feeling! I'm getting four straight nights in a legit bed, where I can go to sleep and wake up as I please. However, I hadn't planned on that, and wasn't exactly in the best hygienic state to return home. I showered Sunday morning before leaving Tel Aviv. My next shower was nearly five days later, Thursday night, after coming home. I'd say for sure the longest I've gone without a shower.

What's more is we already have a long weekend as it is. We're given Sunday off for a yom siddurim, a day for lone soldiers to take care of personal matters such as bank accounts, apartment contracts, etc. As I already have everything in order, it's a free day! This is real nice because there have been rumors on the base that we're going to have to stay next weekend for guard duty for the base. I hear everyone has to do it once a month, so its been about that long. On Tuesday night, we have a swearing-in ceremony where we take an oath of allegiance and are finally recognized as soldiers of the State of Israel in the Israel Defense Force! It's a relatively small ceremony taking place in Acko. There'll be a bigger, more important loyalty oath at the conclusion of the tironut of whatever combat unit I join beginning in March.

So, unless we get next weekend off, I'll write again in two weeks. From what I understand, as our basic training for Mikveh is now over, the main purpose of our time at this base now begins: the ulpan, Hebrew learning. Our days will become easier; we get to sleep for longer hours, maybe don't have to carry a gun around all the time (although that seems like wishful thinking), and I'll let you know more when I know more.

One final thing. On Thursday before leaving the base, all the lone soldiers were given care packages. (I've included a link to the provider company on the right, under SUPPORT THE IDF/LONE SOLDIERS.) Inside was warm clothing, chocolate bars, and letters from individuals around the world. Two are in English, and one in Portuguese (I think) and another in some script I've never seen, but turns out to be Ethiopian (it says so in Hebrew at the top of the page). "Dear Soldier, There would be no Israel without you, שנה טובה Happy New Year." I like to think that my time at Mikveh Alon is directly leading to the preservation of the country. Haha, a little wishful thinking right now!

The other English one is from an elderly woman: "Dear Soldier, My daughter told me that I could help send a package to an Israeli soldier and I wanted to let you know how much I admire you and wish you well. I am almost 88 years old and I had hoped that by now we would not have to be fighting for our Homeland. I remember when Israel was founded and I remember all the wars trying to annihilate Israel. I wish you could be home with your loved ones and not fighting. My prayers are with you and with Israel. Please be careful and be safe. May there be peace in my time."

Amen.

Happy (?) New Year!

2011!! New Year's resolutions? Survive? Thrive? Get through basic training at Mikveh Alon? Normal stuff. I actually rang in 2010 in Israel. I was in Jerusalem on Birthright. The new year celebration here isn't as elaborate, or even recognized, as much as in America. I miss that about home. I always liked watching the ball drop in New York at 11:00 my time in Chicago. In Jerusalem last year, we asked the dj of the club if he was going to let us know when it was almost midnight. Even though there was just our group in the club, he still wouldn't do it. At least this year, the bartender turned off the music and counted down the last ten seconds. New Year's for Jerusalem is really Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Secular Tel Aviv, it turns out, recognizes the new year.

It was a fun night, a good way to relax and enjoy myself after a long week. Days starting at 4:30 in the morning, running everywhere (we are only allowed to walk on our breaks), doing pushups for seemingly no reason, standing at attention for hours, not understanding most of what the commanders say...what a wonderful life I've got right now. It's at least nice to get the weekends off, even if I have to get up every Friday at 3:30 am, clean our rooms, get yelled at, do some pushups, leave the base at 6:00, bus to the Acko train station, train to Tel Aviv, 20 minute walk back to the apartment, in comfortable clothes, vegging on the couch by 9:00.

We will only stay on the base on Shabbat for guard duty, but that requires us knowing how to shoot a gun, which we are yet to do. But not for long! I return to base tomorrow morning and on Monday, we are going to the Golan to train with Golani, an intense infantry unit. We're going to be outdoors for three days, sleeping in tents, learning to shoot, training, don't really know exactly what just yet. I'm excited. It'll be a hard three days, the first of many, I'm sure, but it's what I signed up for.

The days at Mikveh Alon, miraculously, go by. They are long, but you look forward to certain moments, such as meals, when we have ten minutes to eat, but can stay longer because we have the next twenty or thirty minutes to ourselves for a break. We also get a fifteen minute break every hour or two. We can go to the bathroom then, there's generally bread and jelly available to eat, and, of course, we bitch about everything. It's a great de-stressor, allows us to get through the day. We begin to realize how young our commanders are. Granted many of the guys are 18-20, and there are many, like myself, who are early to mid-20s, but all our officers are in their late teens. They try to discipline us. While most of the English speakers (Americans, Brits, South Africans, Australians, etc) are already disciplined, the Russians are anything but. The officers try to discipline, and it's been working more and more as the days go by. But as it began to sink in with all of us that a lot of the shit we do we'll do no matter what (running, pushups, mindless cleaning), it becomes more of a joke and we laugh about it. Just the other day, as we're standing at attention outside the dining hall, waiting for permission to go in, the guy next to me moved. When I say "moved," I don't mean jumping around or drinking from his canteen. I mean he scratched his face or shifted his weight. One of the roving commanders came by, got in his face and asked, in Hebrew, if he moved without permission. The guy doesn't speak any Hebrew, knew what was coming, and just laughed to himself and said, "yeah, I'll just go do ten pushups now."

So, Daniel, what did you learn this week? Well, we learned how to operate a military radio, how to use a gas mask and what to do in the event of a atomic, biological or chemical attack, and first aid, like what to do if I get a cut or a limb blown off. It's cool to learn these things. Maybe not thinking about losing arms or legs, but the sort of things I will learn in the military are, basically, cool things. On Monday, a company came in and attached laser sights to the end of our M16 rifles and we practiced shooting in prone position (lying down). It was the first legit step to shooting the gun we've taken. Actually, it was the only thing we've done with the rifles except carry them around everywhere.

The time away from the army is great. Relaxing, enjoyable, mindless. Usually I feel like I have to always be doing something productive, but now I just enjoyed sitting on the couch this morning with cousins, nursing a hangover, and watching hours of Entourage. Next week I'll write a little more about what's going on in Israel, because there have been some incredible developments, like discovering a massive reservoir of natural gas off the coast of Haifa.

So, do I 'like' or am I 'happy' with my time so far at Mikveh? Don't really know if those words are the most appropriate. I enjoy serving. I am extremely honored to wear an Israeli uniform. I still have to ask myself often למה אני פה why am I here? I remind myself with the kippah on my head. I remind myself by looking around at the beautiful scenery around the base. I see the sunrise every morning and the sunset every evening. Life will improve, become more exciting. For now, I often keep telling myself the reasons I decided to make my body and my life property of the Israeli government for the next eighteen months. Why nineteen year old girls yell at me in a foreign language. For now, life is bearable. I often go from feeling great about myself and my situation to feeling like crap. But we survive and endure and look forward to the weekends.

Oh, and December 27th was my one year anniversary of my first time in Israel! How my life has changed in the last twelve months...

the Israel Defense Force

My IDF service officially began!! It's been two weeks since my last post; I don't have my computer with me while on base. I get the weekends off (Friday morning to Sunday morning). This post will include what I started to write last week but didn't finish.

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I am currently in Tel Aviv. No, I am not done with the army. I was given the weekend off. I got up at 3:45am on Friday and need to report back at 10:15am on Sunday. Some weekend. The bus ride north from Tel Aviv to Carmiel will take about three hours. So tomorrow I will be getting up around 6:00, at the latest. The days are getting much longer.

On Wednesday, David drove me to the Lishgat Hagiyus in Tel Hashomer. I've been there so many times, I know the route by heart. We arrived at 8:00am, and by 9:00 my name was called over the loudspeaker, I boarded a bus with about twenty other guys, and we drove away...about three blocks to another location on the base. There we dropped off our bags, and were escorted into a building where we underwent a number of procedures. We had, essentially, mugshots taken, photos of our teeth and dental x-rays taken, blood drawn for DNA, and four vaccination shots. Next I met with two people, first to find out personal information such as bank account information, living conditions, etc., then another soldier to gauge my Hebrew level. Finally, we received our equipment. And wow, is it pretty awesome.

At Mikveh Alon, there are soldiers like me (Mahal) and those who made aliyah (Olim- Immigrants). Most are "jobniks"; they will serve the IDF in some clerical or menial position, like being a driver. Then there are others, like myself, who are "kravi"- combat. Both kinds of soldiers receive the same equipment except for a few items. We all get a uniform, with beret, belt, undershirts (white for jobniks, green for kravi), socks, dogtags, towel, shaving kit (a Gillette Mach 3, pretty awesome), and other smaller items. Kravi soldiers receive a nice large duffel bag, and jobniks get a smaller, tube-shaped one. Finally, and this is badass, kravi get heavy-duty red/brown boots that have previously only been given to elite units, namely the paratroopers. Jobniks get smaller black boots. The uniforms are simple, but sharp-looking. I'll post some pictures in the coming weeks.

After receiving our goods and dressing in our uniforms, we sat around for an hour, ate lunch, sat around some more, then finally boarded a bus to take us to Mikveh Alon. We arrived around nine at night, and were not done for the day. The next few hours was spent telling more soldiers the same information that we had already told so many people before; from the Tzav Rishon, to earlier in the day, to Mahal, etc. But now, they also asked different questions, such as "are you religious", "do you have any dietary restrictions", and others. The whole show is some big song and dance and would be much easier if they would put the information in the computer and one time and always be able to refer to it later. But then I guess many jobniks would be out of a job.

We were also organized into units, called tzevets. I am in tzeva shesh, unit six. We have a mefakedet, a commander. Most of the commanders are girls. Each unit is about fourteen soldiers; no differentiation between jobniks and kravi at Mikveh Alon, we're all in the same boat for now. Our basic order is called "chet," like the Hebrew letter. It is three sides of a rectangle, with three soldiers on either end and the rest in the middle. We also often have to form two perfect lines before moving locations. Regardless of our formation, we always stand at the same attention. Our legs together, toes pointed outward, forming about a 45 degree angle, hands overlapped on the middle of our backs. We are to be spaced one arm's distance from each other. There is virtually no saluting; when we want to get a commander's attention, we stop a few feet from them, stand at attention, and shout "Acshev, mefakadat!"

We didn't do much the first couple days. Mainly learning how to stand in line and walking all over base. We had to get up at 3:45 Friday morning to go home. But we didn't leave the base until close to 8. Why? Because we had to clean our rooms, leave it spotless, and keep our beds in perfect condition. I'll explain more later. That's about it for now. I had the weekend off, spent it with Ben in Rishon LeTziyon. Time for the first full week.

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What a grind this week was. First thing after getting back to the base (for which I had to wake up at 5:30 in the morning to get on multiple buses), was we were arranged in new tzevets, according to our Hebrew level, at least partially. I am now in Tzevet Sholosh, Unit Three. There are eleven people, four Americans, two British and five Russians. Russians are at Mikveh Alon largely against their will; their families emigrated from Russia or the Former Soviet Union to find a better life in Israel and their kids, as citizens, have to serve in the military like any Israeli. They don't like being there, and, to be honest, it shows. There's currently a big rift in our unit between the English speakers and the Russian speakers. It's mainly due to the language barrier. I hope it eases, because we have been doing a lot of running and pushups due to lack of coordination when forming into chets or lines.

The organization at Mikveh Alon is also starting to become clear. Each tzevet has between twelve and fifteen soldiers. Three tzevets make up a plugot, like three platoons making a company. There are six plugots at MA. The commander of each plugot is called the HaSamelot. She's a real ball-buster. Hard as rocks and completely unforgiving. Everything has to be perfect. When we form into a "chet gadol/big chet" for the plugot, she addresses us to tell us about something important or allow us to go to a meal. If someone moves without permission or talks without being spoken to, or even forgets to say "ken, HaSamelot/Yes, commander" then he is told to do ten or twenty pushups. If he says the wrong thing when trying to get back into formation, because he has to ask permission to get back in, he's sent to do another set of pushups.

Each day starts at about 4:30 or 5 in the morning. We wake up, change, organize our beds, put our bags and sleeping bag perfectly on the mattress, report outside at a specific time, and then the next hour is spent with our mefakedet giving us 5 minutes to run back inside, shave and shine our boots (which most have already done), then run back outside, then inside for another few minutes to mop the floor and dust the room, then inspection by the HaSamelot, who often undoes our folded sheets just because she can.

Throughout the day we run everywhere: "See that lightpost 30 yards away? 20 seconds, run to it, get into two perfect lines. MOVE!" We always have to count backwards from 10 (in Hebrew) whenever our allotted time is up. Or: "30 seconds to run to that space just past the dumpster, form a chet (ח, our basic formation), MOVE!" If we're not perfect, we often have to run back to the previous spot. Or we may get 10 seconds to get ourselves perfectly spaced. Other times, like Thursday, when the mefakedet was upset with our unit, we ran all over the base for over an hour. We would be in chet, then have to run and touch a building with our canteens and get back into formation in 20 seconds. If people don't make it, we would do it again. I'm one of the guys in the best shape, too. We had a test the other day: situps, pushups, running. I think I did 86, 60 and was 19th in running. 19th because i stayed back with some people to encourage other guys in our unit. The test didnt really count; I'll 'place' in top 5 when it actually does.

We also got guns....but no ammunition. We're given the M-16A1 assault rifle, made in the USA. We have to carry it everywhere: eating meals, running places, taking a shit, going to the shower, everywhere. I know the parts of the gun in Hebrew (at least working on it) and how to clean and disassemble the firing pin/mechanism. I know the positions to shoot (like standing, crouching, prone, or amidah, kria, and shivat in Hebrew) and the commands. They are very strict with gun safety: no pointing it at anyone, never raise the barrel, always keep it pointed at hte ground.

Most of the day is spent...I dont even know how. We learn about the gun, have done some Hebrew lessons, like learning Hatikvah, the national anthem, nothing too serious yet, and was introduced to the higher ranking commanders. Most of the time I guess is spent running around, almost for no reason. For example, there are about 200 guys here for the ulpan. So we're all brought into this auditorium to hear from the base's psychologist, or a commanding officer or something. Then my company is given 3 minutes to run outside and form a chet. That's for 40 guys, half of whom are Russian with limited English and us with no Russian comprehension. We often don't make it, so we do pushups. Then we run back inside to hear from another commander. No point to it. We could've just stayed in our seats.

The other night, after our hour break, we had to report back outside with the entire company for the commander to say a few things, but basically give us our 5 minute warning before lights out. We can show up in pj's outside. Well, this night, people were talking or late to formation, so we all had to get back into our uniforms (and I and others had already showered) to do running and pushups for a half hour.

Anyway, this experience right now certainly is interesting. Do I like it? Let's just say 'like' is not in the vocabulary right now. It's different. It's what I signed up for; the running/pushups we are doing are not strenuous, just tiring. One of my toes started to bleed the other day from chafing. Its rough. But its kinda fun. 'Playing' soldier. Walking around with a gun. The first week (really less than two days), was a lot of sitting around. I said to David that I kinda wanted to start doing things and was anxious. He told me that I would soon learn to relish our breaks...and I am. Any few minutes we have to just not do anything is wonderful.