"Closing 21"

...sounds forbidding, doesn't it?  Ok, maybe not to someone unfamiliar with the term or its circumstances.  Alas, allow me to enlighten you, as it is not something you want to hear in the army.  It means you are on base for three straight weeks, "closing Shabbat for twenty-one days."  But "closing twenty-one" isn't so bad.  The hardest thing is to think about home.  If that's not an option for three weeks, then there's no need to worry yourself and the time goes faster.  In addition, as my friend Shmaya from New York put it, "you're on base, the first of the month comes around, and next time you go home, you have a lot more money in the bank and no time to spend it!"

These were going to be three tough weeks.  First off, it was coming right after my regilah (break) week.  In addition, these were going to be three weeks in the shetach (field).  And it was the start of imun mitkadem, advanced training.

Indicators of experience:
Watch cover
received after the 6k masa

I had almost no trouble getting back into the swing of things after my week of rest and relaxation with my friends at the beaches and clubs of Tel Aviv.  That Sunday we had our first krav maga session.  It's about time we learned some close-hand combat!  My Mem Mem (platoon commander) had commented that it was unfortunate we don't learn more krav maga, but the reality and time restraints of our training don't allow for the proper time required for its training.  This session we learned how to fight with our guns, much like our last session at Mikveh Alon.  After it, we finished packing our bags for the shetach and went to bed.

A few hours later, or at three or four in the morning, we woke, boarded a bus with our equipment, and drove off to the shetach for Shavuah Citah (Squad Week).  This week was to learn how to attack a hill as a squad.  For some reason, something that even my officer didn't quite know why, but I brought my MAG and all its equipment.  I had the gun strapped around my shoulders and the heavy vest on my back climbing up and down hills, providing covering fire and then running to catch up with my squad as they advanced.  The worst part?  The "covering fire" was just me shouting "MAG-a, MAG-a, MAG-a" over and over and over.  No actual bullets were fired on my part.  Wasn't exactly the most thrilling time for me in the shetach.

We did our daytime exercises, had lessons all day about the different specialty weapons in a squad, then had our nighttime exercises, and returned to base at three in the morning.  Hour free time before bed.  Over twenty-four hours awake.

We came back because Monday was a fast during the day.  It's the Seventeenth of Tammuz, a daytime fast to remember when the walls of Jerusalem were breached before the destruction of the Second Temple.  We woke late and then I met with the Mishakit Aliyah with the other lone soldiers to review for another test on our training.  The fast ended that evening and we returned to the shetach.   We slept, woke, did our daytime drills, slept during the middle of the day, and then watched a helicopter shoot up a few barrels with a Vulcan cannon.  My entire plugah (company) gathered on a hillside and waited as night descended to watch the reservists practice their drills.  It was pretty cool, if overhyped.  You could barely see the helicopter.  You heard the cannon fire and saw sparks shoot up a few hundred meters away from it.  It shot three times.  We did our nighttime drills and then returned to base.

Or rather, to the kitchen.  Again, not fun work being in the kitchen, but there are times that it beats being in the shetach!

For the weekend, my machlekah (platoon) went to Hebron for guard duty.  No one really gets excited about the prospect of a long weekend standing up and missing out on a relaxing Shabbat back on base.  For me, at least this was different than the last time I was in the city of Judaism's second holiest site.  We woke early and packed up to go.  This time, Kfir, another infantry unit, was on duty in Hebron.  The machlekah was split up and I was sent to a base with about forty of us.  I started guard duty at four in the afternoon and didn't end until ten.  Standing.

So where was I guarding?  Specifically?  Let's just say, from this photo from almost exactly a year ago, you can almost see where I was.  Off to the right is a street, or more like a dirt path, that leads to an Arab section of the city.  About fifty meters up that path is where I stood.  My surroundings looked like a scene in the video game "Assassin's Creed," a game that takes place in the Holy Land during Medieval times.  I'm completely serious.  I stood on a platform ten feet above the road, across from a house.  Really it was just a makeshift metallic slab that constituted a door and a tangle of stairs that disappeared into a construction of brick, wood and mud that called a house.  In addition, they had a horse and cart.

There were little kids in the area.  Either they walked through or played in the turn in the road, or peered out at me from behind green-barred windows.  (Why do I mention they're green?  Because I think they're intentionally that color as it is the color of Islam.  Hence the Arab section.)  I'm dressed in full combat gear, complete with a bullet proof vest filled with ceramic plates.  Heavy and gets hot.  Also difficult to bend over to pick up your water.  But you feel like you're doing something legit(imate).

And I was doing something important.  Around seven at night, people, meaning Jews, starting walking down the path towards the Tomb of the Patriarchs for Shabbat.  I was standing, protecting my people as they went to practice our faith.  Isn't that why I'm here?  Hell yeah it is.  It was tough standing for six hours.  It was tough to see a two-year old Palestinian girl throw a rock at me.  But it was great for the young and old, the men and women to take the turn in the road, look up at me in my uniform, wave or give a slight salute and greet me with a "Shabbat Shalom!"  An ego trip?  Ok, maybe a slight one.  Fulfilling?  Definitely.

Tzanchanim tag
received after 7+1 masa

The ten or so of us who were on duty for that shift were picked up and returned to the Kfir base at the end of the evening.  Then we had a Shabbat meal with the base.  It's cool to have one on an operational base; it's what military service is really like.  But the next morning, woke up for a seven to eleven shift, then a quick afternoon break and back again from five to eight.  I was located at a closer location to the Tomb for the morning shift and was able to have short conversations with the Jews as they passed.  I was able to converse pretty easily in Hebrew.  I always made sure to say something if I heard English.  There was a group of guys from Brooklyn who I got to know that morning and we had a nice conversation about the army, America, politics, Judaism in the evening.  I also received quite a few invites for Shabbat and even for places to live.  Jews helping Jews is a beautiful thing.

(For me, in Hebron, for the first time, the Islamic call to prayer became a noisome cacophony of sound.  I was saddened and surprised to feel this way.  I've heard the call numerous times before and always thought it a beautiful thing about Islam.  In fact, the Arabic that i sounded from the tops of the minarets strikes at the beginnings of my interest in the Middle East.  For me, songs and sounds, both in Hebrew and Arabic, of this region are so full of yearning; for truth, for understanding, for reason.  It transports my mind to a much different realm, in time and place, to the beginning of beginnings, to where answers can be found to some of the most fundamental aspects and questions of life.  It makes me realize how old this place is, how many centuries people have lived here and throughout the wars, conquests, and disputes, still live everyday.

The sound is of yearning.  It was this sound that probably had the biggest impact on bringing me back to Judaism.  When I first heard the song "Yedid Nefesh" at the Western Wall a year and a half ago on Birthright, the sense of yearning and simple desire to live that the vocals arose within me made me think of my people being loaded into box cars, about them forming lines and being told who will live and who will die, and primarily, of walking out into a forest to dig their own grave, be shot, and fall in...all because they are Jewish.  How can I not want to fight back?

But I digress.  The call to prayer those two days in Hebron all jumbled together to hurt my ears.  Maybe all the mosques are competing for air space.  It seems like businessmen know no boundaries.  The commercialization of religion?  Topic for another time and place.)

One week down.

The start of the next week was a time of catch-up for me.  Back during Pesach, I got extra time off and missed throwing grenades.  About two dozen of us in the plugah were yet to learn to throw and Sunday was the day to finally catch up.  We again put on the protective vest under our combat vests.  Climbed up a hill and practiced with a rock and dummy grenade before the real thing.  The whole while, I had a live grenade in a pocket on my vest directly over my heart.  Honestly, it was a little freaky.  The guns and everything don't bother me.  This highly explosive devise with a kill radius of eight meters and can wound up to fifteen meters made me a bit nervous.  I pulled the grenade out of my vest and pulled the pin.  Thrust my arm behind me and threw it.  I ducked behind the bunker.  I heard the lever fly off with a surprisingly forceful noise and counted for four seconds.  Then BOOM, 1,024 pieces of shrapnel flying out in every direction.  Even from a distance at the bottom of the hill, you see the violent explosion and then hear the noise.  It's quite incredible how powerful something the size of a baseball can be.  It also made reality for me a bit more real.  War has got to be a terrifyingly hellish time.  Your world explodes into a violent fury of noise and steel.

But for now, I'm still in training.  And I'm relatively safe from everything.  Sure the grenade made me nervous at first, but I approached it like a roller coaster: I'm somewhat scared of heights, but if I'm strapped in, I know that countless people have already done what I'm doing without any harm and I know I'll get through it with no problem.

Discete (dog tag) cover
received after 10+2 masa

After the grenade, I rejoined my plugah to do some shooting exercises.  Run two hundred meters and shoot at a target fifty meters away with five bullets, all in two minutes.  Shoot a target two hundred and fifty meters away.  Shoot at fifty standing, then then kneeling, then prone.  Fun but surprisingly very difficult.  In addition, we did another buchan maslul, the obstacle course.  I improved my time from 8:30 to 8:13.  I'm happy with that time, but will probably do it again.  Looking to get under 8:00.

The shetach experience that week was learning to fight in an urban environment.  It was fun but very hot.  The IDF had built a group of a few dozen square, cement blocks that mimicked buildings and rooms.  We learned how to enter through the door as a unit of two or four, advance into more rooms, walk up and down stairs, and how to climb over a wall with the squad while advancing in a village.  Essentially, I put my back against the wall and bend my knees.  The soldiers climb onto my thighs, then my shoulders, then over the wall.  It builds and tires the legs.

We did countless drills peering around corners, into buildings, entering buildings and clearing rooms.  It was again a little freaky doing the drills with live ammunition.  Each machlekah had a special room to fire in.  The walls were padded with fiberglass and plenty of other thick material.  But the quarters were really small, maybe fifteen feet by fifteen feet.  The first soldier peers around the doorway, spots the terrorists, lets off a few shots, then they both enter and shoot the back wall, spraying their fire from corner to corner.  We certainly wear earplugs.  The room smells of gun powder and you can see the dust kicked up by our boots and bullets lazily waft around the beam of sunlight from a small ventilation hole in the roof, providing the only source of light.  At night, vision was essentially nil.

We finished the shetach after two nights, three days, and came back to base.  One of the machlekahs went to Ein Gedi for guard duty while mine and another stayed on base for guard duty and kitchen work all of Shabbat.  It was really not the quiet, relaxing Saturday that I desperately needed and wanted.  Instead, kitchen work means long days on your feet and guard duty means odd shift hours and an irregular sleeping schedule.  We were on this rotation until Tuesday.  It was a tough last twenty-four hours for me.  Sometime on Monday, word got around that we were going to close another twenty-one starting the following week.  In addition, I had been getting fed up with how completely crappy the jobniks who work in the kitchen as their military service treat us.  We work all week in the field or on base, sweating, bleeding and not sleeping, and then we come to work in the kitchen and these guys expect us to worship the ground they walk on.  Most of them are there because they were injured early on in their kravi service and their just finishing out their three year service in the kitchen.  They probably hate their lives, even though they get a week on and week off rotation.  Sometimes I feel bad for them, but when they yell at us to work and then they go play on their iPhones for hours, I don't care for them.

Two weeks down.

Tuesday evening was the beginning of Citah Mitkadem, Advanced Squad training in the field.  Supposedly it is one of the hardest weeks of training.  To make it a little easier, that afternoon, the entire plugah gathered for a brief ceremony where we broke distance with all of our commanders and officers.  Finally, the mental relief that I wrote about last time was here.  The first two weeks we were still in Tironut (Basic Training).  Now, with calling everyone by their first name and other informalities, the mental stress relaxes, only to be replaced by more physical difficulties.

The beginning of the field featured a short masa (hike): 5+5 (five walking, then five more carrying a stretcher).  And we did it with 35-40% of our body weight on our backs.  We were weighed earlier in the day and then added our equipment for a final count.  I weigh 87kg, and then added the heavy water bag and weighed 118kg.  Never before have I ever weighed 87kg/191lbs.  I've only ever reached about 185, and that's after lifting a lot of weights.  It's my legs, they're getting stronger from all the walking.

And this masa proved that.  It was hard, surprisingly so, despite it's relatively short distance.  At the end of it, we were expecting a 'layla lavan' (white night), where you stay up all night.  Instead, thankfully, they let us go to sleep.  But it's not fun having your uniform soaking wet and trying to sleep outside.  In fact, one of the most difficult things about the shetach is that you sweat so much during the day that when night falls, you start to freeze at night.  And we had received new combat vests the week before, and they cover the entire chest and stomach, which makes breathing and ventilation a little more difficult.

Infantry pin
received after Masa Sammal

Anyway, this was a week (or really a day and a half, which was enough) where my Mefaked didn't even know what the schedule was.  We would receive our orders through the radio and carry them out.  Food would be dropped off at different locations and we had to hike there to get it.  And by hike, I mean carry someone on the stretcher up and down hills, with the weight on our backs, not knowing exactly where we were going, and sometimes our Mefaked also not knowing.

Similar to Citah Week, we also did exercises battling up hills against cardboard enemy targets.  Before one of these exercises at night, one of the guys in my citah got sick and had to leave.  It was a little scary because we had been warned and heard about guys in other units getting heatstroke.  We were sure to drink plenty of water throughout the day as a precaution.  My friend was evacuated by jeep, but we carried on until the next day.  The second morning we woke up and immediately put our packs on our bag, put a heavy guy on the stretcher and followed off after our Mefaked....for over an hour and fifteen minutes, about four kilometers.  It was one of the hardest things I ever did.  There were about six or seven of us carrying the stretcher the entire time.  A lot of time carrying and not much switching.

But then the hike finally, mercifully, ended and we boarded a bus that picked us up to bring us back to base.  The end of the week--the three weeks.  We had a short run that evening and went to bed early.

The other week, the August draftees came to base.  A lot of the Israelis were really stoked that they we are the big guys on campus and not complete novices anymore.  That's definitely not true.  I was personally excited to see them because it showed how far we've come in just four months.  I think back to what we've accomplished, been through and what the new guys will have to endure.  It's just another time marker.  In country for nine months; in the IDF for seven and a half months.

Done with the twenty-one.

On Sunday, we train with helicopters!

All now permanent fixtures
on the uniform, with Shimon

Standing at the Wall

The tunnel was packed with soldiers jumping, shouting, sweating, pushing each other in a huge mosh pit as we followed the lead of our commanders, getting ourselves psyched up to formally announce our loyalty to the defense of the State of Israel.  101, 202, and 890 shouted their particular battlecries, hurling insults at each other as we proved our own units to be the best.  We were moments away from walking out to the Western Wall and we were acting like animals with too much testosterone to burn off.  And it was fun.

Shortly before 8:00pm on Thursday evening, we formed rows of six, donned our berets on our heads, rolled our sleeves down (something kravi [combat] soldiers never do, we're tough guys so our sleeves are always rolled up past our elbows, no matter the weather), and started to stamp our feet in unison before marching forward.  I passed the entrance of the tunnel and a rush of cool air and the cheers and camera flashes from hundreds of people hit me.  Our marching led us out onto the huge plaza in front of the Western Wall and into a sectioned off area for the ceremony.  As we marched, I looked around for people I knew were coming to see me: David and Amy and their three girls; Sam and Ben, my Israeli friends; and Ami, a friend from Chicago who is studying at the same yeshivah where I spent three weeks last summer.  I couldn't find them, but knew they were somewhere in the crowd.

As I stood there as important generals and colonels made speeches about the history of Tzanchanim and the Kotel (Western Wall), about the loyalty Israelis show to their country by serving in the armed forces, about the journey ahead of us, I couldn't believe that a year ago I was standing at a different ceremony: my college graduation.  The past year has been one of the craziest of my life, if not the most insane!  I'm so proud to be here; during the speeches, I found myself thinking, "a hundred meters to my right is the reason that I am here; when it comes down to it, I am here simply because I want to be between the Wall and anyone that wants to destroy it."

This ceremony was incredibly more powerful and important than the one I had at Mikveh Alon.  Actually, I think I'll just stop talking about Mikveh and you can always assume that everything I do is incomparably superior to that base.  Instead of repeating lines of an oath of loyalty, one of the high ranking generals said some words and then everyone shouted in unison: "אני נשבע Ani Nishba I SWEAR!"  Silence for a second, then the entire plaza erupted with cheers and applause.  We were officially sworn in as soldiers of the IDF.

A week and a half before, my gdud (battalion) earned our tekkes hashba'ah (swearing-in ceremony).  We had another masa (hike): seven plus one.  Daniel, that's eight kilometers, why don't you just say 'eight?'  Thank you for asking, interested and slightly confused reader!  We say 'seven plus one' because the last kilometer is traveled while carrying someone on the stretcher.  This masa was called the 'masa hashba'ah' because at the end, we were to receive our paratrooper tags (to be explained in a little bit).  It was going to be a hike with our entire gdud: MemMem, MemPay, the works.  For this, I decided to step up and take the pack of water on my bag.  Every masa, each citah (squad) has to have a man on the radio, another carrying the stretcher, and a third with the water.  The guy with the radio is at the front of the column with the commander; generally he doesn't do much with the radio itself and is just there to run up and down the column relaying orders from the commander.  However, this time, because of the large group, our MemMem (company commander) was at the front of the machlekah (company) and he used the radio quite often to communicate with the front of the gdud.  The guy with the water is carrying a lot more weight.  In addition to our combat vest, helmet and rifle, he carries an extra pack with about twenty liters of water.  I was that guy.  An advantage to carrying the water is that you stand at the head of the column, right next to the commander.  At first, because we had three citahs in the column, I was behind another 'water guy.'  But he couldn't keep up with the MemMem, and would walk a few paces then run to catch up, walk then run, walk then run.  I knew the masa would be significantly harder if I kept that up because I was behind him.  After the first two kilometers, I grabbed his arm, told him to switch with me, and then was able to keep pace with the Mefaked Machlekah for the rest of the hike.

And this masa wasn't easy.  We went up a sloping hill, then up a steep climb; we caught our breath for five minutes at the top, then went down the other side, in the dark, with rocks and boulders, pits and sloping surfaces, enough to twist ankles and throw off your balance.  By the end of the masa, especially after carrying the stretcher for the last kilometer, I was tired, but not beat.  All three machlekahs gathered in a chet formation and the MemPay, who led the masa, stood in the middle, shouting at us, and each time he shouted we raised our stretchers up.  They lit a fire that spelled our gdud's name and number: 202 צפא (tzefa: python).  Then we received our tags.

If you come to Israel and see all the soldiers, you'll notice a few things.  First off, everyone has different colored berets for their different units.  Tzanchanim is red, Golani is brown, Nachal is light green, Modi'in (intelligence) is dark green, Totchanim (artillery) is blue, and so on.  You can learn what each kumta (beret) is as there are only about a dozen different ones.  In addition, each soldier has a tag on their left shoulder, but these you cannot know all because there are dozens and dozens.  You can learn to recognize the major fighting units' tags, but there are also so many more that are specific to different jobnik positions or even within combat.

The Tzanchanim tag has a green snake with white and black wings against a red backdrop.  All of the gduds are named after different snakes (check out the Tzanchanim website link on the right for more, and specific, information!).  I think I read somewhere (probably on that website) that Tzanchanim are like snakes because we can attack quickly and viciously.  We can infiltrate through the air and carry out a mission that would otherwise be impossible because it can't be accessed by land.  The wings are for that, for being a tzanchan-- a paratrooper.  You see that tag, you know the soldier is in Tzanchanim.  Receiving it is one more official step to becoming an accomplished Israeli soldier; it is another piece of hardware that proves your experience.

I spent Shabbat on the base and then we had a few days of guard duty and kitchen work, really nothing to write home about.  But, as you already, I had a yom siddurim in the middle of the week, which was great.  But when I got back, I found out that my machlekah had gone to the firing range and done a lot of work with their rifles.  I'm pretty bummed I missed that because I have not fired my M16 since those few times almost two months ago when we aligned our sights.  I honestly feel like the entire Israeli army has done more than my gdud.  It's very frustrating to hear about my friends in Nachal, Golani or even in gdud 890 in Tzancahnim tell me that they've spent days on the rifle range, or that they know certain things about the Syrian army or Hezbollah, or that they've already completed a krav maga class where all they did was stay in a pushup position for an hour.  Instead, it seems that all we do is guard duty and kitchen work.  But if at the end of basic and advanced training we know and have done everything that everyone has and we're at the same level, then it's all good.  But for right now, I've been frustrated and, honestly, it kinda sucks.

One good thing about guard duty, and this is very particular, is if you guard at the front gate.  It's better for many reasons, the main one is that you are with someone else.  Not another soldier, but a commander; either your Mefaked, Sammal, or MemMem.  The time goes by faster because you can talk with each other, or at least attempt to.  The first hour of my shift I was with the commander who punishes me whenever I speak English.  While there is some distance between the soldiers and our commanders, it is certainly nothing like at Mikveh, and it will go down because distance isn't good when you're going to battle together.  Anyway, we had a great conversation for an hour, and in Hebrew, mind you.  The next hour, he switched out with the Sammal (sergeant) and lets just say that talking was kept to a minimum and there was plenty of distance--literally, he moved to stand on the other side of the road and was on the phone most of the time.  But it was all good, the time still passed.

As I look back on the last week, I do realize that I've learned quite a bit.  We had an intense day or two of learning first aid: what to do if you come upon a soldier lying on the ground; how to treat his wounds; the different kinds of treatment; pretty much everything that a soldier who is not the medic needs to know and do to help his buddy.  It was actually during a break in one of these lessons that the commander heard me talking English to the other Americans and pulled me out of class.  I then did sprints for ten minutes, including shouting to a rock, in Hebrew, and in full view of a citah passing by, "I will not speak English again!  I will not speak English again!" and then sprinting back to make it in the twenty seconds.  Fun stuff.

We also learned about the different pachals, the specific weapon assignments each soldier will receive.  These include everything from being the radio man to a sharpshooter, carrying anti-tank missiles to light machine guns.  I'll talk more about that in my next post.  We're supposed to get our assignments in the next two or three weeks.  890 already has theirs; just another indication that it really seems like 202 is behind.

On Thursday morning, I woke up at 5:30 after four hours of sleep and we practiced our marching in preparation for the tekkes that evening.  We spent the next several hours cleaning our rooms and bathroom.  Tedious, unnecessary work.  I ate breakfast in seven minutes.  We boarded buses around eleven to head to Jerusalem.  We arrived two hours later and stopped at a high vantage point on Mount Scopus, next to Hebrew University.  Our MemMem gave us a lecture on what Tzanchanim encountered as they battled the Jordanians on their way to retaking the Old City and the Kotel in the Six Day War.  The next several hours were spent walking that path.  And this was pretty cool.  We would stop every kilometer or so for an update on what battle or skirmish took place at that location.  There would also be a small memorial or monument to the soldiers who fell in that location or from the specific unit that fought there.

The path took us deep into East Jerusalem, the Arab part of the city.  All of us are in our Aleph uniforms with our guns strapped on our shoulders and a double magazine holding fifty-eight bullets on our belts.  Some of the looks we got from the locals were anything but friends.  I heard awkward, uncomfortable laughs as we passed by food stands.  One time when we stopped for an update, I saw two young boys, probably seven or eight, one of which had a rusted piece of metal that happened to form the shape of a gun, pointing it at us and pretending to jab us as he ran by.  A friend of mine told me over drinks last night that he narrowly missed being hit by a rock thrown by another child.  I felt pretty safe the entire time, but I could also tell there was tension in the air, especially after the Nakba Day turmoil.  But one of the bright spots was passing the U.S. Consulate!  Oh it was great to be on American soil, or the steps, for even ten seconds.  But it was also during this time that I spoke a sentence in English to a South African friend who asked if I liked being home.  Another Mefaked heard me, asked me how many English words I spoke ('9), and how many pushups per word ('don't know'), ok then you owe me ninety push-ups.  Ummm, rain check, please?

We finally got to the Kotel around four in the afternoon and set our bags aside along a wall.  We were given twenty minutes free time to pray, use the bathroom, whatever.  There was certainly a buzz among the tourists as they saw a bunch of soldiers with guns show up.  Especially coming from the States, you'd think there was some sort of national security issue.  But this is Israel; there are always soldiers with guns.  I heard one man talking, in English, with his yeshivah students and wondering what was going on.  He came up to me and asked in Hebrew, 'what time is your ceremony tonight?'  To which I replied in English.  Hell yeah I want him to know that I ain't Israeli!  He was shocked and eventually asked for my picture!  What a celebrity I am, haha!  But honestly, he was excited to hear about there being non-Israelis in the IDF.

At five thirty, all of the lone soldiers had to gather because we had a dinner to attend.  Instead of eating plain sandwiches, the lone soldiers and their families who came were treated to a very nice meal at a restaurant near the Kotel that I've passed by a hundred times but don't have the funds to eat at.  At the end, we received more gifts, this time clothes like socks, boxers, undershirts, etc.  And also letters from people around the world expressing their gratitude for our service.  It's the same company that is the link on the right: Lone Soldier Care Packages.

We finished the meal with about forty-five minutes until our tekkes.  I put my gift in my bag, gave my gun to a commander who put it on the rack for the ceremony, and rejoined my brothers in the tunnel.  Enjoy this little snippet I took on my phone:

There were people on the sides taking photos and videos, enjoying every minute of being part of something very Israeli.  As a twenty-three year-old college graduate, I appreciate the vow I have taken much more, I'm sure, than the eighteen and nineteen year-old soldiers in my unit.  This was a conscious decision I made to uproot and move out here.  I gave it a lot of thought and consideration about what it means to pledge myself to a cause, to another country.

Reliving old times, Sam (l) and Ben?

It wasn't until I was in formation standing at attention that I saw my friends.  During a quiet moment between instructions, I hear my name shouted to my left.  I look and see Sam and Ben shouting, smiling and waving at me.  I knew my friends and family was in attendance, but it was great to see them.  In addition, a great surprise was having David's mother and her husband in attendance.  Her husband was born in Israel and served in the paratroopers back in the 1950s.  As you can see in the picture above, he wore his beret from his service; it's over fifty years old!  Incredible.

Of course now the best thing to come out of the whole tekkes is that I get to take my gun home on weekends.  It's sitting in the apartment, and I can take it apart, play with it, admire it, whatever, anytime I want.  Even though I don't yet have the red Tzanchanim kumta, I do have a gun with my on the train.

It's been a great חמשוש chamshoosh, or when you get off from the army on Thursday as opposed to Friday.  I was able to hang out with friends, have some drinks, check out some new bars in Tel Aviv and Herziliya.  Tonight is Lag B'Omer, thirty-three days after Pesach and a celebration where we light fires.  See Wikipedia for more.  I return tomorrow and will spend another week in the shetach (field).  Then next Shabbat my gdud is going to Hebron for guard duty!  I'm really pumped for this.  I don't really know what to expect, but it's off base, it's in Hebron, and it's the first legitimate defending of something in Israel that I will do.  Two weeks until I'm back...again.  But I'm getting used to this.  The days and weeks are going by and they certain move faster if I'm on base more often.  Until then, thanks for reading!

bruised body/broken distance

My muscles burned and my body bruised as I crawled uphill towards the sandbag. My uniform, already smeared with dirt, moisture and foliage, tugged at my upper body as I dragged my legs forward.  I reached with my right hand and tried to grab onto anything to pull myself to a new position.  My hand sank into the dirt and I had to swivel my body to angle my left leg above my hip, anchor it into the soil and extend my body forward.  The Mefaked stood a few meters in front of me, shouting as us to get moving.  I put my head down for a second, gathering strength for a quick burst of energy.  "C'mon!" I yelled to myself, "isn't this why you're here?!  Don't you want to be down in the dirt, with your muscles aching?  Move your ass!"  I looked up and targeted a shallow depression, willing myself to reach it.  I pulled my forearms in close and began to raise my knees off the ground.  Trying my best to work my limbs in unison after crawling for over two hundred meters, I jetted forward, one forearm in front of the other, not looking up, just staring down at the earth, the rocks, the glass, ignoring all of it as I just kept moving, just kept moving, until I reached the Mefaked and shouted "Shteim!  Two!"

This continued for four hours.  From 4:00 to 8:00 in the morning, I put myself through the hardest physical workout of my life.  What was it all for?  To get into Tzanchanim, the Paratroopers.  A special infantry unit with a storied history: they were instrumental in Israel's victorious war against Egypt in 1956, and, most importantly, they were the unit that recaptured Jerusalem from Jordanian control in 1967 Six Day War.  There's an incredibly famous (and moving) photo of three paratroopers at the Western Wall, the first time ever that the State of ISrael had a definitive presence at Judaism's holiest site.  In remembrance of this incredible victory, Tzanchanim soldiers culminate hteir basic trianing in a 74km hike, ending at the Wall, with all of Jerusalem out to see their triumphant entrance after their daylong march.  In addition, Tzanchanim, as paratroopers, learn to jump out of an airplane; they do this five times during their training.  The final thing that distinguished Tzanchanim from the other infantry units is their gibbush, or tryout.  THe only purpose of the gibbush is to keep with the unit's tradition.  I'm certain that at one point they were a specialized or elite unit, but, especially since paratrooping is unlikely to ever be used again in wartime, Tzanchanim is seen as not unlike other infantry units.  For example, even though hundreds of new soldiers attend the gibbush, Tzanchanim is not allowed to take only the best soldiers.  They have to take the best of the best, the best of the middle, and the best of the bottom.  Why?  Because its demographic has to contain a range of soldiers, not simply the best; otherwise, the other units would be stripped of the best, as they would all be in Tzanchanim.  However, there were certainly many soldiers who went through the gibbush simply for the experience, without ever intending to go into Tzanchanim.

Initially, that was my approach.  I had heard that if I wanted Tzanchanim, I would have to extend my service to two full years.  It's a decision I've been wrestling with for some time now. But I'll explain more  about that later.  For now, you don't even know if I survived the gibbush....

I arrived at base as usual on Sunday, just before lunch.  That entire afternoon was spent rehearsing for our tekkes, a ceremony to be held that Wednesday as the culmination of our time at MIkveh Alon.  Out marching went on for hours.  Nothing exciting to report.  That evening, after dinner, those who were going ot the gibbush the next day were given instructions on what to bring, when to get up, etc.  We were to awake at 4:00 am, dress in our Bet uniforms, and bring with us our extra Bet uniform, as well as our Aleph uniform.  I was pumped as this was actually happening.  But then, my Mefakedet pulled me aside, away from the group, and sat me down. I knew this wasn't good.  Then she asked me a rhetorical question, "Daniel, what's your profile?"  I say it was rhetorical because they have always known that I'm a 72.  "Why?"  Because of my eyes.  Don't you remember when I was gone for a full day to go see an eye doctor?!  And you also asked me a bunch of questions a few weeks ago as part of the gibbush application and I specifically asked you about my profile, if it would be a problem!  "Well, as of right now, I don't know if you can go."  WHAT?!  Hell no!  I've always wondered how I can go; I've been told that a 72 cannot do infantry.  "I want you to be able to go.  I'll talk to my commander and then I'll wake you up and let you know."  Wonderful.  I love the last-minute ambiguity of the entire situation.  The gibbush guys went to bed around 8:00 at night.  As I was getting into my room, my Mefakedet told me to dress in my Aleph uniform to see the eye doctor the following morning.  I really don't know what exactly I was expected to do, because I knew there was no way any doctor would be on base at four in the morning, and I also knew that if they looked at my eyes, they would definitely tell me I couldn't go.  So I awoke with the rest of the guys and dressed in my Aleph.  Essentially, I eventually made my way onto the bus, although my name wasn't on the list.  I've ben told time and again, if you want something in the army, it's all a matter of getting on or staying off the bus.  In this case, I wanted to go, so I just got on the bus.

We drove to Tel Hashomer, the same base where I had my Tzav Rishon and reported for my first day back in December.  After arriving, we grabbed our Bet bags and sleeping bags, arranged them into pyramids, and formed a large chet in the center of the pavilion's basketball court.  There was already a sizeable crowd sitting on the bleachers, mainly Israelis in civilian clothes.  I have to admit, I gained quite a bit of confidence after showing up in my uniform.   One of the good things about Mikveh is that I am a soldier, and I know how to act accordingly, what to expect, etc.  Seeing the wide-eyed eighteen year old Israelis, with absolutely no military experience, staring at us in our perfect chet, shouting in unison, I got excited and pumped to begin the gibbush.

Unfortunately, things again took a turn for the worse.  The Tzanchanim officers formed everyone into groups of twenty or thirty.  Initially, all the Mikveh guys were put together--except a few others and me. I was eventually put with another group from Mikveh, but seeing all my friends together made me feel lost in the wind, to an extent.  I was already in a different environment, one where if you didn't know the Hebrew it was kinda tough luck.  Next, we went to see the medical team.  They took my temperature and pulse.  One of my friends, Mike, unfortunately, was sent home because he had a high temperature.  Then the doctor fo the gibbush had to clear us.  We had each previously been given our medical form, which the doctor had to sign off on.  (A quick backstory is required here: my mom has developed a potential hereditary heart condition and I needed to got o a doctor for a test to see if I was at risk.  I left base the previous Thursday, went to the hospital, got the test, and was cleared.  However, my medical form still said I was going to a cardiologist for my heart.)  When she looked at my form, she asked for the results of the test, which I didn't have.  "Can't let you do the gibbush until I see the results."  Not again!  Long story short, I called the hospital, they faxed the papers to Mikveh, who then faxed it to Tel Hashomer.  At this point, my unit had gone to eat and I was thrown into another group, this time with all Israelis.  Talk about feeling like a fish out of water.  And speaking of water, throughout the day, our Mefakeds ordered us to fill our canteens, drink the entirety, and hold it over our heads to prove it was empty.  These canteens are .75 liters.  I first thought it was one of the challenges of the gibbush, like they were going to make us run after, but the next day proved how thankful I was that we drank all that water the night before.

A few hours later, all 262 of us gathered on a basketball court, preparing to run the 2k.  They read the first forty names in alphabetical order, and continued until everyone's name had been called--once again, everyone but me and a few others.  Even though my last name begins with an "F", it is really a "פ, Pay" in Hebrew, the 18th letter.  Still, they didn't call me.  I think this all stemmed from me not really supposed to be on that bus.  But anyway, I ended up being number 252, and ran an 8:21.  The course was harder than the paved surface of Mikveh Alon when I ran an 8:07 the previous week.  It was on soft dirt (it had rained for a few hours in the morning) and the trail rose and fell a significant amount.  Regardless, I was pleased with my time.  Everyone was to change back into their uniforms (we ran in sport clothes) and go to dinner.

The next morning, we were to report in a chet at 3:30, wearing nothing but our Bet uniforms.  When I say nothing, I mean no undershirts or long johns.  Needless to say, it was frigid when we woke up at 3:00.  We were herded into an area where everyone at the gibbush stood in chet.  They began reading off names, forming new units.  Thankfully, I was in a group of 20 with some of my best friends from Mikveh.  Finally, I felt my spirits lift after thinking for hours that I would only be with Israelis.  We were given tags with numbers on them to hang on our shoulder epaulettes.  I was number "two."  The Mefaked in charge of our unit gathered us in a chet and we began.

Throughout the four hours, the Mefakeds would ask us our numbers.  If you did something really good or failed, they wanted to know our numbers.  They told us to each grab a sandbag from a pile.  I picked one up and returned to the chet.  The Mefaked looked at what I had grabbed, commented that it wasn't big enough, and then asked for my number.  What a great way to start.

We then carried the stretcher, two jerry cnas, and our sandbags and headed off into the field.  We stopped at a stretch of dirt road, tossed our sandbags into the grass and formed lines of there.  There was one bag placed uphill on the road about forty meters away.  "Spring there and back, form lines of three, fourteen seconds.  Tze!"  The road was too small for all of us to fit.  If you were at the front of the line, you could make it first.  Other times, I just sucked up the burn in my legs, and sprinted there and back, pushing past people as best I could.  If you were first or last, the Mefakeds asked for our numbers.  Then they wanted to know the top three people.  Next, we sprinted there and back twice, with the first four people back carrying the stretcher for the second time back.  This lasted a good forty-five minutes, sprinting there and abck thirty or forty times.  If you drank from your canteen, the Mefaked asked what you were doing and took your number.  You couldn't even piss without being given permission.

Next we were told to grab our sandbags and hold them over our heads.  Just stand there and hold them.  If you drop your bag or it falls below your head, they ask for your number and make you stand in the middle of the chet.  This went on for five minutes.  Then we threw them down, jogged back about twenty meters, and were ordered to crawl to the sandbag in the middle of hte path and back...go!  At this point, I was thankful we didn't have any clothing on underneath our uniforms.  I began to rethink this as I started to cut up and bruise my body with the crawling.  In total, we crawled over two hundred meters throughout the morning.  For the next couple of days, it hurt to rest my elbows on a table; I'm still finding scrapes on my body.

After a few rounds of crawling, we picked up all our materials and followed the Mefaked as he marched off into the bushes.  When we arrived at some location, we were given five minutes to make a three meter by three meter Star of David out of branches, brush, anything we could find.  Then we had to make the Tzanchanim logo.  This was to see how we interacted in a group.  Although almost all of us spoke English, we had to use Hebrew.  During the day we also had to decide as a group three pros and cons of women serving in the military, money in professional sports, speak about any topic for twenty seconds, and other conversational segments.  In addition, we had a challenge to complete: get everyone over a wall ten meters away, using only a wooden light post, an oil drum and a tire.  It was impossible to accomplish in the allotted time, but, once again, the exercise was designed to see our interaction.

Finally, we were led to a location with a square pull up bar.  Everyone was ordered up, eyes closed, and hold on as long as possible.  You could hear thuds as people jumped down, although it was often the Mefakeds trying to make us think that people were falling.  After a few rounds of this, we gathered our supplies and went on a last hike back to the entrance.  Our physical tests were done.

Next was the interview.  This was simple enough; for me, my interviewers said that they want to know all about me, my history, family, why I'm here, etc.  I started to speak in Hebrew.  They stopped me and said if I don't have the conversational ability to explain all that, then I should speak in English, and it wouldn't affect my score.  Well, I trusted them and spoke in English.  They were good guys who seemed genuinely interested in why someone from college would to Israel to fight.  They asked interesting, exploring questions.  They even seemed interested about this blog!  What up, guys!! Let me in to Tzanchanim!

Then that was it for the gibbush.  At the end of it, I was tired, bruised and dirty.  But I honestly felt that, perhaps except for the crawling, I could do the whole thing over again, no problem.  It was hard, but not really difficult.  The main purpose of the gibbush is for the Mefakeds to test our mental toughness.  I heard accounts of them kicking soldiers our of certain exercises, only to see if the individual would fight to get back in.  That didn't happen with my group.  Only one guy dropped, and I think it was because he was sick at the beginning.  In other groups, up to half of the soldiers didn't make it to the end.

If you're reading this and are planning on taking the gibbush, let me say this: never quit, never give up!  At the very least, don't give them the satisfaction.  Also, it isn't overly difficult.  Remember: the pain you feel is only temporary, literally only for those few minutes.  Don't regret not giving it your all just to get back into your comfort zone.  You're in the military now: you will never be comfortable.  Just keep on trucking.  And anything you try your best at, you feel great about later.  A little pain now can pay dividends later.  For me, even if I don't make Tzanchanim, I am proud of my performance.  I tried hard and I think I stood out.  Hopefully I'll find out in the next couple days.

We left a few hours later and returned to base.  That entire afternoon we worked on marching for our tekkes.  That evening was a fun event: soldiers from each country at Mikveh had come up with a few minute presentation about their country.  The Americans had some dance moves, others just showed YouTube videos about their country, etc.  It was a fun event.

The next morning, again we rehearsed.  Finally, our tekkes was in the afternoon, and we were done with Mikveh!!  That evening, we broke distance with our commanders.  They told us their names, and we could ask them personal questions, talk candidly about the past few months, and more.  It was fun to see the Russians' expressions when they found out that my Mefakedet understands Russian; they swore at her every day.  My Mefakedet also said that she had worked for eight months in the States, even living for a few weeks in a town twenty minutes from me!  With breaking distance came a relaxing of formalities.  The HaSammelot and MemMem also talked about themselves for a bit.  They're still our officers, but the atmosphere for that evening and the next morning was certainly more relaxed; we all felt at ease, filled with a sense of accomplishment.

We left on Thursday but are returning tomorrow for a few days of shmirah (guard duty).  The following Sunday is supposed to be my first day in my new unit.  I still don't know if it's Tzanchanim, Nahal, or Totchanim.  There are a lot of things still up in the air.  But I'm feeling good about the future.  Our Mefakedet asked us last Sunday if we were excited to be leaving Mikveh.  I answered with a resounding "yes!"  However, as the last week went by, I started to think about not living with English speakers, not seeing the friends I've made over the past three months, and just being thrown into an entirely new environment.  It's certainly going to be a challenge.  And I welcome it!  It's the ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCE!

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