Israeli by Day, American by Night

I Must Be Moving On

2010-04-09T15:00:00.000+03:00

When I moved to Israel in September of 2007, even after having spent about a year here during college, I couldn't help but feel a certain amount of anxiety. Uprooting your life and leaving everything you've known behind isn't easy, especially for a sentimentalist like me. My medicine against this churning in my heart was writing, and Israeli by Day, American by Night was administered in heavy dosage from Day One.

This blog was the backstop for my life. Everything I went through, all the crazy stuff I saw, was painted in my mind on a canvas of how it would appear encapsulated in a post. My perspective was constantly refracted through the lens of my sole creative endeavor. Not one day passed that I didn't pray for the material to create that one blog that would send me into Internet kingship, the master of Web 2.0. Honestly, this blog was my saving grace. If I didn't have the warm embrace of the orange "Publish Post" button, that feeling of satisfaction, completion, and purity, I might have never accomplished half of what I have.

Two and a half years after its inception, with two hundred and seventy blog posts published, multiple interviews, army spokesman offers, dozens of links from other sites, countless emails, hundreds of article comments, and random Facebook friends I've never met, I feel like I can finally say that I really created something meaningful in my life. I have something that I can, essentially, hold in my hands and say proudly, "I made this!!!" The constant responsibility of creating those posts, trying to make each more interesting than the last, has really paid off. I wouldn't trade my experience for any other, no matter what. Even if the books I want to write never materialize, which are already written in my head anyway, I can confidently look to this collection and feel a modicum of self-regard, pride, and achievement. This blog is my most cherished possession.

"Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality, and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind." Catherine Drinker Bowen

But all that responsibility, all that continual striving for yet another post, yet another batch of positive feedback, which of course is a writer's goal (who isn't looking for praise?), ends up taking its toll. I suppose that I've written a few hundred pages already, a book. The strain and pressures add up. And I'm tired. I have slowly been moving on, naturally, which doesn't make me sad in the least. Yes, my heart is tender over the matter, I'll admit, but I'm happy to write "The End" and package it all up. Time for the next adventure.

The truth is, I was supposed to finish my army service this very month of April, 2010. For many reasons, none of which I want to go into for the hundredth time, I signed up for another six months. In the grand scheme of things, it's really not a big deal. By the end of my service, which will be two years in total (nothing in terms of army services), I hope to feel the same closure on this period of my life as I feel now writing this final blog post. That's been my goal all along: To have a pretty little package of life experiences with four corners and a roof. Something with all the loose ends tied up.

Regrettably, nothing is ever that perfect. This blog, and my army experience, are no different. There are many loose ends. Would you believe me if I told you that I never even wrote about the most harrowing, exciting, and intense times of the army? I never did get around to writing that West Bank arrest operations post. How about having my own personal IED discovered before I was discovered all across the road? Ridiculous patrols with your finger on the trigger, or even the most hilarious adventures at 3:00am deep in the casbah. And Gaza... forget about it. All that stuff was the real army. I wrote the pretty stuff. The real, gross, disgusting, 'I don't want to see this' kind of stuff has conveniently been omitted. I suppose I intend all that for a different audience, or at least in a different medium. This open blog is just not the place.

Despite feeling that there were posts that slipped by, great ones even, I am still comfortable saying adios. I'd like to thank all my fans, the most dedicated and loyal readers whose names always appeared in the comments section. I waited on edge for your feedback. And I'd like to thank all the haters who always made their way to the blog. I knew which posts were my best by how viciously I was attacked.

So how do you do it? What's the very last thing you can say? A meaningful quote? A pompous, prophetic reflection? Something vague and post-moderny? No, no... for the Israeli soldier, there's really only one way to say goodbye, only two words - but two words that say it all.

UNTIL WHEN??!!

!!???? עד מתי

Yusuf And Yosef

2010-03-06T23:45:00.000+02:00

(This post is long, but for a good reason. If you want to read it, set aside half an hour. These characters deserve more than my abbreviation.)

I’ve had a couple months already to marinate on the following characters and situation that I encountered one night while on guard duty inside al-Madina al-Muqaddasah. The impact on my understanding of the Israeli-Arab conflict at the time was so deep, and poignant, and time has only served to intensify the troubling perspective. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea here: I have made no revelations. My preconceived notions of this conflict haven’t so much gone out the window, as they have been placed in a frame on the wall. I knew this age-old struggle before. Now I have simply seen it first-hand, and more importantly, its victims. I only hope that this story serves to share the human side of being a curious soldier in a graying hostility.

At seven forty five in the evening I put down my copy of Dostoevsky’s great Karamazovian classic, grabbed my gun from my bed, and slinked off to my gear. Throwing on my ceramic body armor, then my combat vest full of magazines and grenades, I asked my commander which guard post I was responsible for lazily occupying.

“Eh... Guard Post Mouse. Six hours,” he replied nonchalantly.

“What?! Mouse for six hours? But we were just doing two hours all week, what happened?”

“The backup from the training base left. You complaining?”

“No,” I said, retracting my previous exasperation. “Just wondering what happened...”

I picked up my helmet and headed off in the direction of Mouse. This guard post is really just a paved square surrounded on three sides by apartment buildings five stories tall. The fourth side is a large opening to a side street that cuts from the main city street to a small Muslim and Jewish holy site. Owing to the religious significance, Israeli “settlers” live in the area, overwhelmingly surrounded on all sides by the local Arabs. Hence, my presence.

Whenever I walk to a guard post, especially when starting six straight hours in the same spot without sitting, I greedily study the passing scenery as if I can bring it all with me to my stationary post. Our tiny base is inside the city, just as if it’s any other complex on any other street, with a gate and military sign, and closed shops on either side of us. I passed by the seemingly ancient plumbing stores, and groceries, electricians, clothing shops, and even a Turkish bathhouse, all of which must have closed decades ago. Their signs and posters all remain, faded nearly beyond recognition, but calling out from the grave with their hoary ink. I see the ghosts of the long-passed owner sitting at the counter, sipping black coffee, smoking a water pipe. Young clerks mill about the aisles, pretending to work while dreaming of other young girls who by now must be grandmothers. Who used to live here, I wonder. Whose shop was this, and where’d they go? Sealed green door after sealed green door, padlocked and welded shut. This conflict must be like a spreading foreign insect, jumping from crop to crop across a region, devouring anything in its path. Few tourists come to this part of the city, Jew or Arab, but they should. Whose fault is it? I do not know.

Finally I arrived at Guard Post Mouse, switched my jubilant buddy Ari out, and settled in for a long night. When you take a look at your watch at eight o’clock and know that you’re stuck in one spot until two in the morning, nothing but the dirty walls of long abandoned Turkish-built apartments to watch, buildings that by definition have no activity, no one coming or going, no lights in the windows, nothingness hiding no-one-ness, when you make that realization about the fate of your night, a creeping sense of gloom makes its way over your heart. Even the darkest of surroundings, like my abandoned square, take a turn for the worse.

But all isn’t despair here in Mouse, or in a long guard shift in general. Even if you’re only passively interested in matters of architecture and history, you’ll be forced to examine every single window, noting the detailed carvings in the stone sills and frames, and the inscriptions gracing archways and columns. The Turks, even during the twilight years of their empire, didn’t seem to lack enthusiasm for beautifying their buildings. Of a much later time, though probably a decade-old in the least, Yasser Arafat stares out at me from a discolored, tattered election poster peeling from a barricaded shop door. There is much to keep me busy here.

“Hey!”

I heard a child shout from the opening to the main street, and I quickly turned around to assess who was approaching. You see, that part of the street, because it leads directly to the ancient Jewish Quarter, is a Jewish-only path. If you knew how many times, and how recently, there have been massacres along these shared Arab and Jewish streets, you wouldn’t feel so bad about limiting one small side street’s use either. Either way, the child was a young Jewish boy on a bike, his black yarmulke nearly flying off his head as he speed my way. In his hand was a paper plate.

“What’s up,” I ask. “What’ve you got there?”

He came to a skidding stop next to me. Standing on his bike pedals so he’d approach my above-average height, he held out the plate covered in clear wrap. It was full of grilled chicken wings, and even a breast that looked twice as big as anything I’d ever received in the army’s dining halls. I invited him to eat with me, since it was more than I could handle by myself.

“No, that’s ok” he replied. “I just ate. Hey, where’s that French kid? I was talking to him earlier, and he told me that he’d come by and bring me an army wallet he wasn’t using.”

“Oh, Shai? Yeah, I would forget about that. I saw him give it to a kid this morning. You guys are always trying to get stuff off us!”

I expected him to look away in disappointment, but these settler kids are tougher than nails. You can’t walk down the street without them surrounding you, asking for a watch cover, an insignia embroidered wallet, dog tags, or some other army paraphernalia. I slipped off my old watch cover, one I made myself by stitching an old IDF patch onto some black, stretchy fabric, and handed it over. He smiled, stuffed it in his pocket, and watched me start on the delicious, slightly burnt chicken wings. Changing his mind, he also grabbed a piece.

A number of minutes later, while ravenously enjoying the food, I decided to find out more about my unexpected yet welcomed company. “What’s your name” seemed like a good enough start.

“Yosef.” He turned back to his wing.

“Ah, cool name. I’m Danny. Nice to meet you.” He smiled again, and naturally turned back to eating. He had soft features, like a rounded chin and faint cheekbones. A peppering of small brown freckles evoked innocence, and I couldn’t imagine him being anything but. I studied his dark brown, straight hair, which was recently cut and neatly ruffled from the wind. Being that he is an orthodox Jew, he had those strange sidelocks, but like many kids, he tucked them behind his ears. Not shame, just the habit of an active boy. He was still sitting on his bike, but now he had both feet firmly on the ground, rocking back and forth. I wished I was sitting too, but it’s forbidden and you never know who is coming round to check on you.

We both finished a wing at the same time, and being that there was only one left, I offered it to him. He refused, but I made him eat it. “If you want to grow up to be big like me, you better eat that wing. Lots of protein.” It didn’t take much encouragement after he sized me up, probably imagining being 15 and my height. Yosef ate the final piece of chicken just as quickly as the first one, only as growing boys can. As soon as he finished, he wiped his hands together, trying to get the grease off. Realizing that that wouldn’t work, he turned on his bike and said he’d be back.

I watched him peddle furiously off around the corner, the strings of his tzitzit from his shirt flying in the wind behind him. Wondering where he ran off to, I returned my attention to the square. Between two of the buildings in the northwest corner there is a turnstile gate leading from the Arab souk (market). Only one specific Arab family is allowed to enter this square from that corner, or from any direction at all, and I even had a laminated list of about twenty permitted individuals. I wondered if any of them would come, and to what degree of sternness I should present to unidentified visitors. My feet led me to the dark corner, with its recessed gate and alley underneath a domed roof. I entered the nook and rested my hands on the cold iron. Spying through the entrance, all I could see were more dark corners of another tiny alley, with a dingy bend only fifty feet ahead. Not a soul in sight.

“Danny! Hey!” Yosef called me again out of my pondering mind as he bore down on me from the far street. “What are you doing?”

I stepped away from the turnstile and walked across the small square to where he stopped. He had brought us wet wipes to clean the chicken grease from our hands, as well as a large bottle of Coca-Cola and plastic cups. I smiled at my young friend. He didn’t even notice my appreciation, and just started drinking, but only after he poured me a cup and placed it on my cement guard block.

“Where do you live,” I asked.

He simply lifted his hand and pointed over my shoulder in the general direction of the Jewish residences near our base. Though he was a good kid, he certainly didn’t speak much. I was determined to hear his opinion on life here in al-Madina al-Muqaddasah, so I kept pushing to start a conversation. Eventually he would open up, I assured myself. I took another sip of soda and went straight in.

“So, what is it like living so close to the Arabs? Do you guys ever have problems?”

“Yeah, we get in fights sometimes.”

“Who starts them?”

“Well...”

“You start them, don’t you,” I teased him.

“No! I only finish them.” He looked at me straight in the eyes, and something about that led me to believe that he wasn’t just acting tough.

“OK. I hope you don’t get into trouble doing that. Seriously though,” changing the tone, “is it ever like you guys are minding your own business and the Arab kids just start attacking you all?”

“Not really.” He had begun pacing the area, with his hands in his pocket. He scraped the heel of his shoe on a loose brick in the wall, getting some imagined dirt off. Maybe a nervous habit. “If there’s a fight,” he continued without lifting his eyes from his shoes, “you know it’s coming. It always happens when we’re in their part of town, or right along the roads where they walk.”

“You know why it doesn’t happen in your neighborhood, right?”

“No...”

“The IDF.”

“What about them?”

“We guard your neighborhood.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess.” I knew that he already realized this, but I was just interested at this point to see just how much they notice our presence. Really, to see if they appreciate the protection that we give, no questions asked. Twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year. He didn’t seem interested.

“What are you up to right now? Why aren’t you at home? Aren’t your parents worried about you, out in this city biking the streets at night?” I thought about the numerous plaques along the streets, saying this family was shot here, or this kid was beaten to death there.

“What do you mean? No one stays at home at night. My friends are at your base right now giving out doughnuts and bags of candy. Tonight is a party at my school for my class, so I’m going to that in a few minutes. There’s gonna be cake and soda and all types of stuff. I’ll bring you more if you want?”

“No, no thanks. I’m full. What grade are you in?”

“Eighth grade.”

“Obviously a religious school, right?”

“Yup.”

“Let me guess... your dad is a rabbi?”

“Yeah!” Animated, he asked how I knew.

“Just a feeling.”

Though I got him to open up, I wasn’t sure I was really getting that unique picture into the life of a 14-year-old Jewish kid living in the midst of a hostile Arab population. One versus a few hundred thousand. Shouldn’t there be some great perspective, some revealing aspect of his life that would allow me to understand just what he goes through on a daily basis in his struggle for normality? Is it all just chicken wings, soda, religious parents, and fun school parties on a Wednesday night? What is the impact of the conflict on this still innocent young participant?

But before I could get to the bottom of it all, before I really learned anything at all, Yosef jumped on his bike and told me that he had to get to his party. I wished him well, thanked him for the food again, and watched as he zoomed as fast as his lanky legs could peddle. I dropped my head and studied the pavement, wondering when it was paved last. Probably before the Second Intifadah. I bet people lived in these buildings before then. That big rock next to the Mouse post, you think an Arab youth threw that at the guard standing here ten years ago?

I don’t know how many hours I passed letting my mind go in these directions. Left. Right. Downwards and skywards. Architecture, history, religion. War. I hear Thailand is great in December. This Yosef kid, he seemed happy. Am I happy? When did it get so cold? I should have brought my gloves. Stupid. Facebook. How is it that I finished college three and a half years ago? I wish I could shoot that flickering streetlamp. What a terrible sign to have at a guard post. In Memory Of Corporal ---, Murdered In Action Here In 2003.

The turnstile’s clicking snapped me out of my stream of consciousness. I instinctively pulled my hand out of my warm pocket and squeezed the grip of my Tavor rifle, placing it and myself in the low and ready. Only one family is allowed through that gate in the northwest corner, and it’s dark as hell over there. Who or what was going to come out was left to my imagination, and it seemed that hours passed before anything emerged. The moon shifted positions above, illuminating the gray, wispy clouds rolling in the raven sky too quickly for reality. I was looking through the looking glass. Silence. Black, billowing silence.

Out of the shadows emerged a small, imperceptible figure. I waited a second for the streetlamp to illuminate the subject. As he entered the light, I instantly scanned for anything at all suspicious. He was small in stature, but his face was that of a young teen. Fifteen, maybe. Dark jeans and a dark shirt with Hebrew writing, black, greasy hair, and the complexion of the Middle East. Arab. Forbidden.

“STOP,” I yelled in Arabic. He froze in place, with his hands open to the side. “Lift your shirt.” He did, and I saw that he wasn’t armed, at least in the most common spot. “Come here.”

He approached my position, and I walked sideways as to steer him under the dim yellow light from above. He looked like a normal kid, but I could distinguish some sense of sadness on his face. The typical nervousness, anger, or discomfort was missing, and I could tell that he was familiar with soldiers. I suppose more than one had stopped him before.

“You’re new here, aren’t you,” he asked in Hebrew.

“Give me your ID, please.” He handed over the green Palestinian Authority plastic cardholder, and looked me in the eyes while I checked his name against the laminated list of permissible Arab residents. Yusuf. Fifteen years old. Son of the owner. “Have a nice night,” I said as I gestured for him to pass.

“Thank you. You’re new here? I know all the soldiers that guard around us. Where is that French guy? He spoke a little bit of Arabic.”

“Yeah, I’m just filling in for another group. I don’t know where he is.”

“Oh, what’s his name?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“OK.” I thought he would leave then, noticing my distance with him. He just stared around though, inspecting the same buildings and litter on the street that I was just minutes before. I watched him closely, wondering what he was thinking about. I’ve often experienced chatty locals, but something about him was different. Usually the chatty ones are overly friendly, buttering you up for various reasons – nefarious at times, unclear at others.

“Which apartment do you live in,” I asked. I pointed to the windows of the complex to my left, noticing that only one had its light on. He lifted his finger up in a vague direction, but either way I noted that there were no lights on in that area. He smiled at me.

“Did you learn Hebrew in school? It’s pretty good,” I said, offering a compliment.

“No. I learned on the street, just talking to you guys.”

“Soldiers?”

“Yes. Just chatting. What unit are you in?”

“I can’t tell you that,” I replied. I didn’t suspect that he was gathering intel for some enemy, but I continued to keep him at a safe distance. Everyone knows that we’re Golani, and everyone knows our reputation, but my new face must have been a point of curiosity for him. He asked several other questions that I wouldn’t answer, but my silence didn’t discourage him.

“What are you doing walking around at night?”

“I dunno,” Yusuf replied. He looked at the ground, not shifting positions or moving at all, simply fastened in place like an invisible stake was pinning him to the ground.

“Don’t you have school in the morning?”

“I don’t go to school.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno.” Yusuf raised his eyes to mine. He asked if I’d be around in an hour, and I evaded the question with a “maybe.” I watched as he turned around, a dark figure in the night exuding a sadness that echoed the gloomy, long-forgotten old walls surrounding him. As he dragged himself slowly back towards that abysmal corner, hands in his pockets and head slightly downwards, I called out to him and asked where he was going.

“To find my brother. If you see a small boy named Aswad, tell him Yusuf is looking for him.”

And with that he was gone, and I was left wondering if he was even real or if an apparition visited me on my long night in the dark. I had to check the list again to see if there really was a Yusuf that lived in that apartment. If it weren’t for a name printed and laminated in my hands, I truly would have thought I had met a ghost. His presence was so heavy and full of dejection, an unidentified melancholy, and the air was left stale and sour in his wake.

I watched diligently for the next person to cross from the dark side, but no one came. As the minutes passed, I found myself longing for Yusuf’s little brother to appear, this Aswad. What a name, I thought. Why isn’t a child at home late at night in the middle of the week? Yusuf seemed friendly, but what was that sense of desperation I noticed in him? What’s wrong with him? All the Arab versus Jews, Palestinians versus Israelis crap went out the door for me right then. I saw a boy that did not seem ok, and I wanted to help.

Remembering his question of whether or not I’d still be guarding in an hour, I began hoping for Yusuf’s return. An hour passed, but I was still alone in this yellow square. Leaning against the concrete barricade of my guard post, my eyes were glued to the gate in the far corner. An hour and fifteen minutes. I heard the crunching of a sheet of aluminum siding that was on the ground next to the turnstile, and with that I stood upright and waited for a dark horse.

Yusuf materialized from the mysterious pall. With his hands in his pockets he approached me. I told him to show me his hands, trying not to let down my guard with this unknown person. After I was confident that he was unarmed, I let my inquisitiveness get the better of me.

“What’s going on, man?” I was itching with the need to figure out this shadow of a child, so unlike the other fifteen-year-old I had met earlier.

“What do you mean?”

“What’s wrong?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and let out a sigh while looking to his right. “Nothing.”

“Why don’t you just go home?”

He sighed again, obviously hiding something. “How much does it cost to get pizza delivered to here?”

“Why,” I asked naively. He was so elusive and indeterminable that I felt like a lost boy myself.

“Can you order it for me? They won’t deliver it to me.”

“I can’t do that,” I replied regretfully. “Where are your parents? Tell them to feed you.”

“My dad is in the hospital,” he let go in a wave of anguish. “No one is at home.”

“Well,” reaching for ways to help, “isn’t there something in your fridge at home? Just make a sandwich at least.”

“I don’t have a key, and besides, there’s nothing inside the house.”

I remembered something interesting that I saw on the list of residents for the apartment. At the top of the sheet was the name of the father, with “master of the house” as his status. Below his name were there female names, all of which were given the status of “wife.” I was unsure what that meant, but my speculation was about to be confirmed.

“Where’s your mom?”

“I don’t know, somewhere in town.”

“And the two other women... who are they?”

“My dad’s other wives. We all live together.”

At this point I became angry, not at the fact that his father was a polygamist. That, as a matter of fact, is more than normal in this area. Just about every man I’ve met seems to have multiple wives, and who knows how many children. Rather, my anger was directed against the fact that this boy had so many people to care for him, and yet he had absolutely no one. He was all-alone in a crowded life.

“You’re telling me,” I started indignantly, “that no one has fed you or taken care of you and it’s already almost midnight? You should go to your neighbors,” and I pointed at the lit window on the first floor.

“They’re weird.”

“And why don’t you go to the international aid organization and tell them to help you?”

“They’re weird too. And pathetic. They treat you like you’ve got cancer or something.”

I had no way to help this boy, nothing at all that I could do for him, and yet with all my soul I just wanted to feed him and give him a safe place to sleep. If I was in his shoes, alone at fifteen and in a sinister city full of wanna-be terrorists and religious fanatics, I think I would just want to cry. What other option would you have? And yet, Yusuf, this doe-eyed, soft-spoken child seemed strong and resolute, despite his obvious frustration and grief. My guess is that this is not the first night he’s been locked out with no where to turn.

Yusuf just put his hands in his pockets and looked around, sighed, and told me that he was going to go look for his brother again. I advised him to look at any relative’s houses, or friends of his brother. I wanted to do anything for him, really anything to give him some security, but I was impotent and entirely powerless. With my assault rifle and grenades, bulletproof armor and knowledge of how to use it all, I stood still like a dumb statue. No way to help. Yusuf turned and left, shoulders sagging and head pointed to the ground, and my anger boiled over.

Instead of waiting now hoping to find his brother, with the intention of helping them get home, I waited ready to lash out at one of his “mothers.” I knew that they would come eventually, or so I prayed, and I prepared myself for battle.

Shortly after Yusuf leaving, and luckily before my wrath burned me whole from within, two women, a baby, and a small boy appeared at the gate. It almost seemed like a play, with one character exiting the stage only for another to come striding on, with an entirely different atmosphere radically changing the scene. There they came, these mothers, nonchalant and blithe as if the world was in perfect order. After the routine security check, I began my condemnation.

“You know Yusuf, the 15-year-old that lives with you all?”

“Yes, yes,” the woman holding the baby replied in a heavy accent, smiling, ever smiling.

“Well he’s been looking all over for you guys all night. He’s locked out, and he still hasn’t eaten! It’s midnight!”

“Oh,” she replied thoughtfully, and then resumed her smiling. “Ok! Thank you!” She began to walk away, but I stopped her.

“How could you let this kid live like that? He’s been over here twice searching all over the market and the streets. He doesn’t have a key, did you know that? He doesn’t go to school, and he learned Hebrew on his own. Obviously he’s smart. You know that you’re responsible for him? What’s he going to do next, start robbing people for food money? And then you know what happens? I come knocking on the door, with this gun,” and I showed her my gun, “and we take good Yusuf away in the middle of the night. You want that? I’m serious, make him a sandwich now so when he gets back he’ll finally eat!”

She smiled like an idiot, but I knew good and well that she spoke Hebrew. Her face gave her away during certain parts, like the robbing comment, but nothing could peel away her fake, obsequious grin. I hated her, and would have liked nothing more than to have been that Israeli soldier I read about in the Arab press, the one I’ve never met but at times like this envy.

There was nothing more that I could say to her. She didn’t care, and no sermon from a hated Israeli would change that. I let them go, feeling as dejected and disappointed in humankind as ever. Yusuf didn’t come back that night, even as I left my shift at 2am. I wondered where he went, if he ever ate or went to bed hungry. I wondered if maybe he smoked a bummed cigarette to blunt the hunger. Or maybe he stole from a 24-hour convenience store, if there even is one here. And what about sleep? Did he sleep at all, or maybe he found a dark corner to nap in.

My mind went in all directions, but most of all it went back to Yosef, the normal Jewish boy I met earlier in the night.

I remembered watching him throw a small rock at a road sign twenty yards away, carefree and smiling when he nearly hit the cat he was actually aiming for. I looked down at my clothes, the bulletproof armor, the vest, the gun, the grenade tucked safely away on my chest. I looked at the pillar of glazed rocks that I was leaning on, and the engraved plaque resting on the top. In Memory Of Corporal ---, Killed In Action Here In 2003.

His life, for him, is as normal as anyone else’s in the Western World. For only a handful of families, hundreds of soldiers from all branches of the army patrol his streets. My goal, and the IDF’s stated goal, is to maintain the peace here in this very specific part of a much larger city. For Yosef, the rabbi’s son, that relatively tall, brown-haired 14-year-old with a fast bike, life is defined not by the Arabs living around him, but rather by all the things that define any one of our own lives. Food, family, friends, and hobbies. He just happens to have guys like me all around him. We don't interfere in his life, his comings and goings, the way his peer Yusuf experiences. Jewish Yosef simply lives as he wishes. He probably hardly notices us.

And this is the bottom line. He’s got the good life. Us soldiers, on the other hand, we're the ones putting it on the line. While he enjoys nights with his classmates, we're standing on a lonely street corner next to a plaque talking about the last soldier to die there. But we’re happy to do it. Actually, we ask to do it. Why? We know that Yosef and kids like him are growing up in loving families, families that go about their life in a normal way. They talk about morals and ethics, soccer and the future. They want to live, and they want their children to be safe. You feel good protecting humans like that from harm’s way. You feel like you’re protecting freedom; the freedom of the innocent.

Yusuf, I can’t help but assume, is prime fodder for some terrorist organization. Poor parenting, which I have seen so much of in Arab society, or at least in the Arab cities and towns I have operated in, must be the surefire route to encouraging an otherwise normal kid to do the dumbest things. Let’s imagine that Yusuf didn’t sleep in a dark corner that night, but rather happened across some guys wearing kefiyyas around their necks. That cigarette he bummed? It might sound contrived, but who says he didn’t get it off just another of the types that we have arrested in weekly terrorism-related operations.

Maybe my imagination is getting the better of me. Maybe I’m forgetting all those families out there, even financially comfortable ones, that brainwash their children into a culture of hate. A culture of terrorism and martyrdom. Maybe so, but that’s not what I’m concerned about. As innocent as those kids are, I’m more heartbroken over the mature, independent ones, like Yusuf, who are only really interested in leading normal lives. Like eating regularly, or having a bed. Were I to have a way to fight for his freedom, in the way that I fight for the freedom of his neighbors.

The people that define this conflict are innocents like Yusuf. I don't care about the terrorists, though they are humans and they have their reasons and purpose for existence. I don't care about those that harbor the terrorists, no matter their reasons or justifications. I care about those kids that have nothing at all to do with the fight. The Yusuf that lives in a society that will not help him, a society where a boy can have 3 mothers and not one of them around to feed him.

What I can’t help but come to is how stupid and senseless this conflict is. At the end of the day, I understand why there is a bomb planted on the Gaza fence almost daily. I understand why masked gunmen opened fire on soldiers standing guard next to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. I understand why Gilad Shalit was taken captive, and I know why he still hasn’t been released. None of that is senseless to me.

What I will never understand is the capacity for indifference I’ve witnessed here. At more than a specific level, don’t those attackers realize what their crimes will do to the innocents around them? The children that used to walk the street where the soldier was killed – they have to deal with all manner of heightened security procedures, and endure even greater military interference in their lives. Certainly they don’t play so freely in the street since we now stand there, watching. And what about Hamas’ terrorist rule of Gaza, which has only caused suffocation for the population. How many Yusuf’s live in that God-forsaken strip of land, most of which haven’t even seen a Jew in their life? For what are they suffering? The real question is, for whom are they suffering?

The mistakes and crimes of both sides are unpardonable, but the indifference of the terrorists towards their own children is beyond understanding. I hate to pile blame on the Arab side, but I’ve seen too much wrong in that society. Have you seen pre-teen children smoking like veterans? Or what about 10-year-old boys walking to town with their dad – right past the open school? And a toddler on his family’s porch playing with a toy AK-47, in this city, in this west bank of the Jordan River, during this never-ending conflict.

My heart is heavy with these things I have seen. When I hear people ask if there will ever be a resolution, if the cycle of violence will ever stop, I see those kids. They quickly lose their innocence here, from parents that don’t know how to say “love your neighbor,” and most importantly, they don’t know how to show it. And the Jews that celebrate Baruch Goldstein’s terrorist act, they’re no different. They are the inverse to the converse. What’s my political stance, I’ve been asked. Not this, certainly not any of that.

I believe in innocence. But over here, it’s sometimes hard to find.

Observations on Soldier Life

2010-02-21T00:05:00.000+02:00

The life of an Israeli soldier is...

Sleeping on the floor of a public intercity bus while 50 cozy civilians enjoy their seats;

Discovering that hobos are smart, in that cardboard really feels like a mattress when trying to sleep on a concrete slab;

A 101.2 temperature is no reason you can't pull guard duty;

Having a runny nose and no tissues - well, they're combat pants, aren't they?;

Discovering a new use for mil-spec night vision goggles: stargazing;

Realizing that no matter how much you dream for weeks while on base about the simple pleasures of civilian life, like dipping cookies in milk, or drinking a Corona with lime, your imagination will always be infinitely more potent than reality;

Scanning the newspapers for your exploits, only to find misinformation and truncation;

Not being embarrassed about foot fungus - you try not taking off boots, at all, for two weeks straight;

Finding that scientific rules do not pertain to the army, like the pack-a-day smoker who is the best runner in the platoon;

Waking up exhausted in the middle of the night to falling Kassam rockets but not giving a damn, and certainly not enough to run to a bunker;

Watching red tracers light up the night sky but thinking about fireworks with your family on the Fourth of July;

Experiencing unrivaled joy when having to eat kosher Spam plain but miraculously finding ketchup;

Being called a 'hero' by a stranger on the street when all you really did that week was work in the kitchen;

Finding that you hate your enemy most not when they attack, but rather when they take away from valuable sleeping time;

Ignoring all the cool weapons and tanks and APC's you dreamed about seeing before the army because all you really want to do is be at home, in bed, watching an action movie;

Wondering what real girls look like, since the ones that work around infantry bases resemble armored Humvees more than anything else;

Conversely, chatting with pretty Arab girls at checkpoints because, eh, that's the real challenge;

Looking in the mirror in full uniform and feeling ten feet tall and bulletproof.

Facebook Knows Jewish Guilt

2010-02-05T10:49:00.007+02:00

I, like many people, often have the desire to eliminate the ever-intruding Facebook from my life. My most recent urge to remove myself from the network is really a component of my frustration with technology in the form of smartphones. Specifically, I purchased a cool Nokia phone 3 weeks ago. Last night, however, during a routine update from Nokia, it decided to die and go to Nokia's overcrowded heaven. Just the mess of trying to figure out international warranty between America, Israel, and Nokia Asia has caused me to hate all technological contraptions, from cool phones to useful social networking tools.

Facebook has met my wrath before. In the summer of 2008, "The Great Purge" was executed. In an attempt to trim away the fat, I went through my "friends" list with a hatchet, hacking away all those who I couldn't really identify without looking at their picture, or seeing where they went to high school. "Oh, she graduated three years after me from high school? That would mean that... I have no clue who she is." Hack. Out of my 500 some friends, I think I purged around 100 to 150 people that I truly couldn't remember. Stalin would have been proud, and The Great Purge was successful.

Within days, however, many of those people 're-friended' me. How they figured out that I had pushed them away I do not know. Maybe they really follow my comments, and after they noticed my disappearance they were worried and fretted over my metaphysical Internet existence. I don't know. It was pretty creepy, though. Since then, I have been careful what I say on Facebook. You never know who is stalking.

Well anyway, my extreme frustration with yet another smartphone breaking on me led me to a desire to get back to the basics: email. I can do email. Seriously, I'd prefer snail-mail, since I like to write, but email is also fine. Between Facebook wall posts, comments, status updates, and private messages, I get lost on where to start, on which messages to reply to first, and who said what and when. Email just sticks around until you get to it. Facebook, as I've experienced it in the past year and a half with a 3G high-speed Internet phone, demands my constant attention just to keep up with who said what. So, no more smartphone, no more Facebook relevancy.

That was my logic. So, I went onto Facebook to check to see if there was anything interesting. Nope, just the same old events I can't go to, group invites I don't even read, and status updates about something I don't care about (I realize the irony, if you'd read my current status). I went to send two private messages. "Oops, there was an error sending your message! Try later." Ok, I guess Facebook wants to get cute when their service doesn't even work. I suppose the final straw before wanting to just junk the whole mess was when I went to respond to a wall post, only to find that the sender DEFRIENDED me! Ah, the rejection was too much to bear.

Settings > Deactivate account

Mark Zuckerberg, an AEPi Jewish fraternity alum, is the founder of Facebook. As you could guess from his name and choice of frats, he is a Jew. Though he is an atheist, he is obviously schooled in Jewish culture. Nothing is more overwhelmingly Jewish, in my experience, than the oft-mentioned "Jewish Guilt." In the Israeli Army, I felt guilt over whether or not to be a combat soldier ("Ben Gurion wanted you to be combat, and the country needs you"). With my cell phone provider I was guilted over my choice of phone ("Why do you want to buy a phone overseas? Don't you like our models?"). But Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg's scheming ways, top them all. Here's the page that came up when I wanted to remove myself from their service. (Click on it for a close-up).

I don't curse on Israeli by Day, in general. But this one deserves a "holy sh*t." Let's take a closer look and examine. According to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, if I disconnect, my "friends will no longer be able to keep in touch with [me]." If you're not on Facebook, that's it! You don't exist! No email, no cell phone, no address - no Facebook, no existence. That's pretty intense.

Not wasting precious time, Facebook throws five friends in my face, and actually include a line saying that they will miss me. Name by name, they say that "Dave will miss you; Stephanie will miss you." Five times they say that. Normally that wouldn't get to me, and I don't know what kind of genius algorithms they are using, but they somehow picked five good friends out of 560 acquaintances to guilt me with. You might be thinking that they simply picked the five that I talk to the most, but that is not hardly the case. I haven't communicated for a long time with a few of those people on Facebook, but I'd be very sad to lose touch with them completely. I fear that would be the case if it weren't for Facebook.

But look closer. Not only did they pick those five good friends, and not only did they include the line that they would miss me, but they included pictures of that friend. Again, take another look. Notice the real guilt trick? All of the pictures are of us together! I'm not even sure what to say, other than that their guilt trip took me a long way. Those pictures happen to all be of very cool experiences in my life. They are meaningful as hell. One is of the Jerusalem Winter Ball in 2009, which I attended during my 10-day vacation from the army for finishing basic training - a great excuse to drink bathtub-quality vodka. Another picture is of my graduation from college, with all of our friends around. Yet another is in the coolest pool ever, in the nicest hotel ever, during one of the greatest weekends I've ever had in Israel. Just look at those pictures: buddies.

I can't delete those guys. Facebook gives me the option right beneath those pictures to message my friends. What do they want you to say? "Hey friend, I'm going off the grid. I won't see any of your pictures, read what you're up to through your status updates, or remember where you work. Talk to you later - not sure how though..." Guilt. How could you remove them from your life? They really drive home the message that Facebook is a necessary part of your life, and with an invaluable smartphone, you're never separated from your friends.

The scary part of it all is that I believe them. How would I ever remember all those acquaintances that I like to keep tabs on? I do like to see what kind of jobs they have. And my real friends, how will I see what they look like if not for the photos they post? And wow, birthdays. Considering I have forgotten my own birthday once, if Facebook didn't alert me to anyone else's it'd be a sealed matter; no happy bday from Danny!

In conclusion, I have lost yet another Nokia phone for no good reason. My days in the army of constant Internet use, an addiction most likely, are therefore temporarily suspended. My Facebook connection is severed. Checking that site once every two weeks is just about worthless. Despite that setback, and my refusal to get another good phone for awhile, I cannot purge Facebook itself. Mark Zuckerberg and his creation have implemented 5,000 years of Jewish history's greatest weapon, and I've fallen prey to it just as if it's one and the same as my grandmother ("Hey, I drove all morning in the rain to buy you two pounds of high-quality deli meat for the weekend, aren't you hungry for a sandwich?").

I guess I'll link to this blog post on my Facebook home page.

Israel In The Haiti Earthquake Disaster

2010-01-19T10:01:00.003+02:00

I've quietly been following the earthquake disaster in Haiti, like most people. I can't really help, and I don't necessarily have extra money to send, so I'm just pining away with guilt and sadness. All these great and big industrialized, even post-modern, nations of the world have so much to offer, so many ways they can help, but nothing seems to be getting done. It seems that no one there has enough water, or food, or shelter. No one can find proper medical care. All the nations and their armies are standing impotently in some proverbial corner, afraid to touch the Haitians.

I know some are trying, but it doesn't seem to be enough. I've taken great heart, however, from little tiny Israel's constant commitment to be the leader in humanitarianism. Whenever there is a world disaster, Israel sends its crack search and rescue squad, ZAKA, to the front lines. Backing them up, the military's emergency medical crew, and a hospital, set up camp and beg for all the toughest cases. While Germany and Japan and France, three nations that in my humble opinion shouldn't have armies, reserve their amazing wealth and wasted fortunes for a worthless armed forces, cash-strapped Israel risks all for the sake of tikkun olam - healing and helping the world and her people. I realize I'm being harsh on nations like Germany, since we have even recently cooperated with them on aid missions, but the amount they are doing relative to their ability is simply not good enough.

Just watch the following video if you really, truly think Israel is some devil; the little Satan. Do you know how much money it costs to do what they're showing in this video? Delivering babies, performing surgeries, and rescuing the trapped. But of course Israel won't really receive recognition for any of this, and not that we even care. We'll probably be accused of stealing Haitian baby blood for Passover or something anyway. Bitter? Oh, no, of course not... (If you receive the blog post from email, and the video doesn't come up, just come to the site for this amazing clip: www.israelibyday.com).

Here's another article if you want to read more about Israel's efforts.

Not Everything Is SOOO Serious

2010-01-02T13:01:00.000+02:00

All through the West Bank there are cities where Jews and Arabs live in close proximity to each other. You may be familiar with these, as they tend to be controversial and in the foreign news constantly. The Jews live in these places because they tend to have religious significance. When foreign leaders talk about settler blocs, they are occasionally referencing these cities, or areas close by.

Al-Madina al-Muqaddasah is one of these cities. As you can imagine, having these two opposing sides living so close to one another causes inevitable conflicts on the micro scale. In an effort to minimize incidents, Israel in some cases designates roads and paths restricted to one side or the other. That means that there are Arab-only roads, or Jewish-only ones (and of course many shared by both). Now, Israel's detractors might call this discrimination or segregation, or even apartheid. I counter that by claiming that such restricted roads are often close-by. So, neither side has to really go too far out of their way in order to travel in their intended path.

While standing guard at our front gate, I spotted two young Arab men crossing the street. They were heading into a path that I was certain was forbidden to them, though I remembered that there had been some conflicting reports on whether that was indeed a Jewish-only path. I called them over to me in my stupid, Virginian-accented Arabic, and checked their ID's. Not feeling comfortable with giving what I thought was the right answer, instead of fully knowing, I radioed in to HQ for confirmation.

When I called in, my platoon commander answered me. I asked whether or not they could use this particular path, to which he replied negatively. Just as I thought, but when in doubt, check it out. He seemed overly happy with me, and said "very good, very good," about five times. I directed the guys to the road they needed, and settled back into my post. Not a minute later, someone that I didn't recognize at HQ, probably super bored, radioed to me.

"You're the cutest in the land, Danny."

Without hesitation, I replied, "That's what my momma says."

Ah, West Bank winter nights with nothing better than chatter on the network.

Misread Motives of a Clan Culture

2009-12-29T09:25:00.004+02:00

A mounted patrol; inside an armored Jeep, just rolling around the city, looking for trouble. Tired, as usual. Bored, but waiting for that sudden adrenaline rush, as usual. Making our way down the main road, heading to a volatile intersection. Playing on Facebook, alert, but letting the front-seat commander take the helm. Waiting. As usual.

Commotion up front. "What the hell...," I hear. Pulling over to the side of the road. "ROCKS!" Stopped on the shoulder.

I swung open the rear doors, which I face in the Jeep. BOOOOM! BOOOOM! An enormous crashing sound shocks me; a deeply explosive reverberation causes me to jump in my seat. Sparks fly from hulking pieces of metal, the metal itself sailing into the air no less than five feet. They slam down, throwing more electric white sparks in all directions. An absolutely devestating direct hit.

Just as I opened those doors, two large cars, one a van, and another a truck, hit nothing less than boulders on the main highway. It all was happening less than fifty feet away, directly across from me. Cars whizzed by on one side of the road at 60 miles per hour, and on the other screeching brakes rang through the late autumn night. Time to go to work.

I finally breathe.

****************************

For an entire week, someone was placing large rocks, very large rocks, on this main highway which connects al-Madina al-Muqadassah to the rest of Israel. It is an arterial road, and it travels from Israel-proper into the West Bank, and back out again. The route is shared by Jews and Arabs alike, but runs through largely Arab villages around this area. As you would imagine, our first instinct in a case like this is that the Arabs were trying to disrupt Israeli travel, as well as simply being basic vehicular vandalism.

The first instance of this attack came about four days before my aforementioned experience. I was sitting around our base when I heard on the deputy company commander's radio that there was a "road accident." As usual, all types of forces jumped to the scene. When they returned, we had a briefing about the situation, especially since it happened in close proximity to an outlying Arab neighborhood that had quickly become our most troubled and violent zone. The basic assessment was what you'd imagine: crude terrorism.

But night after night, even with our increased security on that road, whoever it was began upping the ante. It started with a couple rocks on the road, ones they obviously could have thrown from the ditch. Then, there were massive rocks, one that even the World's Strongest Man competitors would have sighed before. After that, on the third night, they got really smart. We found that they had covered those boulders, which they must have rolled onto the highway, with cardboard boxes. They figured that cars traveling at night, at high speed, would rather run through cardboard then screech and bang off the side-rails.

It was high time for us to catch them in the act. We sent a squad in at night to sit on the opposite side of the road, night vision goggles (NVG) and thermal and all that, and just wait. The perpetrators were acting in just about the same place every time, so we felt fairly confident that we'd at least see them. And if no one blew it, we could even sneak up on them and bag 'em. Why would this night be any different, after all, since they had already felt emboldened enough to go out three nights in a row?

And sure enough, they appeared. I'll repeat what my friend said to me, who was on that mission. "We were sitting out there and our commander told us to take off our vests. We wanted to be able to run and catch them. I had the NVG, so I was just sitting there staring at the road. Our boy in the security tower behind us was watching with thermal. Man, when I saw them come out I got so excited! I was sitting there not taking my eyes off the road for about two hours!"

"Don't you get kinda too relaxed and discouraged after the first hour," I asked.

"Yeah, but we KNEW they'd be coming. They had to. Why not? So I was watching, and sure enough, there they were. The tower was talking to us, real quietly, whispering, telling us exactly how many there were, what they were doing, you know. It felt like a movie. I thought I was in a movie, man. I was watching them stand in the ditch and toss the rocks up onto the road."

"Were they kids?"

"No! They were big. I was surprised as hell. They were like mid-20's, I'd say. Not kids, and not little guys either. Someone obviously sent big guys so they could throw big rocks. Or at least that's my guess."

"So you busted on down there, right?!"

"Well... My commander told me and one other guy to take off our vests, take a few magazines and put it in the pouch of the bullet proof armor, and start sneaking down to the road. It was me, our sharpshooter, and the commander. We were in a straight line, all of us with NVG, sharpshooter with his magnified night vision scope of course so he was just itching, just crawling down this hill. Man, it was a ******* movie."

"Damn. Why didn't we just let out a warning shot in the air, that'd surely stop all this business."

"What, are you crazy? More than anything, we wanted these bastards in our hands! So we were getting closer, and then through the NVG I saw a car slam into the rocks. It went flying. There were so many sparks, the NVG flared from the light. I just saw the explosion of light, and then white. I had to put down the goggles for a second and let them readjust. It was that powerful. Man, my heart skipped a beat there. I mean, I thought they were going to run, but most of all, it was like a bomb went off under that car. It flew. It was unreal, bro."

"Damn..."

"After the car hit the rocks, we started running. We were down there, we were about to cross the street, and they still didn't see us. They just kept tossing rocks. Even after one car hit, they kept on tossing. We couldn't believe it, but everything was happening so fast that no one was talking at all. Besides the chatter on the radio, especially the thermal-equipped guy in the tower freaking out, everything was deathly silent. Anyway, we got to the street, I was about to swing my leg over, and then it all got ruined."

"The patrol Jeep," I guessed.

"The damn patrol Jeep, man. We had yelled at the patrol like two seconds before we were about to go mobile NOT TO APPROACH this area. But when he heard that there was a hit, he couldn't help it. He ruined it. They saw that flashing yellow light, and they took off. We started running too, and I saw them just rounding the corner into a grape field when I crossed the street. Once I rounded the corner, after crossing two railings and checking both sides of the street, I looked with the NVG and saw them so far away. I couldn't believe how quickly they ran. It was basically worthless at that point. There was no way in hell we were going to catch them. That stupid Jeep."

Considering this activity, as well as other problems coming from the nearby neighborhood, upper management decided to do a foot patrol inside an adjacent area that we hadn't operated in for quite some time. It is known as a viciously anti-Israel location, and during the Second Intifada it had sent a few of its own boys to their deaths. We thought that maybe our presence there would let them know that trying to kill people on the road would not be tolerated, or at least that we operated wherever the need arises. If you act cool, we act cool. If you want trouble, we're ready to bust some heads. That's the basic Golani position.

I was on that foot patrol. We had really geared up for this one, since it was a first for the company. Having heard all the reports on previous terrorism coming from this neighborhood, I think we all were even more alert than usual. The M203 grenadiers had their smoke-grenades handy. I was ordered to unwrap my quick-ties if an arrest was needed. It went so far as selecting the larger guys in the platoon, just in case. Sure, we were with our 'slightly' deranged sergeant, but nothing seemed too extreme considering.

And it was a strange patrol. All through you could just tell that no one expected to see us coming. The kids were mesmerized. The old men gave us knowing looks - knowing why we were there, knowing that they hadn't seen us in forever, and knowing that we could almost reach out and touch their hatred for us. The women stared from third-floor windows, which seems to be a positive commandment for them. The teens and early 20 year olds, our main suspects, ducked away into their houses. We had spent a few hours establishing our presence, but nothing solid came from it.

Until the very end, after we had actually exited the neighborhood and were making our way along a dirt road in a shortcut back to base. Our sergeant decided to stop some cars, just to ask questions about the rocks. He figured that since Arab cars as well as Jewish ones had hit those same rocks, they also had an incentive to see the end of this week. It was their road too.

After a few false smiles and feigned ignorance, we stopped a guy on a Vesper. My crazy sergeant seemed to want to ride the thing, though his professionalism kept him from requesting. The driver, however, jumped right off and all but demanded that he at least sit on it. We all watched on, wondering what this eccentric NCO would do, but he politely refused. Starting with what seemed to be genuine niceties, and thinking that maybe this guy would be honest, I turned to the driver and asked him what he knew about the situation.

"Those bastards!," he shouted in Hebrew.
We all smiled at each other.

"Well," I started, "who is it? Don't they realize that Arabs also drive on the road? You know that about half the cars they've hit are Arab?"

"You don't know why? It is a feud."

"What? Between who?"

"An Arab family here is pissed at an Arab family down there," and he pointed over the hill southwards along the main highway. "I don't remember why, but they've been doing stuff to each other for years. I think one of the kids was supposed to marry a daughter, but then.. ah you know, he probably saw her and realized she was a dog and wasn't worth the dowry!"

At this point, we were all in hysterics. This guy had a foul mouth, and I'm softening it up a lot, but you get the point. For soldiers exhausted after a long and stressful foot patrol, a little bit of cursing goes a long way. We were all in shock, however. All along we had thought that this was obviously some case of terrorism, or vandalism, or call it whatever you want, but it seemed to be violent activity from Arabs against Jews, with innocent Arabs thrown in collateraly. However, it was totally backwards! Arab clan versus Arab clan, with Jews thrown in either from indifference, or as an added incentive.

After checking his story out with other passing motorists, who would never volunteer something on their own but are always ready to confirm a presented story (cash payout, they might be hoping for?), we headed back to base feeling pretty good. It didn't take the General Security Services (Shin Bet) to crack this one, just one goofy American-Israeli kid and a bug-eyed sergeant aching to ride a scooter.

My initial happiness gave way to anger. I mean, don't they realize that a car hitting a rock at highway speeds can kill people? Innocent people! Out of the hundreds of cars that pass on that road, how many could really be from the rival clan? From my experience, these clans are huge. Just about every ID I check has this one family name, but when it comes to a main road, so many random people are thrown in that I doubt that the one or two cars that have an impact are really the desired targets. Don't they realize the stupidity in this?

Having uncovered the truth doesn't really change our operations, but it certainly gives you a different perspective on the whole matter. My own tactical coldness gave way to frustrated disbelief at the backwardness and ignorance of this clan-culture. The boys in Iraq see this kind of stuff every day, according to Iraqi War blogs I've read. And I certainly felt that same vexation - the irritation of trying to keep the sensible peace when everyone else is deliberately upsetting it for nothing.

A day later, after yet another attack, my squad was sent in for yet another ambush. This time, however, I had a feeling that the rock-emplacements had stopped. I just knew it, for some reason, and I can't explain why. Maybe it was because of the massive amounts of forces that responded to the most recent incident. Maybe it was because we now knew the story, and once we find something out, their well-hidden secret is known to everyone. News in those closed-communities spreads like wildfire. Either way, we were ready for anything, and I especially, being the designated marksman, was specially briefed on rules of engagement.

I was set up right along the road, hoping to eliminate the distance between the seating position and the road that the first ambush had to deal with. Snaking along the grape field with my commander at the front of our force, I spotted exactly where I figured the perpetrators had emerged from and escaped to. Following my advice, he set up most of the force along a rock wall, just next to the foot path between rows of vines. He took my back, and I sat in the ditch from where they were previously spotted.

I spent two hours scanning, vigilantly but pessimistically, with my night vision scope. Every time I spotted someone along the other side of the road, usually making their way up to a small group of houses on the hill, I informed the commander and stayed locked in on the suspect. Nothing happening, however. I knew no one was coming, and when I heard helicopters overhead, my heart sank. What idiot would come out to do the same attack five nights in a row, knowing what kind of force has previously responded, and hearing choppers buzzing the sky?

Well, they never did come. These people might be confusing in their disruption of civility, but no one should ever say that they are stupid. I certainly wouldn't have made another appearance that night, and they obviously felt the same way. And who ever knows what happened to their feud, because with that night the rock attacks stopped. That was over two months ago, and it hasn't happened even once since.

As quickly and abruptly as it all started, the end was anti-climatic and immediate. That seems to be the nature of this conflict. Out of nowhere there is an attack, and into the cold and anonymous night they disappear. No trace, no warning, no news. If the incident stops, that's it for us. Maybe Shin Bet or some other FBI-style group has their eyes and ears on it, but as far as we're concerned, it's almost as if nothing ever happened.

I wonder when we'll start moving forward, sometimes. Both sides. Let peace reign, resolve old disputes, and take that step in the right direction. I don't know what that step is, and from this soldier's perspective I can only be a reactive element - reacting to these types of incidents - but someone out there has to be brave enough to be civilized. And putting boulders on a highway certainly doesn't seem to me to be courage, but rather cowardice. If this is the natural way for them to deal with a dispute, I'm not sure there is any hope for a broader development.

Time Passes Like A Demon In The Night

2009-12-25T13:43:00.006+02:00

(I'm really putting myself out there on this one, in terms of one of the pictures. And I've had a hard time writing, so I'm gonna be experimental. So, you better enjoy it.)

PART I: INTRODUCTION

Nearly a year ago, in the beginning of advanced training, I had a conversation with one of our new commanders about what it's like to have finished the first year in the army. We were pulling guard duty together in the middle of the night, at the front gate of the training base. I was super-green in the army, only about four months in, and he was a brand new commander. I wondered who this guy was, and what he could tell me about earning the coveted Warrior's Pin.

In the Israeli Army, you have what is called a maslul. That's your training path, and "path" is the literal translation of that word. Every unit differs in their training cycle. For some jobnikim, they only have basic training for a month or so, and then a month and a half course, and that's it. Within a few months, they're "full soldiers." Short and sweet.

For us combat soldiers, however, we have to suffer a little longer. The infantry maslul is about a year. For the brigade-level special forces guys, it's just a few more months, and the elite SF have much longer. It all depends on the unit. But whether or not you're suffering for a year, like us, or two years, like Sayeret Matkal (Delta Force/SAS), you're suffering all the same. In terms of the niceties of life, a soldier in "training" will soon forget that they even exist. Breaks for free time are rare. When you eat, and who you eat with, is strictly dictated to you before each meal. Privileges are hard to come by, and easily retracted. Essentially, the comfort level is minimal, as you can imagine.

That's your first year. Or it's supposed to be. My platoon, because we were sent to a special company and are qualified for a unique and complicated weapon, got to basically skip the final four months of our maslul because that weapon comes with a long training course. We call that "Danny-Luck" where I come from. But either way, when you're a rookie, you're a rookie, and that's been the essence of this introduction.

PART II: THE POINT

I was standing in the middle of the night with that fresh out of commanders' course kid, just a 19-year-old, and wondering out loud what it's like to finish the training cycle. Having just started advanced training, and knowing that it was going to be the hardest, most physically and emotionally demanding months of my life, not a small amount of worry and stress drove me to explore his reality. I asked him what it "felt like" to finish the cycle.

"Wow. You don't know yet, but advanced training is BAD. Lots of guys aren't going to make it. You've never ran so much or carried so much heavy gear in your life. It's almost impossible. And then the four months after that, when you leave the training base but are still "in training," you're just itching to finish. It's amazing. And you know what? When I go home after a hard few weeks, and listen, we were in the commanders' course for 35 days or so when Operation Cast Lead broke out, so we were going a little crazy... I go home after a couple weeks on base, missing mommy and girlfriend, and take off my dress uniform. I hang my shirt up, and just admire the pin. It takes a while for it to set in and seem real, but that pin..."

He trailed off mid-sentence as the late February winds whistled mist off the walls of our stucco guard shack. I couldn't help but stare at this kid and marvel at his innocence. On the one hand, as far as I knew, he had suffered through a nearly unbearable advanced training course, and that was commendable. At the time, I was amazed at anyone who had finished what I had heard was hell. But really, on the other hand, the right hand, the hand of my own experiences in life, I knew that he had only really lasted for a year in a strictly-controlled environment. A year, to me, is nothing. It's a wink of the eye. A year in the army is slightly different, but time passes no matter where you find yourself.

And so, while I kept his positive perspective and motivation in the back of my head during the worst hours of the War/Hell Weeks, I also remembered how I felt standing next to him. He was no more important than anyone in the army, certainly no more experienced, and he had simply survived for a year longer than me. For what? A pin? Trust me, I wanted that pin just as badly as anyone: To walk through the Tel Aviv train station on a Friday morning with an "I Am A Real Golanchik" sign on your chest... You can sense that desire in this post from January 2009. But still, at the time I was too far away from getting that pin to really feel some sort of yearning. It was just too far.

Father Time had only just flipped his hourglass.

PART III: THE CEREMONY & THE PIN

By October of 2009, however, our turn had come to become Israel's newest full-Golani infantrymen. I, like that new commander I had months before, had survived the first year. There were no fireworks in my heart, and no great wave of emotion swept over me. I lasted. We had our Pin and End of Maslul Ceremony, where my roommate and two good friends were present, and went home. I hung up my dress shirt, and stared at my newest, and final accruement to my uniform. It just was.

Don't get me wrong. When my commander stuck those sharp pins into my skin, as is customary for most combat units, I was ecstatic. I'm not sure that I was so happy for the pin, as much as I was for the ability to strut like a peacock in public. It all seems so silly, and I know I'm way too old for it, but you can't help showing off when you've worked your butt off for a little piece of metal on your chest. This form of motivation lends itself to vanity.

PART IV: FINAL ANALYSIS

I almost forgot where I was going with this! Ah, what a difference Time makes! That fact of life seems to be a constant theme of mine, like Doestoyevsky's redemptive suffering, or Thoreau's solitude and nature. I've grown so much in the army, from an inexperienced foreigner to a front line 'warrior.' Just look at this picture taken the first week of the army:

And now, after exposing a picture that I promised myself would stay locked and hidden away from any eyes besides mine, feast your eyes on what a real soldier looks like. This one was taken right around October, when I received my pin:

Those two snapshots in time, one taken for novelty, the other taken for prosperity, reveal pure and raw growth. When I had that first picture taken, I thought it would turn out like the latter. I was sadly mistaken, and quickly realized that once viewing it on the full computer screen. The second, however, was taken by a friend after a foot patrol that left us all feeling like dogs, totally exhausted, but alert for our next mission. It was not planned or choreographed. It simply was.

And so, Time, that demon in the night, the passage between then, here, and another then, unravels itself before us at the most unexpected moments. We have to grasp it, the moment, and hold it however long we can. Like a man clutching a loved one hanging from a cliff for dear life, we have no option but to last as long as possible, to not let go, to savor this exact point in time.

"Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends." As true as Shakespeare says, there is no more important heartbeat than the one that beats now. I look at these photos, and I look at my pin fastened onto my dress shirt, and know that I have captured a moment to the best of my ability. I shy away from giving imperatives, but I know this now to a degree that I never expected from simply being a soldier, just a number, another helmet:

If you wait, and if you do not chase the present with an eye to the future, you'll never move forward.

What It Means To Be A Workaholic

2009-12-12T23:12:00.008+02:00

"I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality." Martin Luther King, JR.

Having almost a week off from the army sounds like some great, wonderful vacation. A whole week off from waking up early after getting just a couple hours of sleep. No 80 pounds of bulletproof armor, heavy night vision gear, and bulky combat vests. That constant companion, your assault rifle, finally finds its spot in your closet. Instead of a sweatshirt over your gun, you actually get to sleep with a pillow! And of course, the best bit of being away from the army: doing whatever the hell you want.

For weeks I was salivating over what I'd do during the 6 days we were to receive. Maybe I'd go out to Tel Aviv and call up some friends. Or I'd even go somewhere like Tiberias, and the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret), rent a nice hotel room, and spend my time looking out at that enchanting blue lake. There were many options, but the best one I could think of was the easiest. Just do nothing. Relax. Let that angry shoulder heal up. Catch up on sleep. Knock out some needed blog posts. You get the picture.

But here I am, sitting on my laptop at midnight, the night before I go back to the army. I wrote none of those blog posts I meant to. I slept crazy hours, like 5am to 7, woke up and played on the computer for 30 minutes, and finally went back to sleep 'til 12. I ran three times on the crazy Jerusalem hills, essentially making myself feel asthmatic and out of shape. And my shoulder still kills.

I realized last night, while explaining my frustration to a friend, that I am addicted to the army. A year and two months have passed, and it's still the only thing I get excited about. I get excited about the stupidest stuff, like shooting a machine gun. I love getting to a guard post, placing my helmet to the side, and radioing in to HQ for a sound check. The crackle of the incoming reception, radio waves bouncing all through my head and vibrating my bones, followed by an unexpectedly loud, muffled voice coming from a mouth too close to the receiver...

Crackle. Hiss. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. "Guard Post, this is HQ. Copy that sound check."

I am addicted to that positive confirmation. I am addicted to the code words we have to use. I feel like a little kid when I hear one of my friends on the radio, talking to someone important or HQ. With my index finger on the transmit button, I'm just waiting, tapping my boot toes all the while, for my chance to ask my buddy how it's going.

"Guard Post Ari, this is Guard Post Danny."

"Danny, what's up?"

"Hey man! It's cool out here, just hanging out, you know?"

And more than all the silliness on the radio, which inevitably evokes the anger of some officer, and is just a stupid little example, I am addicted to the army life. Even if we're doing nothing but guard posts on base, which is fairly worthless and extremely boring, I am always excited to start my day. No matter how many hours of sleep I may or may not have gotten, I pop right out of bed when that magic minute comes (7:45, not 7:46). I sit up, jump out of my bed, get dressed, put my shoes on the same way every time, grab my toiletries bag, and head to the bathroom. Toilet; wash hands; brush teeth; shave; wash face; flex in the mirror while hoping no one notices.

Every single damn morning. No different. No less and no more. A routine, fixed and set, just as you'd expect from the army. I start the day feeling like a grownup, and more importantly, like a responsible one. An adult with a real purpose in life. Clean shaven and uniformed, I am Superman.

And so, trying to get back to the point, which I feel I lost a long time ago - or maybe never even had in the first place - I am addicted to the army. Being in the civilian world for so many days and feeling the way I do at the end of it all, I am fully able to realize just how much I enjoy that other world. Let me try to explain with one example, as I am becoming increasingly frustrated at how difficult it is to articulate these thoughts.

Earlier today I was standing next to my bed, gazing out the window towards the east. Sprouting up through the maze of apartment and hotel towers were construction cranes lowering metal beams and stacks of Jerusalem stones onto skeletal buildings. Palestinian migrant workers were laboring diligently, building towers for rich Jews from all over the world. An Arab man was welding some metal, throwing sparks in the sky.

And far in the distance, deep in the background of this cozy civilian existence, I could clearly make out the "separation barrier" between the West Bank and Israel proper. From my expensive apartment in one of Jerusalem's best neighborhoods, from my private room with my Winnie the Pooh blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I studied the barricade between here and there.

With my forehead resting against the glass pane, I felt a craving for the other side. I need to be back in the operating area. Maybe I'm addicted to the adrenaline of popping out of an armored Jeep. Do you know how ******* intense it is on the ride over to a terror operative's house before you arrest him? Or a foot patrol with one hand on the charging handle of your gun, and your eyes moving like a Meth freak's from window to window? I don't know which drugs give you a rush like any of the regular activities of the army, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some soldiers turn to them after the army.

Staring out at the separation barrier didn't simply elicit a hunger for action. What it really made me think of was how nice and pleasant our life is here on the good side. And how much work there is to be done on the other side. That work, the daily patrols and guard posts and checkpoints, all of that is what I am addicted to. I am an army workaholic. Coming 7,000 miles in order to "protect Israel" certainly doesn't sound very realistic, but even after a decent amount of time in the service, I still wake up every day thinking that I have a chance to help that day.

Each and every morning I feel this extreme sense of meaning, a certain voice in my head that tells me to continue despite the exhaustion, the aches and pains, and the annoyance of being controlled like a dog. When I look in the mirror in the army, I see a man who knows what he wants, and who knows what he does for a living. I see a man who is proud, who never feels awkward or shy. I see pride and strength. And most importantly, I feel content. Fulfilled.

I've never felt like that outside of the army. In college I was nervous and agitated, unsure of myself, and very shy. Awkwardness became a part of my daily experience. I covered all of that with being talkative, and learning how to make others laugh. And from that falsity I lost self-respect, and pride. In the civilian world, worst of all, I never felt satisfaction and meaning in my endeavors. I simply survived. A man? Ha! I never felt like a man before.

But now that I do something that I believe in to the bottom of my soul, something that I have given my entire life to, made peace with myself and my mortality, and long ago left the gates of comfort, security, and peace, I naturally and genuinely call myself a man. Boys do not stand up and give themselves over to a cause greater than their own lives.

As much as I enjoyed seeing friends, and eating pizza, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, juicy hamburgers, Mac & Cheese, massive delicatessen sandwiches, and my flatmate's unreal homemade pastries, I'm ready to start my day with the hope that it will be even more meaningful than the day that proceeded it. I don't mind eating the same army crap every day, as long as they let me serve my country - and my people. This domestic, civilian world is beautiful, and it is meant to be lived. Unfortunately, however, there are those of us that have to protect it daily.

All my life I've been told that I am idealistic, and that that ideology is wonderful, but it is the domain of the youth. I am now 25, and I have never been more driven, severe, and single-minded in my life. I see no end to it, though the army will end for me soon enough. When will this ideology wear down? I have seen the good and the bad, moral and immoral, scary and scarier - I am not naive. When will I relax and accept the simple life, that of working and moving along in a quiet life like everyone else? Why does that sound terrifying to me, when entering Gaza and seeing Hamas' hideous face seem only necessary and natural?

I am addicted to the soldier's life, and I would not have it any other way.

Spam Comments

2009-12-09T11:11:00.003+02:00

Just a note to my readers:

Spam comments started appearing a while ago in my older posts. They are gibberish with a link. The comments were only appearing in really old posts though, and the same few posts were affected.

But this morning, I just received one of these spam comments on a very new post. I'm just warning all that you might see obnoxious junk in the comment section, but your real comments are always appreciated! You just have to pass a little test before your comment goes through. Most of you are familiar with the text verification system used on the Internet. Just type the word that appears in that box near the enter comment box, and that's it.

Sorry for the hurdle.

IDF's Twitter Account... Kinda Scary

2009-12-07T08:31:00.007+02:00

I was alerted recently to the greatest thing ever. If you don't know what Twitter is, you're obviously either living under a rock, or you have a real life and don't read 150 characters of text at a time. I have a Twitter account for this blog, but I never check it and don't use it. There is an automatic updater that just makes a little note for my "followers" every time I post a blog here. Hassle free.

Anyway, I don't particularly care about or even like Twitter. Until I saw the IDF's account. Holy crap. In the army, you hear about stuff happening here or there, but it just kinda goes in one ear and out the other. Knife found at checkpoint? OK. Riots in Jenin? Ok. Mortar launched from Gaza? What's new.

But the IDF Twitter Account puts it all in perspective. By seeing about 10 single sentence posts in one page, you get a pretty good picture of what it's like to be infantry in the IDF. And here I was thinking that it was a relatively quiet period over here in the West Bank! Honestly it is, especially if you look at the Second Intifadah, but this IDF Twitter thing is unsettling. Mom, don't look.

I like it though. Let's get the word out about exactly who is creating the violence. I can't say anything at this point, but a blog post is in the works about the IDF's recent move towards embracing the bloggosphere, and the Internet's radically freeform information network. This post is just a little hint of what they're up to! Sorry for being vague, but it's in my own interest for now.

Follow me on Twitter! Click here to see my profile there. I winced as I typed those last two sentences.

IDF-Golani Terrorist!

2009-12-04T13:04:00.000+02:00

I met this wonderful Hamas operative while on a patrol in al-Madina al-Muqaddasah. Call him a terrorist if you will, but he was a swell fellow. Hey, if you can't have a sense of humor during an 8 hour recon mission, you're bound to go crazy.

The Mosque Is Burning

2009-12-02T15:38:00.002+02:00

While on guard duty on top of a roof a while back, I stood against a railing and enjoyed the sunset. The 12 Horses pulling Khaga quietly crept down the hill a few kilometers away, disappearing behind a mosque's minaret, making way for Brother Moon. I stood at my post, feeling the winds of late fall whipping away the stale summer heat. Fall's crisp, fresh oxygen energized my soul, and my eyes looked beyond the dying day towards the great Tomorrow of Hope. A new way, a new faith. Faith in something more than the old, failed history.

Electric Sun was illuminating the minaret so vividly that I experimentally put my camera's lens behind my binoculars. Beyond telephone polls and roping electricity cables, I captured what remained of that day. I hope to get an even fuller, brighter, more orange picture in the future. But I know that the way I felt that day on my post - peaceful, quiet, hopeful, excited for life and its full range of experiences - that was a special and spiritual episode.

Property - That's Your Status

2009-11-27T15:49:00.006+02:00

(I wrote this on Monday of this week - for reference to what 'today' means)

I've been chewing on this post for hours now, raving, like a smack fiend whose last fix was unimaginably long ago. Shortly you'll understand, but when I found out the news that prompted my desire to write this, I was determined to rush home and bang out a blog post filled with disbelief, frustration, and boiling, fiery, acidic rage. Red burning lava, black smoke curling from my ears, dripping fire from my eyes - full of fury and indignation. A post to capture a moment. The real life.

I did not rush home and write that story, however, or at least this story with that tone. I ate a big breakfast, took my time coming home, changed into comfortable civilian clothes, and played around on the computer. Watched a movie, even. It wasn't very good the first time I saw it, and the second time it was only mildly better. No problem, a movie is gold to a stressed soldier. After lounging like a king, but still feeling anxious and upset, I went for a 5k run. Jerusalem is tough, since it's all hills. Even an exhausting exercise hasn't helped, and I can't help but sigh and marvel at my luck. But the anger has subsided and ebbed into the cool numbness so familiar to those whose personal life is controlled by a removed, faceless, and immutable entity.

This morning we woke up at about 6am, and as usual were given half an hour to do our personal hygiene routine, clean the rooms, and have the morning gun check. Halfway through, however, my commander pulled me aside and told me that I was to put on my dress uniform and get ready to go home.

"What?" I asked.

"You're going home now until Wednesday, and then coming back Wednesday night to be on watch at the border," he mysteriously replied.

"What border?"

"I don't know, Egypt or Jordan."

This was highly strange, considering there are other, less intensive units than Golani that watch those two peaceful borders. I inquired if we were expecting a war or something, to which he replied negatively. It turns out that there is always a group there watching for smugglers, which is a huge problem especially on the Egyptian border where the fence is either a joke or non-existent. And why me? Because I'm qualified on a certain weapon system that can shoot flares. Apparently only this weapon system is used, which I think is dumb because there are a hell of a lot more people that can just use a laser to designate the target, and the police, with night vision, will see that beam bright and clear.

But all of that is moot. The army chooses what it chooses, and it probably has better reasons for its choices than some rookie immigrant big mouth.

Instantly after my commander told me that I'd be going home during the week and coming back on Wednesday, I had a terrible realization. You see, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning is plenty of time to work in the army. One could potentially imagine having that schedule and still getting to go home for the weekend. But I am infantry, and our life doesn't work out that nicely. No, no, I knew it would happen, and my commander confirmed it: I'll "close Shabbat" on this border base, alone. Everyone else goes home, except me.

Now, you might be thinking "Well, you got to go home for a few days during the week, so it all evens out." That almost is true, I grant you. However, closing this Shabbat will set me up for closing three Shabbats in a row. Just how the schedule works out. Not cool. In the army, and even in infantry, three Shabbats is punishment. If you mess up, you get three Shabbats straight stuck on base while everyone else goes home. I got three Shabbats because I'm weapons-hot.

But even that is not the reason I'm writing this blog. Most importantly, this post is not meant to complain about the army life. As a matter of fact, it's entirely the opposite. Even still, here's the real point of my frustration:

For the past month and a half I have been talking with a great and close friend of mine who currently lives in New York. Sara. She's bright, pretty, a wonderful friend who will do anything to help, always energetic, and she probably has the best sense of humor I've ever encountered in a girl. This friend is coming to the country for a week, and she's actually arriving the very same day I was supposed to get out for the weekend. It was meant to be awesome. Her family has the best meals, and I always get myself invited when she's around. I've been looking forward to her visit for well over a month. The schedule worked out great. I knew exactly which weekends I'd be on base, and which at home, and magically the dates lined up like clock work.

Until the army called on me, simply because of a weapon qualification I'd actually rather have nothing to do with! This incident, in my mind, as I sit here typing it, fresh with the dejection of missing such a close friend's visit, a friend I haven't seen for half a year and now won't see for at least another few months, is set to the backdrop of a speech given the night before, last night, by our battalion commander. In response to two incidents where soldiers from our company used their guns, both correctly I add, the brass wanted to go over our mission in al-Madina al-Muqaddasah. Brass wanted to make sure we knew our Rules of Engagement (ROE), morals and ethics of dealing with the local populations, and what the army and state expected of us in terms of personal and professional conduct.

At the same time, the battalion commander, a high ranking officer of course, took the chance to address recent demonstrations of protests by an infantry brigade in the IDF. Soldiers in the Shimshon and Nachshon Battalions of the Kfir Brigade have openly demonstrated against the army and state by holding up signs at a ceremony and during guard duty where reporters were found. In short, they are decrying suspected Israeli evacuations of settler posts within the West Bank. Just like in August 2005, when Avi Bieber refused orders to evacuate Israelis living in the Gaza Strip, these soldiers protested against the army, and the state, while in active service.

What our battalion commander said rang true for me last night, and this morning it all came around into crystal focus.

"You cannot pick and choose your orders and missions. When you are in active service, you must do as the army and state tell you to, not because you're not a human being, but because you are the army, and you are the arm of the state. When soldiers on the ground begin choosing which large-scale, government planned operations they will execute, that is the moment that the army begins to be torn apart. And more so for our country than any other country in the world, when our army begins to come apart like this, when it is destroyed and disintegrates and bulges from within, that is the moment when the state begins to come apart and disintegrate. When our army falls apart," he repeated, "our state will fall apart."

He went on to address those that really do have ideological objections to certain army decisions concerning Israeli residents in the West Bank. "It doesn't matter if you are an extreme right-winger, or extreme left, or middle-right, or middle-middle. You are soldiers in a mandatory army, and everyone here except for me and a handful of officers in the room are all in their mandatory three-year service. If the army gives you a mission that you disagree with, when the time comes to be released from the army, you can simply choose not to continue here. When you're released, you can say and do whatever you want. You simply don't make a career out of the army if you disagree with it. That's your only option as a soldier.

And moreover, even I as a career infantry officer, I have the same option as you. If our brigade commander were to call me up and say, 'Hey Ari, good morning. How's it going? Listen, by 11pm today you need to evacuate all the Israelis from that settlement next to your base,' well, you know what? That's my commanding officer, and he received that from someone else higher up. It's my job, no matter how much I might disagree with it. If you disagree, you have the right to be released at the end of your service, just like me. But in the meantime, you represent your state and your army, and the people rely on the army and state to be unified."

With his words ringing in my head, I sucked up my anger and disbelief after hearing that I'd miss Sara's visit and close Shabbat on some strange base, alone. A year ago I swore allegiance to the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces. I repeated, with electric adrenaline shooting through my veins, every inch of my body tingling:

I swear and commit to maintain loyalty to the State of Israel, to her laws, and authorities. To take upon myself without conditions and without reservations the responsibilities of the IDF. To obey all the commands and instructions given by the commanders and to dedicate all my strength and even to sacrifice my life for the defence of the homeland and the freedom of Israel.

The gods chose to give me, as we say in the army, כל הזין. Essentially, I'm being hosed. But I accept it! If it wasn't me, it'd be someone else getting the raw end of the deal, and I'd never want to pass on my own crap situation to someone else. I have given myself without reservation or qualification, and sometimes that oath isn't just pretty words repeated in important speeches. Sometimes it means you actually give without receiving, sacrifice without recognition; your word is occasionally tested. No matter how unhappy my lot, I will always strive to be the exemplar and paragon of that all-meaningful avowal.

And besides, there's always a silver lining - maybe I'll stop some smugglers bringing in poison targeting Israel's youth. But still, it would have been nice to have Thanksgiving with some Americans! Enjoy your weekend... I'm working.

"Israel's Economic Miracle"

2009-11-24T17:04:00.001+02:00

This post may not be directly army related, but I began this blog on a very different standing than its current theme. Without getting into it, I'll just say that I started writing Israeli by Day in order to clear up misconceptions about this country. When I first started getting into Israel, as in when I first came here and became involved, I was shocked to find out what my peers in my hometown thought of Israel. People just had no idea.

Not uncommon questions asked were if Israel has electricity, are there streets and cars, and if people speak Jewish. One girl even asked me, and she was dead serious, "do they sleep in tents in the desert?" Apparently someone's pre-school Bible lessons about Abraham still apply to modern-day Israel. The level of ignorance was so terribly high - what? Israel is on the Mediterranean Sea?! - that I just had to do my part to show that it is in fact a modern, sophisticated, and first-world nation.

And so with that, I want to share this video clip from CNBC that my great friend Debbie sent me. I really encourage you to watch it, especially if you root for Israel. If you chant "Death to Israel," watch it and weep. Enjoy.

Palestinian Brit

2009-11-19T14:03:00.008+02:00

During a routine mounted patrol, my commander and I jumped out at a street deep inside the city to stop cars. We wanted to only stop the ones with yellow, Israeli citizen license plates. There are many Arabs that live inside Israel proper and go to the West Bank for family visits, or even to work. It's not suspicious or a big deal to see an Arab driving a car with these Israeli plates. However, many times a car is stolen inside Israel, it tends to find its way into the West Bank - far away from regular police detectives and searches.

With our boots on the ground, we stood behind the patrol Jeep and waited for some yellow plates to drive in our direction. It didn't take long to get our first stop, only a few minutes really. The procedure that the residents know so well is quite simple: pull over here, turn the car off, step out of the vehicle please, show me your ID and driver's license and car registration, open the trunk, what's in the bag? Pretty tame stuff, obnoxious to them probably, but nothing so demeaning or humiliating as Reuters and the Associated Press (AP) report.

After a good while of checking the north-bound traffic, we moved to the other side of the street to check the opposite direction. There turned out to be so many cars coming in that direction, which leaves the city, that my commander and I were each checking cars on our own. Nothing too interesting. Every single one of them seemed to be a Jerusalem Old City resident visiting family. No stolen cars, so far. Nothing suspicious, besides no one having their driver's license or super-mandatory ID (dealing with those are always fun).

And then I saw the jackpot. A young guy driving a nice, dark Volkswagen turned off a side-street and came my way. I glanced at the plates only to notice that he had none. No license plates at all, yellow, white, or green. This was my guy.

I made it abundantly clear that I needed him to pull over exactly where I directed him. He slowed down and came to a stop, turned the engine off, and got out of the car. I informed him in my extremely basic vocabulary of Arabic what I wanted from him, and he complied silently. Driver's license and ID all in order, thank you very much. After instructing him to do so, in Arabic, he opened the back trunk. Empty. Good. Now, with all the preliminaries out of the way, it was time to question him about the missing plates.

I asked him in Hebrew what the story was. "I'm sorry, I don't speak Hebrew" he replied in broken tongue. "Great," I thought. I was going to have to go through the whole pointing and grunting routine, ending it with sternly growled Arabic words like "JEESH, lo auto!" Army, no car! They figure out pretty quickly what you want from them, because really they knew in the first place that you can't drive a car without license plates, but it's a major pain in the ass. I took a deep breath, and began to point at the bumper... "Nu?"

"I'm sorry," he asked. "Do you speak English?" This was something of a rarity, as the people we stop generally never try to speak anything other than Arabic with us. I never ask if they know English, as you really don't have to speak very much at all. The grunting and pointing usually works quite well, as does the ID database you punch their personal number into. But in this case, and since I was alone and could handle it how I wanted, I decided I would speak English with him - though I suspected that he actually didn't know very much of my native tongue anyway.

He had a strange accent, even from that first sentence. It sounded like something I had heard before. He certainly didn't have a Palestinian accent, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I ignored this, however, and finally after a long pause I responded.

"Yes, I speak English. Where are your license plates?"

"Well, you see, I just returned to al-Madina al-Muqaddasah and this is a new car. I just got it yesterday, and they haven't given me the number plates yet." He stood there with his identification card in his hand, nervously looking at me, obviously unsure just how much trouble he was going to be in. He was tall, about six feet three inches or so, just shorter than me. He had a solid frame, if not a little chubby, but of that constitution where you expect he is hiding respectable strength under a small layer of fat. His hair was dark black and curly, and his skin tone was similarly shaded. Black clothes and black shoes completed the theme. Everything was dark, but he seemed well off. This was not the poor Palestinian you pitied living in the slums.

"I already applied for the number plates, I'm just waiting for them," he repeated.

Number plates? I've heard that before, but where? And that weird, out of place accent? I looked around at the screamingly West Bank setting around me, subconsciously absorbing some unknown dissonance in this man, between being an Arab in this city, and speaking this brand of English quite well. Something was so familiar about his behavior, and his voice, and I felt that the atmosphere of our surroundings were throwing me off. And so I asked.

"What is your accent?"

With that question he nearly jumped out of his shoes. The man seemed either agitated or excited, but he showed nothing in his facial expressions to reveal just what he was thinking. He shifted back and forth on his feet, with his arms stiffly extended at his sides. Finally he broke into a wide smile, and nearly shouted, "But it's Briiii-teeesh!"

Now it was my turn to jump out of my shoes, rock back and forth, and show the greatest amount of confusion seen since I joined the ever fascinating IDF. Honestly, if a shooting were to have occurred one street over, I would have been upset to leave this unexpected, curious case. I had to get to the bottom of how this man, in this city, being Arab, could have such a strong, thick British accent. I live with a British person, and many of my friends are British, and I was rightly astounded.

"What do you mean?" I asked like some dim-wit. "How?" I stood in front of him, fully squaring my shoulders towards him, though not aggressively, but rather entirely engrossed in hearing what he had to say. This was totally going to be the highlight of my day.

Laughingly, he went on to explain just where he picked it up. "You see, I was born and raised here, but I moved to London about 7 years ago. I have family that lives there, and I lived with them. I got a visa to go study there, which I did, but I was a bad student. So, I worked for my uncle. We own a bakery in London. I guess I just picked up the accent!"

"Really? So, why did you come back? You're crazy, huh? I suspect that London is a lot nicer than this place." Our relationship had totally changed from one of me in total authority, a semi-police like figure, to one of actual, real openness and familiarity. Not that I didn't have my hand on my gun's grip, or that there wasn't a magazine loaded, but he had been checked and clearly wasn't a threat. Just obviously daft, was all.

"Well, my father demanded me to come back. Over there I didn't do well in school and didn't finish. But really he was pissed off because of girls."

"Girls? What does that mean? You got caught with girls?"

"Yes! Well..."

"Well what? They're religious and it's forbidden to be with girls unless they're your wife?"

"No." He chuckled out loud a little and leaned against his car. I could tell he wasn't quite up for telling me something, but I figured he'd let it slip. I wasn't going to let it go, at least.

"If you don't tell me I'll have to impound your car," I joked.

"OK OK! Well, I was dating a Jewish girl. My uncle didn't care, but somehow my dad found out. And then as-"

I cut him off with the most genuine, deep, liberating laughter I had released in months. I could barely keep it down, and when I turned around I saw my commander staring at me quizzically. I waved him off, and turned back to this Palestinian-Arab-Muslim-Britain-Resident-Forbidden Casanova. He realized just how comical and ironic the situation was, and joined in my laughter. It was just too much.

"When I got back just a couple months ago," he drawled in his British cadence, "my dad even took my passport away!"

We laughed for a few more minutes, and I asked some more questions, none of which I can unabashedly post here. I wrapped it up eventually, admonished him again seriously that if he didn't get "number plates" (stupid British) immediately, the army would take his car until he put them on. And then as he was moving around to the driver side seat, I looked in and noticed in the cup holder a yellow, citrus themed can that I had seen everyone drinking. It was long and skinny just like a Red Bull.

"Hey," I stopped him. "What is this drink? Is it good?"

Excitedly he held it up to me, pushing it towards my hand. "Take it! I love them! Seriously, enjoy it!"

I declined only because of my professional obligation at the moment, but this interesting English speaker left me feeling pretty good about our work in al-Madina al-Muqaddasah. Maybe what all those angry Hamasnikim out there need is a little vacation outside the country. Let them see the beauties of Western life, and maybe a couple Jewish girls can talk some sense into them! No?

(By the way, I think I found Fizzeh Bubbelech in that yellow citrus drink!)

They Start Young!

2009-11-16T21:59:00.001+02:00

A three-year-old girl just playfully threw a rock at me after I waved and stuck out my tongue at her.

How cute.

Golda Speaks

2009-11-14T13:02:00.000+02:00

Taking a page my favorite Iraq War blogger, Matt Galagher, I'm gonna post a quote that I like here. It's my blog, and I do what I want!

"The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight."

Golda Meir

Donating To Israeli Charities

2009-11-10T13:09:00.000+02:00

I get a lot of emails from this blog. My personal gmail account is posted on my profile, which is actually pretty stupid of me in terms of the chance to get "spam-bombed," but I really like to have feedback. I can't even begin to tell you how many 17-25 year old people write me asking advice about the army, and Israel in general. Some people write simply to express appreciation for the blog, noting especially how little time I have to write it (about a few days a month, literally). I also get emails asking me about my personal opinions on relevant topics and news items. Supposedly my opinion counts?

Bottom line, I get a lot of emails. Recently, however, I had a very cool email from a teacher in America in response to my Foot Patrol post. With her permission, I am reprinting it here:

Shavua tov.
Can't remember how or when I first surfed to your blog, but I've been following it ever since. You always write very well, but this post in particular is magniv. I teach 4th grade religious school. Our new curriculum this year is Israel. I have decided that all of our tzedakah will go to Israeli charities. If you send me the name of your favorite charity, I will send our next $36 to it, in your honor. So far this year, we have raised money for Birthday Angels and Yad L'kashish, and our next project is Warm the Needy. If you don't have a favorite, we will send to PizzaIDF. Please let me know.

I recommended that her class donate their charity (tzedaka) to Friends of the IDF (FIDF), but specifically to the Wounded Soldiers Program. Any soldier who opens his eyes and sees their symbol, and specifically lone soldiers like me (chayal boded), will know that they really generate absurd amounts of money for the IDF and her soldiers. My battalion even had an entire week at an army resort in Ashkelon a couple months ago, replete with amazing food and ammentities - all funded by FIDF donors (actually, Haim Saban himself).

Now, I know I'm no fundraiser. But if you are feeling charitable, I have some ideas for good places to donate. Below is a list of IDF-specific organizations that support Israel's holy warriors (always wanted to say that):

Friends of the IDF (FIDF)

A Package From Home --- Their website is kinda lame, but trust me, I've heard good things about them!

The Libi Fund --- I see their logo everywhere in the army, also.

Yashar LaChayal --- These guys are great. They gave us Camelbak-style hydration packs at that resort I mentioned, and I even did a short video clip with my unit behind me cheering. I was thanking them in English. It was pretty awkward for me! Anyway, if you do donate to them, I personally hope you send money to the injured soldiers department.

One Family Fund --- This is actually a charity to support Israeli victims of terror. So, it's not directly for soldiers, but I suppose it's related. I included it because a good friend of mine is apparently a fan of it, according to the Fund's website. Also, I live really close to one of their buildings. Just another option for you!

In terms of all those pizza for IDF soldiers charities, I'm not going to endorse them. I haven't heard anything bad about them, or anything like that. It's just that I looked at their prices for donation, and it was a little ridiculous. 1 pizza and 1 soda for like $26 dollars? Why? A pizza in Sderot, which would be the place they'd bring Gaza-operating forces, probably costs like 45 shekels ($12). And the same for other operating areas in the West Bank. I just don't have experience with them, and the price is so high, that I can't really say anything! Sorry!

Anyway. If you want to donate, don't think any amount is too small! $10 here and there adds up!

First Mounted Patrol

2009-11-05T13:22:00.005+02:00

The most exciting mission one can get at al-Madina al-Muqaddasah, at least on a daily basis, is a vehicle-mounted patrol (VMP - my creation). In order to increase our visibility and have feet everywhere, without maintaining some unruly presence, is to keep an army truck in constant motion throughout the city. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (yes, Shabbat too), we are out there, eyes open, ready to prevent, engage, and react. No matter where you are in the sprawling city, various military and police forces are roaming.

My first VMP came quickly after we began operations in al-Madina. My commander, let's call him Ranger since he really should have gone to special forces, came into my room where I was sitting on my bed, whittling away my time on Facebook Mobile. He asked me if I "wanted" to do a VMP. I laughed openly in his face, knowing he was asking me sarcastically. Weeks before we finally got here, I told every single commander, all the way up to my commanding officer, that I didn't want to miss even one assignment. I can guard for 24 hours a day, I told them all. And as a matter of fact, you better try to wear me out or I'll run away to America.

Taking my word seriously, they put me on the platoon's very first patrols. I couldn't have been more excited, just as I was with the previous post's foot patrol. Give me body armor and get me the hell out of the base! Let me loose, I growled. And with that I threw on the ceramic vest, and then my combat vest, chucked my helmet inside the armored Jeep, and told the Russian driver to "hit it already!"

We crossed the wire, Ranger checked the com system, the other soldier with me fiddled with his Camelbak hydration pack, and I stared out at the rolling, house-dotted hills of our operating area. My mind was racing with what could be, what would happen, what it would be like to hear on the radio that Bad Guy X was in Scary Place Y, and was about to carry out Terrorist Act Z. If that call went out, it would be going out to us, and that would mean me. And if-

Obliterating my unrealistic fantasies, the radio blared through the external speaker, echoing off the box interior of the thick metal walled Jeep.

"Patrol, this is HQ."

"HQ, continue."

"We've got a report of rocks being thrown at Fizzeh Junction."

"Copy that. Patrol en route. Over."

Not two minutes in, we had a directive from the radio control room to engage. Rocks being thrown sounds so cliche for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I thought the same thing at first. But Fizzeh Junction in al-Madina is really the junction of a walkway between two Arab neighborhoods and a high-traffic shared road. Palestinians and Israelis both use the road, and cars travel at about 80 km/h or more. If you hit a windshield with a nice sized rock at 50 mph, you can expect a life-threatening crash.

So off we sped, racing towards Fizzeh. Mere minutes later we were approaching the junction, and amazingly enough we spotted large rocks on the highway. Our driver whipped the back end of the armored truck into the direction of the neighborhood we suspected the rocks came from, and just like a movie I threw the doors open, ducked my oversized frame through the opening, and jumped out of the vehicle ready-to-roll. I glanced left and right, and then up past the barricade blocking the neighborhood from the highway.

As if some CNN production of the Second Intifadah was filming, a conflictual period I watched half-knowledgeably from my cozy high school and college perspective, I spotted the offenders. About seven or eight teenage boys were going crazy nearly 150 meters in front of me, jumping up and down, waving their arms, and yelling unintelligably in Arabic towards my commander, my platoonmate, and myself.

With rocks in their hands. From awkward Virginian Jew to Israeli-American Golanchik, I had transformed into the Intifadah's image: rock thrower versus IDF combat soldier.

Now, you may think that throwing some rocks is just harmless aggression. I hear you. 150 meters for a 16-year-old to throw a rock isn't as dangerous as throwing a Molotov Cocktail. Sure. But let that kid throw that rock, and you dodge it, no big deal. But the next day, and don't think I'm exaggerating here, he'll roll backpack-sized stones on the highway. Give an inch, anyone will take a mile.

And with that we could have shot non-lethal rounds at the obvious law-breakers. Tear gas, rubber bullets, flashbangs; any of those things would have been well within our rules of engagement. These kids were throwing rocks at cars passing at high speeds. Deadly, and deserving of a serious response.

But rather than going in full swing, our first days in the deployment, my commander and I instinctively ran towards the group. We're both sort of... hands on. But the teens had their distance, and we had a clear directive at the time to not enter too far in that neighborhood without at least a squad-sized force. And so they mostly dispersed as two six foot four hulking, trained combat soldiers bore down on them. I dropped into kneeling position as we reached the barricade, putting the remaining rock throwers in my magnified reflex scope.

Red jacket. Blue shoes. Black shirt with gold colored chain. White jeans. Green Nike shorts.

Details to remember. For when? Well, you never know. Who says we wouldn't get the word to go door-to-door?

And we walked back to the Jeep, quietly reflecting on our first contact with the most cliche element of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 16-year-old kids in the beginning of October, noon on a weekday, not in the school on the other side of the junction. Yes, that one right there! Another 150 meters away from the street! And yes, soldiers trained for an all-out war with Syria fighting what? Kids that don't realize how deadly their actions can be? That's it?

But it's important, and you know it. It's not battling your way to Damascus, but it's good work. If you don't believe it, you haven't been there. You know why I say that without reservation? Because the majority of the Arabs in these areas just do their job, love their families, and move on. We sat at Fizzeh Junction for another half an hour, with many individuals making their way across the highway to a neighboring area where all the schools and universities (yes those too) and jobs are. And we asked about the kids, and they all rolled their shoulders and shrugged their eyes.

"I don't know. Stupid kids. I just do my job and go home. Morning 'til night."

When you hear that sentiment over and over, you kinda start to believe it. And in a strange way, and as a side note you don't have to believe me, you find yourself thinking about that average individual. You see a kid throwing rocks, and you think about that 25-year-old going to his university class on computer science. You remember and see his face because you checked his ID and quizzed him on it. Those of us that care for peace can't help but feel the disappointment when you respond to one of the troublemakers, so misguided, so myopic. When he throws rocks over and over, we increase our presence. And though it's exciting, you know it's not taking the process forward. Over and over.

Cause and Effect. Action and Reaction. Incident and Response. Cycle and Cycle and Cycle and Cycle.

"Patrol, this is HQ."

"HQ, this is Patrol. Continue."

"............."

First Foot Patrol

2009-10-31T13:22:00.000+02:00

Having arrived at al-Madina al-Muqaddasah on a Wednesday, my platoon was informed that we wouldn't be starting operations until Sunday. The rest of the company was going to start right away. It's just us greenhorns (tzairim - youngin's) who were supposed to wait. That wasn't because they wanted us to get settled, or to relax a little in a first deployment, or anything quite as magnanimous as that. Rather, the logistics NCO's needed bitches to set up the company's area. From hanging signs to organizing shipping crates to moving cabinets - stuff that the veterans wouldn't dare raise a finger for.

Just as we started the agony, and it really is terrible to work for the RASAP, my platoon commander called my squad over to the side. I had heard some rumors earlier in the day that a foot patrol would be sent out of the wire, but rumors fly constantly around here. When my entire squad was called over, however, I just knew I had caught yet another lucky-Danny the American break.

"Listen up," he started. "You guys are going to take a foot patrol. Go work on your gear. I want it to be fix. Perfect. Don't let anyone take you to work on anything else. You are in nohel krav - combat procedure. Again, if the RASAP tries to have you work for him, come tell me."

And with that he sent my squad off to the barracks, leaving the rest of the suckers in my platoon to do all the worst initial setting up. As we walked off, I looked back at my buddies heaving a locker full of unbelievably heavy M113 periscopes onto a high shelf. Suckers.

Our personal gear is so important to the IDF, in that it has to be exactly the way the platoon and company commanders want it, that whenever you receive a mission you are sent for hours to work on the stuff. I, however, always make sure that my gear is exactly the way they want it. It's become so rote to me, actually, that even now I want my gear to be the way they want it. Gear tradition is one of the great mysteries of the army that you would only understand if you had to live it. Essentially, in Golani, you have G-d, country, and gear - in no particular order. So, my gear was already perfect, fix, and ready to roll.

I spent the next couple hours helping others with their gear. And hanging out on my bed, of course. I cleaned my gun like a maniacal germ-freak, over and over and over. Finally, we were called to the briefing room. Walking past the still-working platoon, my squad couldn't help but feel real tough. We were chosen above everyone to take the first mission of the entire company. We must be cool. Send me out Rambo style. I'll keep the peace, singlehandedly.

After a long series of briefings from three different NCO's and CO's, replete with satellite maps, quizzes on protocol and patrol structure, rules of engagement, scenario testing, and even a preparatory drill (as if we haven't trained for a year doing this simple movement!), we got the order to move out. I walked up to one of my squadmates and said, like some American army movie, "MOUNT UP!" He looked at me pretty funny. I told him that if he hears me say that, it means put on your gear. Listen, if I'm going to do an army, I want to feel cool. I'd love to say things like Oscar Mike and Stay Frosty, but that's too much explaining to these guys. As you can tell, I was giddy.

FINALLY! Here it is! A year of training, and finally I'm going to get out there. Our mission was simple, just to establish a presence, but in our eyes any mission was a great and wonderful gift. I would have taken a 50km patrol happily at that point! Yes please! More please! Can this last, like, I dunno, 10 hours? When you've been waiting all your life to do something, or at least feel that way, the moment instantly before is no less than euphoric. I didn't feel the extra 60 or so pounds on my body. I didn't feel the ceramic armor digging into my shoulder blades. I didn't feel my uncomfortable, stiff new boots. It was all adrenaline.

Step.Out.Of.The.Wire.

Cross.The.Street.

And in no less than two minutes there we were, walking in between Arab houses. Now, don't get the idea that I think all Arabs are bad people, the enemy, or suspects. As a matter of fact, in high school I had a good friend that just so happened to be from al-Madina al-Muqaddasah. He even lived here just a few years ago, since they still have all their family in the area. This was a good, good friend of mine. I obviously don't hate Arabs. But when you're geared up like I am, and a scary ass Tavor assault rifle pointed at the low and ready... they probably hate us. And since I'm the pointman in the squad, and therefore the tip of this patrolling spear, they hate me first.

But with all that being said, we were in hostile territory. At least on paper. In reality, my squad made our way through endless grape fields, admiring the clusters as if we were Moses' spies, amazed at the bounty and impossibility of this land. Nearly as endless as those chest-sized clusters were the Arab houses, many built illegally no doubt, and their porches. Sitting on the porches were families, old men playing backgammon, young men smoking hookahs or talking on the phone, and women knitting. Children playing soccer. Life happening. Quiet.

STOP - instantly I dropped down to the kneeling position. We were approaching a turn in the dirt path, and at that moment a 20-some year old guy appeared in front of us. That's the key age for trouble. You never know. I instinctively told him to stop, in Arabic, and eyed his body for any unnatural bulges. Gun. You never know. In this area, word spreads quickly. "There's a patrol coming your way" probably found it's way on at least one phone. Is this guy a hero, I wondered.

Nope. Just a dude walking to some other place. It is his neighborhood - he just happened to get a little close. That's ok. It was unavoidable. Yeah, your ID checks out. Have a nice day. I signaled him to walk to the side, and not in-between the patrol.

First contact. OK, that wasn't so bad. Yeah, I know they're just people. Yeah, that kid was probably on his way to his girlfriend's. You never know, though.

We made our way on, stopping here and there to check an ID, make sure that that car that turned off the path as soon as it saw us just did that because we're scary and not because he's got something planned. Yup, he's cool. Have a nice day. Keep a close eye on that guy that went inside when we neared his porch. Check that corner. Stop. Drink some water, guys. You're sweating a lot more than you realize.

With the sun going down, we took a few minutes break to switch to night vision scopes, rest, rehydrate, and soak up the geographical location. The expectation to learn our operating area is high, and nothing is better than a foot patrol to learn just where that intersection is, or where that typically hostile neighborhood tends to heat up. But as I knelt there, checking my scope, I watched the kids next to me play soccer. Two little girls sat on the side, staring at us, obviously more entertained by the "big bad Zionists" than their little crushes.

And you know what was the most surprising and impacting impression I made from this first patrol? Not tightening my grip because some guy briskly walked inside his house and then came out with a long wooden thing - which from 100 meters looked like a rifle, but really was a cane. Not how much power we had over these people (which we do, and have to respect). But rather, I was absolutely blown away by how much the kids seemed to like us.

This isn't Iraq, and the IDF is not the liberators or heros of al-Madina al-Muqaddasah. They are supposed to hate us. According to the world, we are the people that shot these kids' dads in front of them... for fun. But those kids, from 5 year olds to 13 year olds, were all smiles! They giggled and pointed and laughed. I was as serious as it gets for the entire patrol, for obvious reasons, but once we continued on the path and came upon a gaggle of little boys and girls playing in the street I naturally loosened up. They playfully ran to the side, next to a fence, and stared and giggled. Dropping my mission-oriented tone, I winked at one particular chamuda.

Just like any kid, she put her hands up to her face, snickered, and buried herself in her best friend sitting nearby. Just like my friend's nieces, little ultra-orthodox Jewish girls.

What? Aren't we the terrible, oppressing, evil Zionist pigs stealing Arab land? Shouldn't these 10 year olds have heard by now about the Nakba, and about how these black-gun toting devils will break your neck upon the slightest, if any, provocation? Apparently, and this was my impression on the street, the IDF makes a smaller footprint than some would have you believe. I know that there are certain places where the army is more intrusive, even in other areas of al-Madina al-Muqaddasah. But even here, even with an ID-checking, car stopping patrol, we don't seem to be the worst thing in the world.

Last anecdote on that matter: Once we passed a house on our left, and I was busy checking our right because my right-hand pointman was new at that position and I felt he was missing some of his sector. I glanced at him, and he cocked his head upwards and to my left. Towards that house. There were about five people sitting on a second-story porch, just hanging out. Middle-aged people. They interpreted his signal to me to check them as the international head pump, which says "hey, what's up." They waved. What? They freaking waved at us?

I was pretty sure at that moment that the army lied to me and actually sent me to an Israeli-Druze village. That would explain the Arabic text on the walls, at least.

And despite seeing with my own two eyes how friendly these people can be, I know the history. And the commanders remind us of the history, and remind us what happens all the time and doesn't make the news. Most importantly, not everyone that is nice to you on the road while on patrol are representative of the guy sitting in his room, sulking, staring at you through the window. Stoking his anger. Planning. Rocks to start, knives, acid bottles, and so on. The cycle continues. His dad waved. His uncle waved. Even his cloaked aunt raised a finger. He sulked.

So we stay prepared, and hope that the moderates look around and see what could be! Fields of grapes, nice houses, nice cars, businesses - not everything is rubble in the West Bank, and not everyone hates Israel or the IDF. It seems.

My 25th Birthday In The Israeli Army

2009-10-26T08:06:00.000+02:00

(If you don't read the post, at least check out the photo comparison at the bottom. I think it's hilarious)

It's pretty damn hard to believe that it has been exactly one year since I had my 24th birthday in the army. I was drafted four days previous, on the 22nd of October, 2008. Still nervous as hell every morning upon waking up, I kept my mouth shut when my birthday came. No one knew about it, and that was the way I wanted it. Despite that, as I said in that post from a year ago, "It was really tough spending your birthday getting yelled at."

Well, days have changed. I am a fully-rated combat soldier, and yelling is reserved for... nevermind. They still yell at us all the time! Not like in the movies, like basic training in Full Metal Jacket, but it is for when we do something wrong. And that happens all the time.

So, I guess I will also spend my day getting yelled at!

But again, as I said in 2008, "I've always wanted to be a soldier, especially for the only army in the world that I think is 100% imperative for the existence of the state it serves. So, ideologically I didn't need cake or toys or songs." The only thing I'd change about that now is that yeah, I'd like cake. And don't you worry, I will eat some cake!

Seriously though, and I know everyone says this at this age, but I am having a hard time understanding how I'm already 25. I remember quite distinctly being about 17 and thinking long and hard about what Danny Brothers of 2009, a 25-year-old man, would be like. This is the age that definitively signals adulthood. This is the age where your profession becomes your life. Where marriage and children become a reality. Where you become, I don't know... grown-up.

But I don't feel like that! Man, I feel like a kid still. I'm pretty sure I'm 18 and just started college. That ridiculously handsome, athletic, muscular body in the mirror? That's not mine, is it? Those rugged good looks on that wise, mature face? Could it really be? And the prophetic eyes staring back at me; where did they come from?

At 16 I thought about myself at 25 as being everything I wasn't at the time: confident in my beliefs, set in my ways, and self-sure. Some of those are good things, others less so. Regardless, at least those things have come with age. For that I am thankful. I don't think I am quite as emotionally stable and mature as I hoped I would be, but over the past few years I have learned that emotional stability is one of the rarest traits. And considering the challenge I've gone through over the past year, I think I'm doing ok coping with difficulties, and stability in general.

I'll stop rambling now. It's just that this is the one forum where I can tell everyone how weird it is to have arrived. I'm sure my 40-year-old readers are rolling their eyes. I don't care. Keep rolling. It's my blog and I'll express amazement when I want to! Honestly, listen to me, I could go on for hours about all types of things I expected with this age, from my body (I used to be a serious weight lifter, and I always dreamed about the "prime of life" 25-year-old body) to my intelligence to knowledge to career to love life, and so on.

Hey, us old people are supposed to ramble, right? And be incoherent? Welcome to senility, I say! I guess I really am the grandpa of the army now.

Here's some photos for comparison to what six years does to a man:

A 19-year-old backpacking young buck, ready to roll

A 25-year-old: give me coffee or don't talk to me

Finally Deployed

2009-10-22T18:59:00.001+02:00

After eight months of training, and then another three or so of brigade-wide retraining that we unluckily stepped right into, my unit has found its place in "combat." I use that word lightly, especially considering that we have found ourselves in the West Bank during one of the quietest periods in Israeli history. Knock on wood and all that, but I simply believe that it's peaceful because we've brought the hammer down hard on the terrorist groups. Operation Cast Lead sure as hell put a beating on Hamas, and I don't think they're ready for round two.

But they will be, eventually. For now, peace.

While the rest of my platoon took a pre-dawn bus to our base in al-Madina al-Muqaddasah, I was chosen to stay at our previous base in order to help put the final touches on cleaning up. Logistics officers, jobniks with big ranks that you couldn't care less about, were roaming the area, just looking for an excuse to yell at the young, arrogant combat soldiers. "You're aren't leaving here until..." was the line of the day. I heard that no less than twenty times.

Suddenly, in the middle of carrying some containers back to the kitchen, the commander watching over us told me to run to the transport truck waiting at the base's front gate. "HURRY," he told me numerous times. It seemed like the truck was waiting for me, specifically. However, upon getting to the gate, there was no one to be found. After waiting nearly two hours, I finally hitched a ride with a transport carrying our shipping crates which we use to store gear.

"Jump on up!" the animated driver told me. For the entire five hour ride I was all alone in a tractor-trailer with a reserve duty soldier who rambled on and on with his wife on the phone. With just three hours of sleep the night before, I fought back my leaden eyelids the entire way. I was told to not let this guy stop at his base for the night, but rather to carry on all the way to our deployment, so I had to stay awake. And as they warned, between calls to his wife, he called just about every officer in the IDF for permission to go sleep at the truck base.

Finally we neared the border crossing into the West Bank. The driver started showing his true colors pretty quickly. He made a call to his dispatcher on the speakerphone. It essentially went like this:

"Uh, so when I cross over, what happens? I only have one soldier with me. Is that enough?"

"Yes."

"OK, are you sure? Because it's just one soldier, and you know, it's at night! How will I know if I'm going into a bad area or not?"

"There's nothing to worry about."

"Well!.. Famous last words, no? OK, I have one soldier, but should he put the magazine in the gun, and a bullet in the chamber? Ready to shoot!"

"No, that's not necessary."

"Is there a signal truck that could guide me to the base?"

As he drove hesitantly toward the border crossing, unarmed Israeli civilian cars zoomed by, headlong into the territory. My jumpy driver and his wide-open eyes rubber necked the entire way to our base, making terrified comments one after another. I giddily seared into memory the crossing, marveling at the towers and guard posts and concrete barriers and mazes of chain-link gates used to check Palestinian pedestrians. All the things the world hates Israel for. What all the protestors were losing their minds over. Every little detail shone brilliantly under the yellow, sodium lights. I was happy to finally be deployed, after so much waiting. The frightened driver was ready to get the hell out.

My favorite line of the night? While driving past an Arab town with a green-lit minaret, he asked seriously, "Do they have rockets?!" And then once we made it to the base, with relief he inquired if we had "finished the Arabs finally?" That's less racism/prejudice than it is excitable cowardice.

After wishing him a good night and laughing at his catharsis upon reaching the safety of a Golani base, I made my way to our barracks. I entered the small, squat building to cheers from my platoon. I had no idea what al-Madina al-Muqaddasah was all about, and at night I had seen nothing, but I had arrived.

Time for patrols and guard duty and checkpoints and guard towers and seated ambushes and arrest operations.

OPSEC Is The Name Of The Game

2009-10-20T10:21:00.002+02:00

Taking a page from one of my favorite Iraq War bloggers, Matt Gallagher of Kaboom, I feel I have to make this post about Operational Security (OPSEC). OPSEC is defined by the U.S. Army 1st Information Operations Command as:

A process of identifying Essential Elements of Friendly Information (EEFI) and subsequently analyzing friendly actions attendant to military operations and other activities to:

Identify those actions that can be observed by adversary intelligence systems
Determine indicators - Adversary intelligence systems might obtain that could be interpreted or pieced together to derive EEFI in time to be useful to adversaries
Select and execute measures that eliminate or reduce to an acceptable level the vulnerabilities of friendly action to adversary exploitation

With OPSEC on my head, I plan on continuing my blog for at least the next three months. My unit has deployed to an active area, and we have already begun our operations. In all reality, as the army works, we have switched places with the unit that was here before us - so no one should think this is some new campaign or new mission or new operation. The Israeli army works really as a police force, so we're just continuing keeping the peace. That's our mission: keep the peace.

As Kaboom found useful, I too will strictly refer to this area of operations with a made up name. Though the name will be made up, and you can guess all day where this stuff is taking place (and I will never say a word on the matter), I can tell you that it is inside the West Bank. I can say that because as anyone familiar with the geography of Israel knows, it is the only place that the Israeli army operates within Arab population centers. Gaza is a closed-off area, and the northern borders, though hot, are on the other side from Hizbullah and Syria.

So what name will I refer to the area as...? I don't know as I'm typing this! How about...

al-madina al-muqaddasah

What A Relief!

2009-10-16T15:15:00.004+02:00

Many months ago during advanced training I found myself trudging through exhaustion in one of our "war weeks." Think Hell Week, I suppose. Finally, after nearly 24 hours of non-stop drills and hiking and carrying loaded stretchers and all types of worst case scenario preparation, we were given a few hours to sleep. I plopped down in a forest with my platoon, fully geared up and ready to pass out. Helmet on head (forbidden to remove), combat vest strapped tight, gun tucked under my arm - pass out I did.

I'm not sure what happened, if anything happened at all at the moment that woke me, but I opened my eyes an hour later to a certain degree of pain. On my left shoulder, towards the back, there was a slight stinging. I pulled the shoulder straps of my vest to the side, pulled my shirt off the area as far as possible, and there on my skin was a raised, bloody bump. I just kinda looked at it for a few minutes.

"What the hell is that?"

The first thing that went through my mind was that I was stung by a bee, or even worse, a scorpion. Eventually I rubbed the bump, and there seemed to be something underneath the skin. I felt like I could move some large, straight, hard chunk of hidden something or other. Despite playing with this thing for a solid hour, missing a most important amount of sleep, I didn't see anything come out. Except blood, of course. And some pus. It was pretty gross.

It wasn't until a few days later that I realized another possibility. My hypochondriac mind reminded myself, much to my dismay, that years ago I had to have a mole removed because I ripped it and that could potentially start cancer growth (namely, melanoma). The more I thought about it, the more it seemed plausible: the shoulder straps of my vest rub that area constantly, and between all the stretchers resting on my shoulder, as well as hundreds of pounds in waterpacks and enormous backpacks full of ammo and food and gear, well, there's no reason that a mole couldn't have been traumatized.

A normal person would have seen a doctor right away. I am in an army run by Israelis, however. I'm pretty sure they don't believe in diseases here, cancer included. I knew not to even ask about some weird bump that sometimes bleeds, sometimes dries up and peels a layer of skin off. Yeah, that sounds pretty bad, right? Crap. What was I going to do? I figured I'd just wait it out...

But then, two days ago, the bump was raised again. I kinda just moved it around, and some pus came out. Gross, sorry, but bear with me. Then some blood came out. A day passed, and the thing looked terrifying! It was raised pretty high, scabbed over, and obviously had both blood and pus underneath. Honestly, I was starting to worry that maybe indeed I had something serious on my hands. What the hell would I do about it? If the doctor in the army dismissed my 101.2 degree fever by telling me to rest, no medicine included, what would they say about a bump? I know: it's a pimple. Bastards.

Well, with all that worry, I finally got home this afternoon. After taking my shirt off in order to take a shower, I glanced at the scabbed bump. I figured I'd be 15 and play with it. I peeled the scab off, and a small amount of pus oozed out. Awesome. And then, for no reason at all, I figured I'd touch around the sides. So as I barely pressed a side, out squirts a long, thin, sharp thorn. It was like Old Faithful how fast that thing flew out. It kinda even scared me to see some foreign, alien object shoot from my flesh.

Whew. We're talking about more than four months of suppressed worrying here, people! Today, I tell you, is a good day!

My Luck With Gear

2009-10-15T20:49:00.000+02:00

We just got rain gear today. The rainy season starts very soon, and we're expecting a wet winter. Water-proof rain jackets and pants are essential for 8 hour guard shifts outside.

Mine, however, are riddled with cigarette burn holes.

The President of Israel Listens to ME

2009-10-10T15:04:00.000+02:00

Last Sunday night was the beginning of Yom Kippur, and I was off from the army. For the first night I decided that I would go to the popular 'meat market' synagogue nearby. I swear I wasn't checking out the ladies on the Day of Atonement. I just wanted to, you know, see to it that everyone was repenting for all that gawking that takes place there (they weren't). My flatmate was walking in the same direction, but then had to take another direction eventually. As I turned onto a sidestreet I noticed a big government Suburban blocking the way to a locally famous synagogue (there are lots in Jerusalem, you know). Next to the Sub was a moveable barricade.

Security was abundant. The first thought that crossed my mind was that they were making sure no bad guys tried anything tricky with all those congregants. I quickly remembered, however, that I had seen some government security doing the same thing one morning as I walked to my bus stop on the way back to the army. As soon as I recalled that, a few guys in suits turned the corner. Secret Service guys. Tall, strong as hell looking. M16's not dangling to the side like a soldier going home, but rather with hands on the grips, pointed forward but to the ground. "Who the hell is this for," I wondered.

And out walks Shimon Peres, the venerated President of this fair state. Here we were, just me and Peres on a tiny sidestreet walking in opposite directions. And about 10 ready to pop badasses culled from who knows which army units. Shayetet (Seals), Sayeret Matkal (Delta Force), 669, Palsar (Rangers), Yahalom (special forces demolitions), Egoz (anti-guerilla warfare), some others probably, and even former Mossad who took an even more prestigious assignment if I had to guess. Me, Peres, 5 feet apart - and the world's scariest bodyguards.

I'm not one to get starstruck or shocked over a fellow human being. I mean, we're all flesh and blood and dust and ashes. But this isn't an ordinary man. He is considered one of the founders of the State, and at this very moment he is probably the most respected man in Israel. Peres is like a modern Israeli James Madison. What do you say to a man like that, in passing, on the eve of Yom Kippur? Do you wish him an easy fast? Tell him he's doing a great job? Maybe even something as cliche as saying, "Good evening, Mr. President"?

And so I found myself as shut up as a Tibetan monk in solitude on top a great, lonely mountain. Honestly, I'm not sure that if I had even tried to speak that the words would have come out at all. And just imagine if the security saw some bumbling idiot, big and as potentially threatening as I could be, making a move towards the head of state! That would have been an inauspicious start to the new year. I think the security, black suits and assault rifles and dark sunglasses and all, probably put the kibosh on any greeting or words more than any other factor.

But now, days later, I really wish I would have said something about Gilad Shalit. If you haven't been reading the news, our soldier captured in 2006 by Hamas is still a hostage. He's been subjected to the discommunication between Israel and her enemies for over three years (1,195 days in captivity) now, and just about the entire country is saying the same thing: bring him home already. We don't care how, just do it. Now.

Man, I wish I would have said exactly this:

"Gilad Shalit."

That's it. Nothing else. In a normal tone of voice, no inflection at all, no gesticulation. Nothing. You know why? Because he knows what the country wants, and it would have been foolish to insult him further. I know that he isn't solely responsible for that situation, and the resolution, but he sure has a voice in the matter. He sure can make some moves.

But I didn't say a word, and that's OK - probably for the best. Definitely for the best. I don't need the Secret Service beating me up before I go to the meat market synagogue, giving me a bloody lip or something. Girls don't like a bleeding, awkward tall guy. Or maybe they'd think I was tough and just beat up some bad guys.

Ahh, the delusions of a sleep-depraved soldier...

Dissonance Among The Ranks

2009-10-06T14:11:00.002+02:00

(Meant to post this a couple weeks ago...)

Just a little on the fly "had to tell someone" blogging here.

We are in Jerusalem for a day of touring, and of course we've found our way to the Western Wall. There are tons of military border and security police around - even more than usual. Now, these aren't the guys who give out tickets to soldiers who forgot to shave. They are the riot police, among other things. I'm pretty sure the army even chooses kids to go to this unit based on a tendency to fight. In short, they are notorious for being rough and short tempered.

As I walked by one on the way to the bathrooms, I noticed that on the handle of his billystick was a sticker for a popular spiritual movement inside Judaism. They're the hippies of Judaism, if you will.

It's a smiling face with a yarmulka and sidelocks. Not what you'd expect from a riot squad. If your head happens to meet that billystick, you could call it divine justice.

Gilad Shalit Proof of Life

2009-10-02T16:55:00.003+02:00

I just want to post this here now as the news breaks. I have a short word or two to say about the matter in a post coming out at the end of the week, but just for now...

Here's the video itself on the Israeli news channel's website

An article:
Link to original Jerusalem Post article

Watch new Schalit video: 'I yearn to see my family again'
Oct. 2, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST
After over three years in which IDF St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit has been held in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip, Israel breathed a sigh of relief on Friday afternoon after video footage of the captive soldier was released to the media and aired on Israeli television channels.

Click on the image on the right side to watch the clip. A version with English subtitles will appear shortly.

The two-minute long clip shows Schalit addressing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his parents Noam and Aviva, telling them he is being treated well by the Hamas and is in good health, but yearning for the day on which he will see his family again. Schalit is seen clean shaven with a fresh haircut, wearing black clothes.

The video was received in return for the release of 20 Palestinian female prisoners. Israel released 19 of them on Friday morning, 18 to the West Bank and one to Gaza. The 20th prisoner will be released Sunday, after it turned out that a prisoner released Wednesday was finishing her sentence anyway and would therefore be released regardless of the deal.

Following is the full transcript of Schalit's video message:

"Hello, I am Gilad, son of Noam and Aviva Schalit, brother of Hadas and Yoel, who lives in Mitzpe Hila. My ID number is 300097029.

"As you see I am holding in my hands the Palestine newspaper of September 14, 2009, published in Gaza. I am reading the paper in order to find information regarding myself, hoping to find some information from which I would learn of my release and upcoming return home. I have been hoping and waiting for the day of me release for a long time. I hope the current government under Binyamin Netanyahu will not waste the chance to finalize a deal, and I will therefore be able to finally have my dream come true and be released.

"I wish to send regards to my family and say to them that I love and miss them and yearn for the day in which I would see them again.

"Dad, Yoel and Hadas, do you remember the day when you visited my base on the Golan Heights on December 31st, 2005, that if I am not mistaken was called Revaya B. We walked around the base and you took photos of me on the Merkava tank and on one of the old tanks at the entrance to the base. We then went to a restaurant in one of the Druze villages and on the way we took photos on the side of the road with the snow-covered Mount Hermon in the background.

"I wish to say to you that I feel good, health-wise, and the Mujahadeen of the Izzadien al-Qassam Brigades are treating me very well. Thank you and goodbye."

In the footage, Schalit addresses the camera directly, and at one point walks up to the camera and then returns to his chair. He also appears relaxed, not terrified.

By 12:30, Netanyahu's appointee on the Schalit case, Hagai Hadas, reached the Prime Minister's official residence in Jerusalem with the footage. Hadas and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi had already reviewed the footage and approved the release of the prisoners, indicating that the video fulfilled Israel's demands, namely that the video was at least a minute long, recent and showed Schalit talking.

OC Manpower Division Maj.-Gen. Avi Zamir arrived by helicopter with a copy of the video at the Schalit residence in Mitzpe Hila, where he was scheduled to view the video with the family.

Noam Schalit said before viewing the tape that the family eagerly awaits it.

The Prime Minister's Office issued a statement following the release of the clip.

"Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu watched the video of Gilad Schalit in his office and has spoken with Noam Schalit," a statement read by the prime minister's media spokesman said.

"The prime minister believes the importance of the tape is in putting the responsibility for Gilad's health and wellbeing squarely on Hamas's shoulders. The prime minister says that even though the the release of Schalit is still far from us, the video is an encouraging sign," the statement continued.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke with Noam Schalit and Zvi Schalit, Gilad's grandfather, at around 2 p.m., just minutes after the family viewed the video, according to a statement issued by Barak's office.

The defense minister told the Schalits "I want to hug you. Gilad looks healthy, and this fact only further puts into focus my own responsibility and the responsibility of all of us to bring him home."

A statement issued by the Elysee Palace in Paris called for the "immediate, unconditional release of Schalit." Schalit holds dual Israeli-French citizenship and his father Noam has been lobbying with French President Nicholas Sarkozy to help in securing the release of his son.

Gilad Schalit has been held in captivity in the Gaza Strip for 1,195 days.

Inter-Battalion Rivalries and Military Songs

2009-09-26T19:52:00.004+03:00

Golani is the oldest brigade in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), started on February 28, 1948. It was a restructuring, in fact, of Hagana pre-state defense forces. With this early start, and its storied battle history, Golani has had no shortage of esprit de corps. Most indicative of the pride found among Golanchikim is the enormous collection of battle songs, company-based cheers, and most importantly, taunts against rival units. If you've read this blog, you'll know that our biggest rivals are the paratroopers.

But what you haven't been privy to is our rivalry, or really just our jeering, with a different company in our same battalion. I'm sure it's like this in every battalion of Golani, but all I know is mine - and mine is vociferous! Company G, said rival, gets quite the ribbing from the Messayat, my company. Especially when we beat them in all kinds of tests, like a recent day where we scored higher in shooting drills and had a faster time in a full-gear and stretchers run. It took a few days for them to live that one down.

We will take any chance to taunt Company G, and so will they. Here's us

versus them while waiting for a speech to start. Two sides, just like West

Side Story. Funny enough, Company B is in the middle, yelling at both of

us. Neither G or the Messayat cares about B. So they just yell at both in

turn, and we clap for them. Sad, sad Company B.

Before I get taken away with this, I should back up quite a bit. This post isn't about the rivalry between the Messayat and Company G. Rather, I just want to talk about the songs and cheers that have become such an integral part of my life since joining this company and arriving in the battalion as a full soldier. In armies across the world there are songs, such as the famous "I don't know but I've been told..." Even better are U.S. Marine's cheers, especially songs like Blood and Guts. As you can tell, militaries will be militaries.

The first Shabbat that I got to the Messayat I experienced one of the strangest nights of my life. After coming back from services, I found the group slowly forming a circle. Here was a company consisting of veterans and near-veterans, and there was my platoon, fresh from the training base. Young. Green. Everyone else had been in Gaza for Operation Cast Lead. We were two months into basic training. They were knocking down doors; we were stuck perpetually in pushup position. But nonetheless, we were members of this company now, and we found ourselves in a large circle on an equal footing.

And then the songs started. Some of my guys knew a couple here and there, but most of us just clapped along, smiling awkwardly. And when the time would come, as it does for a few songs, we would run into the middle - jumping, cheering, punching and pushing. With the veterans. Guys that served in every major operating zone in the country. If anyone ever created one of those songs, many of which I'm sure have been passed down for generation upon generation, in an attempt to integrate the greenhorns, they can sleep happily knowing they accomplished the goal.

I swear to you, however, that that first night with these strange songs and their respective physical interpretations (a certain dance, kneeling, jumping, etc), I thought that I had landed on another planet. What in the world was going on? The night was dark and the sky was orange from the sodium lights. A strong Golan Heights mist was swirling the crisp summer air, creating the effect that we were stuck inside a cloud. And here in the midst of bizarre weather were these battled 20-year-olds singing what can only be described as alien chants. Most of the language was well beyond my comprehension of Hebrew. Only now do I know what half of it means.

The singing went on for an hour. A full hour of this massive circle, pulsating with pride and, admittedly, a desire to confront the enemy. Let's not forget this is Israel's most deadly infantry brigade. The energy level was enough to bring even me in, and I am not a singing or dancing type.

I can't tell you how impotent I feel at the moment. I simply cannot describe the strangeness, oddity, mood, setting, and atmosphere of that first night. The unmatched out-of-placeness I felt, but all that without the typical accompanying self-consciousness. I thought I was in a movie about an army unit, rather than actually being deep within one. Maybe I can't describe it because it all seems so normal to me now, maybe because that was over three months ago, or most likely because I'm a hack writer.

So hopefully a video or two of some of these songs, albeit not in the mentioned circle (which we do all the time, by the way), will show you just how intense the experience is. I could say a million things about a million songs, even some in Amharic Ethiopian, but let's just leave you in the same state I was in that first night: confused and unsure what it all meant.

Note the girl halfway through. Terrible!

Happy Holidays From The IDF

2009-09-18T13:52:00.001+03:00

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, starts tonight. Last year I was drafted right after the holidays, so consequently all I could think about was the army. If only I could have seen the Danny of 5770 one year ago as I sat in my Jerusalem apartment, worrying my little head away.

So, here's to a sweet and productive new year, a year of peace for Israel. May we see the return of Gilad Shalit, reconciliation with the resident Arabs, and a Palestinian initiated overthrow of the cancerous Hamas regime.

And in the very least, as our deputy battalion commander put it, "a deadly year for our enemies."

Beware of Desert Enemies

2009-09-12T21:09:00.005+03:00

The greatest threat to me in the recent past wasn't Hamas or Hizbullah, kidnappings or rocket launches, bombs or any other terrorist attack. Rather, it seems to be scorpion season around here. We've been finding them left and right, and they usually scare the hell out of us because they seem to be just where we had our hand or were sitting. That scorpion was in between the strap and back portion of a backpack that was moved and about to be picked up.

Interestingly enough, however, turns out even crazed 18-year-old Golanichikim have compunction about killing even dangerous creatures. It took them about 10 minutes to figure out whether or not to kill it, with half the camp yelling for it, and the other half proposing to move it into the desert. Needless to say, our army boots are pretty good at crushing things.

Military Police

2009-09-04T11:22:00.000+03:00

I haven't broached this topic for the entire length of writing this blog, mainly because I didn't know where to start. In a sentence, there is no more hated group of soldiers in the IDF than the military police - namely, the branch that stands around checking to see if the soldiers are wearing their uniforms correctly, are shaven, have all their papers, and so on. Combat soldiers especially feel a venomous animosity for these jobnikim that go home every week, do no 10k runs, do no hikes with half their body weight packed on them, and yet have the chutzpah - the chutzpah! - to give us a violation.

What penalty does a violation incur? The worst penalty of all: confinement on base for anywhere from 21 to 28 days, and it can be much longer depending on your unit's schedule. When all your friends are going home, you know that you're staying on base not because you volunteered in order for others to have fun, but rather because some jerk in a white hat didn't see your dog tags around your neck. And if that confinement wasn't enough, enjoy your hearing with the battalion commander. Yeah, you read that. Even a little violation necessitates a mini-trial before a lieutenant freaking colonel.

So how do these guys strike... There are certain days, hours, and places where soldiers pass through in high numbers in order to return to or go home from their bases. In an effort to not give Hizbullah any extra info on when kids are in high volume in certain places at certain times, suffice it to say that there are favored times of the MP to fill their quotas. So, on these particular days you get off a bus or a train, and standing right near the terminals or the entrance are the MP. Just waiting for you.

Propaganda. Look at him smiling.

White hat, white and red brassard (armlet), white belt, and a bloody nametag. A nametag.

"Damnit," you think to yourself. Quickly, you better check to make sure everything is clear. Boots polished with no dirt showing from the week of crawling in the mud? Are your pant legs tucked into your socks so they are rolled up properly? Is your shirt tucked in neatly to your pants? Are all the buttons buttoned? Did you put your dog tag on, or did you forget that in your pocket because you only slept two hours the night before? Is your hair cut and not a little past the proper length? Not that you just spent 21 days on base or anything and there wasn't a haircutter. Is your beret in your epaulette neatly? And most importantly, if you have a beard do you have the permission form, and if you don't, are you 100% clean shaven?

All of this is a split second check that is performed exactly one minute after waking up from a deep sleep on a two hour bus ride and exiting on to the sidewalk in a half-woken daze. While a Golani soldier is about to go into the West Bank and guard against terrorism, the MP are comfortably stationed in Tel Aviv near the beach, slapping around the defenders of the nation.

Such b.s.

Seriously, listen to this: Once during training one of our guys started telling a story about his brother and the Second Lebanon War. We all had heard stories about this guy, how he was a crazy veteran in his day. For example, he stood up in a battalion-wide meeting with the Chief of the General Staff (head of the entire army) and yelled "UNTIL WHEN?!," a popular veteran-only expression. That's craziness to do that. Anyway, this slightly deranged brother of our slightly deranged friend was a staff sergeant sniper.

After spending twenty some days on base, the Lebanon War started back in 2006. That war lasted for 34 days. So, this guy wasn't home for fifty some days, minimum, and spent the entirety of it in combat. Scary, bloody, heart wrenching combat. He was a sniper, so you can imagine how personal the war was for him. As it was described to us, the war ended and they were given about 15 minutes to pack up once back at base and catch the last buses home. It was a scramble, but they made it just in time.

These guys hadn't been in civilization for a long time, had probably seen their best friends either shot or hit with shrapnel or even worse. They hadn't spoken to their families for well over a month. Parents had no idea if their sons were alive, where they were, or what their conditions were like. Soldiers just wanted to get home. After all that, and having about 15 minutes to catch the last bus, the last thing on their minds was the mud on their boots or the hair on their chins.

And yet, my buddy's brother after 50 days in combat was stopped by a military police officer and given a violation for all of the above. Apparently it was a scene, replete with yelling involving the words "war, combat, and Lebanon" on one side, and "rules, protocol, and tourists" on the other. Judge the situation for yourself.

Anyway, the reason I finally got around to posting this was because a good friend of mine just got busted up for having an unshaven face. The real story is that the MP was looking to give out a ticket, and for some reason he was chosen. He got off the bus, and with the MP no less than 50 feet away, one of them started pointing at him. They asked why he hadn't shaven, he said he had, and they gave him a ticket. Take a look at his face. This picture was taken by me about two hours after he got the ticket:

Just venting a little bit of frustration here. A button of mine fell off and I had to resew it with the only string I had at the time - it is blue. I better get some uniform beige string pronto!

Golani Versus Tzanchanim - The Showdown

2009-08-21T13:59:00.005+03:00

After a long few weeks of sharing a small area with a platoon of Tznefim ('young' paratroopers), a period of time which involved phones stolen from our area, combined guard duty, and trading responsibility of cleaning the bathroom, a brouhaha finally erupted. If you're just coming in now, to put a long story short, Golani hates Tzanchanim (paratroopers). Why? Honestly, it's not worth getting into for the 30th time.

One night last week my platoon was singing some of our company and platoon songs when the paratroopers across the way turned up their music to drown us out. We carried on, however, louder than ever. Undeterred, the paratrooper jerks came out of their tents with shirts on their heads, symbolizing who knows what, and pans and ladles in their hands. West Side Story was about to go down, IDF style.

While us Golanchikim sang our songs and clapped our hands, these sissy-kids were busy banging on pots and pans! They couldn't even play fair, as far as we were concerned, and we just laughed them off. We stood on our opposing sides, like the Jets about to trounce the Sharks, and battled for who could sing and yell the loudest. Apparently no one told the tznefim that musical instruments aren't allowed in these showdowns.

Here's a short clip from my phone of the impromptu rivalry face-off:

That went on for probably 30 minutes. It was the same cycle of us belting out some song, while they made as much noise as possible. Then it'd be their turn to sing a song, and, well... not much. They'd just bang on the pots and pans. I don't think Tzanchanim has as many battle songs as Golani.

In all seriousness, I wasn't sure where this clash was leading. Our platoon commander, a second lieutenant, was looking pretty nervous. He loves when we sing and go all crazy, but I gazed over at him and saw what only could be described as anxiety wracking his face. Making matters worse was the paratrooper platoon commander, just standing on the side smiling, not saying a word to our C.O.

You see, this is all fun and games, but I think there is a real amount of dislike between our two groups. At the end of the day, Golani and paratroopers are both in the same army, but you wouldn't know it at this point. Our CO knows and appreciates that we have to work together, and like a good officer hates division in the army. I understand that. I understand his concern.

But how can you not jeer these guys when they cheat even at making noise?! And how about this one:

After getting up at 5am and going out into the desert in our M113's, working in the 100 degree Farenheit weather without a break, and without shade all day, we finally come back late afternoon to find a whole squad of Tznefim sleeping in the bathroom's sink room.

Let me repeat that: they were sleeping in the room with the sinks. Why? Because it was hot outside. I just got finished working in the most uncomfortable conditions - happily, I might add - and these guys had to escape indoors. See, you ask why we don't like paratroopers?! They're soft...

and of course, they wear dresses.

Watermelon Picking Israelis In Uniform

2009-08-16T17:23:00.002+03:00

The army involves a little bit of travel. During training you go here or there, to this "shetach" (zone, field, territory) or that. These trips can take a couple hours, which are the absolute best because it means you get to sleep during the middle of the day. In fact, you won't even take a nap during the middle of the day until you're two years and four months in - except for bus rides. So, traveling is awesome.

While traveling with a group of sharpshooters late last month for a week of shooting, the bus randomly stopped by some field. We had no idea what was happening until we all heard the bus driver, a crazy guy by the name of Abu, shouting in his slobbering, disheveled voice from the right side of the bus.

There happened to be a watermelon field over there. Here was this guy and a veteran sergeant picking watermelons from the corner of the field. They were really taking advantage of that Biblical allowance. Anyway, I couldn't believe my eyes when they picked up a few really big, choice melons from the side. Finally we made off with the produce, just like that.

In the army I've seen it all. Honestly, things like this happen all the time. Random occurences are the norm in Israel, but in the army - life is just ridiculous. Not that this is TOO crazy of an incident, but hey, we were in uniform. Before you start the army you think everything is so serious and strict, but really, life is just kinda funny in the IDF!

By the way, this post was really just an excuse to post the following video - the bus driver, Abu, was nearly the Israeli version of Don Vito (beware of strong language, and total idiocy):

Little Victories In The IDF

2009-08-12T12:53:00.000+03:00

When you finish one stage of the army and start another, you generally get new commanders. So, having moved up to the battalion, I am surrounded by fresh faces telling me what to do. That's not easy when you're almost 25 and these guys are either 19 or 20, and moreover, they don't have a clue who you are.

Little victories over your commander help to ease all the frustration of being so dominated. When someone so completely controls you, it's great when you either show them up, know more than them, or beat them in some physical test. That's a little victory over a commander. So, what's my most recent victory? My squad commander is a great guy, super by-the-books, and in-shape to the point we've already asked him why he didn't go to the best special forces units (Shayetet, Sayeret Matkal, 669, etc).

A few nights ago we did a 5k run around the base, and most of the time I was talking to him. I was running with him, no problem at all, and even thought the pace was a little slow. I could tell he had the competitive desire to lose me in his dust...

As we got within 200 meters of our tents, he said, "Sprint to the end!" Usually I ignore those last minute sprint challenges that they love throwing out. 5k is enough, ya know?

Not this time. As we took off he was a step ahead since he initiated the all-out dash. However, within half a second I pulled in front. And then I proceded to absolutely smoke him.

Let me repeat that: I beat him so badly, when I finally turned around, I couldn't even see if he was still running. He was that far away. That, my friend, is a little victory that you will treasure. But, you won't be able to lord it over him. He is in control of your happiness, after all. It's a silent victory, to be sure.

"Don't be too modest. You're not that Good." -Golda Meir

Golani Pride

2009-08-06T16:21:00.000+03:00

I guess this is a post I could have written the first month I was in Golani, but I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad because what was once pride has now become obsession, and these kids are rooted in this world for the next two years, at least.

What am I talking about? The pride of being in Golani. You see, this pride started manifesting itself the first weeks of the army by singing Golani songs, especially "Golani Sheli" (My Golani). It moved from there to wearing the first Golani t-shirt we got. Stickers were found, of course, and those popped up here and there.

But then the 21st century creeped in. Many, if not most, of the guys have some type of Golani background to their cell phones. Here's some of the more popular ones:

One with characters from Gears Of War, a popular video game

Now, all of those above cell phone backgrounds are general Golani. But, once you get into your battalion, you have a specific company with a specific role in combat. I wasn't going to say where I am, but I figured I'd just say in general that I'm in the "Mesayat." I'm not giving away any secrets by saying that name, not at all, but I won't say anything about what it means. I of course won't say what my platoon's role is specifically, or anything like that, mainly as to avoid the whole issue of operational secrecy, etc.

Anyway, now that we're in the Mesayat, all that general Golani stuff is disappearing and being replaced with our company symbol: a rearing horse, since we're the "Wild Horses." Or, this Mesayat symbol:

Anyway, what I really wanted to put a picture up of was something that I knew would raise an eyebrow or two. But, as far as I'm concerned, this is totally in keeping with an infantry unit, and nothing at all wrong about it. You see, we have medics in our unit, of course, and they are constantly being tested by the commanders. One of those tests is preparing a person for fluid injections. I guess if you get shot it's good to get some fluids in you.

So, randomly during gear checks a commander will point over to a medic and tell him to open up some poor kid's vein. Surprisingly, these kids are pretty good at it, so I never mind if I'm chosen.

The other day we all were gathered around as our medics were pitted against each other in a competition of who could prep a person for fluids first. Now, one of the things you have to do when you inject a person is write on their arm the info of what has been done so that a doctor taking over will know what's been done to the patient. That's pretty standard stuff as far as I'm concerned. Now, one of the ways you make due in combat is, errr, to use that person's blood to write on their arm.

So, Golani pride took over in the competition, and one kid showboated. Guess what he wrote?

Mesayat - RESPECT!

That's the kind of stuff people join Golani for. Honestly.

Not Everything Is Mud And Guts Tough

2009-08-01T16:08:00.002+03:00

While brushing my teeth one night, I looked up and saw the toiletry bag that a veteran was using. I swear that I did not doctor this picture in any way. This kid fought in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, has done tours at Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, the border with Lebanon and Syria, and who knows what else. And yet, he has a pink, flowery, grandmother style bag. These are the times that you just smile at the ridiculousness of army life.

Kitty Litter In The IDF

2009-07-28T10:30:00.000+03:00

I meant to post this about four months ago when it happened, but you know how life works out. Anyway, the RASAP (logistics guy for a company) had me cleaning out his storage room when I heard a strange noise coming from a shelf. I looked up and saw a cardboard box marked "vests" where the noise seemed to be.

Taking it down, I felt something shift inside the box. As I set it down on the ground, I saw a litter of kittens, all meowing as if nothing was wrong at all! I told the RASAP immediately, of course, and we took the box outside onto the sidewalk. As I furtively pulled out my phone and took the below picture (still at this point technically forbidden for me to have a phone on me at the time), he called over all the commanders nearby.

We had a good laugh about it. I had to run off to do something else, but I wonder what they did with the litter? I know that everyone was feeding a stray, tiny, miserable kitty a few months later that was living next to a dumpster, so I suppose they'd also have pity on this bunch.

Well, if you ask the anti-Israel crowd, they'd say he probably ate them!

An Article Loosely About Yours Truly

2009-07-23T14:42:00.001+03:00

A good friend of mine here in Israel, Paul Gross, is one of the country's rising, brilliant political and social commentators. Why is he so brilliant? Mainly because he featured me in an article for a British Jewish paper he contributes to biweekly. Let's not mention his high-profile speechwriting, Israeli embassy experience, connections, and numerous published articles.

Here is the link to a very fancy web version of the newspaper The Jewish News. If you want to read the bit, flip to page 8. The article is highlighted in yellow. If it doesn't work, I don't know what to tell you... it's really high tech.

Either way, this is like the third article about yours truly in a newspaper. I'm movin' on up!

My New Life - Vatik v. Tzair

2009-07-19T13:06:00.000+03:00

As I said in the previous post, my life has changed so much just in the span of a couple weeks. We have finished with our training, left the training base where you are only with your commanders and other kids in training (ie – no real soldiers or real units), and have joined the battalion. I’m with the platoon I’ll be with until the end of my service. Our company has a specific role in combat, and my platoon has a specific set of weapons for combat as well. We’re all settled, this is it, we’re full soldiers in the battalion with our job description sealed. It’s as if we’ve finally been “shipped off,” though in Israel that only means being no more than a few hours from home.

For the sake of clarity, let me define a serious part of army life:

Veteran (vatik) – 2 years, 4 months into the army.

Young (tzair) – Anything less, but of course the youngest are more “tzair” than those drafted later.

In an attempt to scare kids into acting the way they want, you hear all the time during training about what the “veterans” are like when you finally reach the battalion. First of all, they’re portrayed as demons. They have nothing better to do than have all the new guys unload shipping crates full of gear, timed with impossible expectations, of course, only to put everything back in the way it was taken out. A whole shipping crate in 2 minutes. The shipping crate is the most notorious form of tzair work (see above picture).

Secondly, kitchen duty is far beneath the dignity and respect due to a veteran. They come into the dining hall when the meal is ready, eat, make a mess on purpose, and then leave all the cleaning up to the young ones. But, don’t forget, when you’re young nothing is just at your leisure: you’re on the clock, always.

Thirdly, we have to mention what is forbidden. There are many things you aren’t allowed to say, and if you are caught saying them... “oy va voy!” Stupid things. Like, “until when,” “how much is left,” and even any reference to being tired. Oy va voy if you say you’re tired!

What else is forbidden? Well, as we were told, anything the veteran wants to claim, he can claim. He can be walking past a group of youngins playing soccer and declare the football “off limits.” Only a veteran is allowed to touch it then. I’ve heard of that happening when the veterans were playing the tzairim.

Another great story of this claiming ritual is when a veteran walked past a bedroom of tzairim who were just sitting around, something that is very punishable. The veteran declared everything in the room – all chairs, beds, table, even the floor – off limits. Except one bed. Ten tzairim had to jump onto that bed and stay there until they were released.

OK OK OK. So, that’s all the stuff they scared us with while we were at the training base. They said, “If the veteran sees you not working like you’re supposed to, he’ll make you suffer.” I was pretty damn worried about what they were going to do to us after hearing all that for 8 months! Needless to say, when I got to the battalion I had two wide-open eyes, looking for veterans on the prowl.

So, two weeks in, was I tortured? Have I called Israeli newspapers looking to expose abuse in the ranks of Golani?

No, it’s not so bad. Yeah, we had to unload some crates over and over again, and it was dumb and they were jerks about it. If anything touches the ground... well, you basically have to run with it, and some of the stuff is heavy! So, you learn, and you don’t let anything touch the ground! No big deal, as we say.

Kitchen duty – yeah, you’ll do that for a long time. Basically, my group is the youngest in the entire company, so we have to clean all the dishes and trays and all that. But, the November 2007 draft date, guys that fought in Gaza in Operation Cast Lead, guys that have been in for quite a while, they still have to clear up the dining area – clean the floor, empty out trash cans, deal with the extra food, clear tables, and bring us all the dishes. And, worst of all, they are timed too! It takes a long time to get away from being young in the army, so you can deal with it knowing everyone suffered.

But overall, I have to say that the veterans are people too. Mainly, they just want to get the hell out of the army. How many times a day do I hear one yell “UNTIL WHEN?!!” Or, “HOW MUCH MORE?!!” To be honest, they’re usually too damn bored or tired to mess with us youngsters. As a matter of fact, I’ve already had a few conversations with a couple of them. They asked me all the typical questions, like why I’m here, how long am I serving for, if I’m dumb or not (why would I join the army if I didn’t have to?).

Seriously though, it’s pretty damn weird being around these guys that either fought in Lebanon (the platoon commanders) or Gaza’s Operation Cast Lead (all of them, even my tzair squad commanders). Even though my Dutch friend and I ruthlessly make fun of veterans, simply because they think they’re very cool and very deserving of all honor, I do have some amount of respect for them.

Two years and four months in? That’s a long time. That’s nothing to sneeze at. What really gets me is that their training isn’t any easier than mine is at nine months in. They do all the same runs we do, some of which are really tough with combat vests and loaded stretchers. They have all the same gear checks, which are much more serious than you can imagine. They do guard duty and everything, middle of the night and all. After two and a half years of this life, they’re deserving of saying they’re tired.

I don’t know. This post isn’t at all what I wanted it to be. I wanted to talk about how strange it feels walking around with my brown Golani beret, but yet feeling so dumb and young. I don’t know anything about anything. I thought that once I’d gotten my beret I’d feel like a real Golanchik. I do feel like a real Golanchik, but now I’m around REAL Golanchikim, and still there’s something different.

You know, it’s really quite indescribable. For example, I just spent the previous week at a shooting range with tons of veterans. Just me, another couple youngsters, and mainly all veterans. I shot better than all the veterans, much better at times, and yet...

And yet they’re still veterans who demand respect, and I still feel like an out of place tzair. There’s a post that hasn’t been written yet, but if it ever is, then you’ll get a better feeling for what it means to be an out of place tzair. Sorry for this rambling post, I’m out of practice.

A Word About The Blog

2009-07-17T14:50:00.002+03:00

Being that it’s been a month since my last post, or something along those lines, I’ve had ideas running through my head constantly. Especially since my life is so different now, having left the training base and joined the battalion, there are about a million things I could write. The world is my oyster, as they say.

However, my intention has been to finish this blog, not write any more, after advanced training. After all, what can I say about the actual work I’ll be doing? What would I write about checkpoints and guard duty, ambushes and operations? It works out perfectly that this blog is a documentation of the path to becoming an IDF infantry soldier, and that is all.

But then again, I have so much I want to write! I have zero desire to write, I am tired, and I don’t really care at the moment to spend my little free time writing, but I do have things to share. So, I think the only responsible thing I can do is leave this blog open to my whims. I tend to do things 100% or not at all, and it goes against my instincts to just write when I feel like it instead of regularly – but it’s best for all of us, no?

My recommendation is that you sign up on the right to receive new posts by email, since they could very well be extremely irregular.

A new post will be coming out in the next day or two...

Masa Kumta - Beret March

2009-06-16T10:54:00.012+03:00

Writing a blog entry about a march that begins at 7:30pm and ends the next day at 6am is probably harder than the hike itself. What can I say about it? I guess I'll just give a little background...

The masa kumta (beret march, essentially) is the final hike in a long series of hikes that begin in the first month of basic training, and end, at least for certain infantry units, at the end of advanced training. That means that for the duration of your entire training period you have to face these marches. The purpose of a masa is clear: you do them in combat. Not every battle is found right outside your barrack's doors. Sometimes you've gotta hike a few miles out there, or a few back. Why do we open stretchers and load them up and hike miles and miles with them? Because at the end of most battles you've gotta get the wounded out, and there are always wounded. Of course, the masaot also build teamwork, esprit de corps, and give training a sort of backbone - not to mention a clear finale.

What is a masa? Two single file lines. Usually at night. Complete silence. Full gear (combat vest with all related equipment, personal gun, light machine gun, heavy machine gun, water packs, stretchers). Very fast pace (6 to 10 km/h). Steep inclines.

And what is the masa kumta? This is when you earn your brigade's beret, which is simply a different color from other brigades.

OK, is everything explained well? Good, so let's get personal now. You want to know what it was like? It sucked. Everyone was in agreement: it was twice as bad as the "machin masa kumta," which is the 'preparation masa' for the masa kumta. That means it was the one right before this final one. They were the same pace, of course same gear and all that, but the machin had more inclines, meaning it should have been much worse. However, I remember laughing and smiling and singing to myself the entire machin masa! It was good times! "ONLY ONE LEFT!," I thought happily.

The masa kumta, however, brought me no such joy. I don't think I even dreaded it. I don't think I was nervous or anything. I was ready to get it over with before we started, but I did want to do it. I often have thoughts like, "I wish I could just do this blacked out, wake up during the final two minutes for the joy of finishing, and that's it." But I wasn't thinking that about the masa kumta. I wanted to say I did it with a clear mind, suffered as necessary, and finished strong.

I don't know what to tell you, mainly because I don't know myself. Why was it so hard when it actually should have been easier than that machin? I have no idea. Strange. Despite the torture that this was, I am extremely proud of myself for stepping it up with the gear. You see, we have extra gear that we have to carry the entire march - stretchers and a water pack. The stretchers aren't anything but obnoxious to carry on your back, but the water pack... the water pack is tough.

The pack we have holds 11 one and a half liter bottles, I believe.* That's 16.5 liters according to my calculator. Now, according to the infinitely wise Internet, a liter of water weighs 2.2 pounds. So, let me crunch some numbers... 36 pounds. You may be thinking that that's not too bad, it's not 100 pounds, but you try humping 36 pounds at 8km/h for even one hour. Don't forget your gun and your combat vest loaded with ammo, either.

No one ever wants to grab the water pack. We switch off just about every hour, but it always takes a long time to get someone to grab it. Usually the uncomfortable silence of no one stepping forward ends with the commanders yelling at people, and then they grab it. I took the pack the second hour, then after an hour passed it off per routine. Long story short, I was carrying the water again closer to the end, once we had opened the stretchers, despite there being numerous people that hadn't had the joy of lugging it. For the next nearly three hours I had it. No one offered to take the pack, and I didn't ask anyone to. That's 1 hour plus almost 3. Let's say 4 hours with the pack. Can't complain, though - I'm not the MAGist (heavy machine gunner).

For 7 months I dreaded masaot because of that pack, so I wanted to finish strong, with the water pack on my back, and the stretcher on a shoulder. There were guys in the back stumbling along, just trying to keep up, but about 10 of us were giving 100% so we could say we finished with everything we had. Waterpack on my back, stretcher on a shoulder, we ran to the finish line, a full sprint. I thought I was going to fall, but we went right on through to the end - 100%.

That's how you finish this crap.

How did I feel? Anti-climatic. I wasn't tired at all, like most of the guys. They were sleepy, but I don't know, I just kinda felt like I had something to do. I finished everything, the final step in the final masa had been taken, but there I stood. What next? I thought, "Well ok, we can do another one. It's not like that was my physical limit, really." It was hard and all, but why couldn't I do another 10k? Trust me, I don't want to, but after you spend 7 months going from masa to masa, it's weird to think that it's all over.

You know when you have a word on the tip of your tongue? The word is just past that little mental barrier, whatever that barrier is. You can feel it! UGH, what's that word?! Well, I felt like I had joy or relief on the tip of my tongue. Not the word, but the feeling. I could sense those emotions right there, but there was some kind of mental/emotional barrier holding me back from feeling it. Surely it's just because I've been waiting for this masa for so long, and it was bound to be anti-climatic.

Either way, I'm happy. I got through it with the help of tons of junk food stuffed into my pockets and vest (advice: sunflower seeds). Tons of pictures were taken by my commander, who grabbed my camera 5 minutes in and didn't give it back until the next day. The physically intimidating yet mentally weak French kid quit halfway through, as predicted. The weather was great. Everyone had the worst שפשפת ever (don't ask). And there was an awesome breakfast afterward.

All's well that ends well, no?

* - There are many water packs. Don't harp on 'giving away military secrets' here. It's not important.

Here's a couple pictures:

The start

You'd think this is a bad picture, but it kinda says
a lot about what a masa is like.

Breakfast - can't beat a tower of chocolate milk

A friendly blood blister. Not me, thankfully.

The kid's foot is literally coming apart here. The skin

just peeled and got pushed upward. Look at the yellow
flaps up there under the toes. That's skin bunched up.
Awesome.

Done & Done!

2009-06-09T21:36:00.001+03:00

Masa Kumta (Beret March) - Check

Various Pains & General Inability To Walk Straight - Check

Happiness & Celebrations - Check

Brown Golani Beret - Tomorrow

This Week

2009-06-05T18:50:00.004+03:00

Well, eight months of the army has come and gone, seven of those in Golani Brigade infantry training. Time - what an inexplicable factor of mortality! Either way, events are going to transpire this week that I thought would never come, and honestly, I even believed at times that I wouldn't have the guts or ability to live through them. Silly, silly doubts.

On Monday, this very Monday, we have our masa kumta. If you are just stepping into this blog right now, I can't explain it to you the way you deserve, but let's just say that a masa (journey) is a massive hike at a very fast pace with full gear, and stretchers. The last one we did was about 40 kilometers, and the last 10k was with open, loaded stretchers, and the last five of that was climbing one of Israel's taller mountains. The word is the same used for the Israelites 40-year journey in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. And we remember how bad that was.

After I finish this feat, we have a ceremony on Wednesday to receive the Golani beret. For the past eight months I've had the army's basic green beret, a true sign of 'youth' in the army. The brown Golani beret, so colored because this brigade was originally composed of kibbutznik farmers, is a holy item in Israeli society. It symbolizes the greatest sacrifice for the country. If anything historical is still cherished in this changing, modern country, it is the Golanchik's color. At least this is the way we think of it in the army, and in my first-hand experience, I regularly receive encouragement and even thanks from civilians when they see the Golan tree on my shoulder tag.

For eight long months me and my fellow soldiers have been itching, just plain yearning for this moment. We've been trained, we're fully combat rated, we're ready for whatever the army needs us for, we've completed every single test thrown at us, and now it's time we receive our prize. We've earned it.

Last week was hell on earth, War Week, but we won't even discuss that. What passed passed, and I'm stronger for it.

But this next week, despite the physical strain to come... it will be something good to dwell on. Wish me luck, though I hope I only need determination. Funny how all things come in their due time, even when it seems they never will, no?

Sorry, But I Had To Share

2009-06-05T13:46:00.000+03:00

Sorry for this totally unrelated post. I just was blown away by this, so I had to share.

Here's the original

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An owner of a New York store thwarted a robbery only to take pity on the perpetrator, who claimed he could not feed his family, and gave the man $40 and a loaf of bread, a video of the incident showed.

A video posted on Tuesday by the Newsday newspaper on its website www.newsday.com showed a masked man wielding a bat as he entered a convenience store in Shirley, Long Island, just after midnight on May 21 and demanded money.

But when the store's owner, identified by the local Channel 12 TV station as Mohammad Sohail, pulled out a rifle, the masked man dropped to his knees and appeared to beg for forgiveness.

"He said 'I am sorry, I have no money, no job, my family is hungry,'" Sohail told the TV station. "Then I feel bad for him ... I take $40 for him."

Sohail said he was not planning to press charges.

Golani Soldiers Get Hot Girlfriends?

2009-06-02T13:12:00.000+03:00

I've been wanting to post about this one guy in my unit and his girlfriend for, oh I don't know, maybe about four months now. Forever ago we were on a bus heading to a different base to do some training, and he used my cell phone to access an Israeli version of MySpace or Facebook. He wanted to show me pictures of his girlfriend. "OK, I thought. This'll be interesting."

Now, this guy is very nice. He's quiet and kind and well-behaved. He doesn't get a temper over every little thing, and he knows how to talk to people calmly. In short, he's basically un-Israeli. He's a good seed. However, his beauty is, how would you say, found on the inside. Don't get me wrong, he's not ugly by any means. I've seen him shirtless, and he may not be Brad Pitt, but he's in shape. He's an average looking person.

So when he loaded up the photo album of his girlfriend, I was expecting an average looking girl. It would be fair to say that I was speechless when I was shown about 50 pictures of a drop-dead gorgeous female. She's probably about 5'8, dark skin and dark brown, curly hair, a cute little nose that sits perfectly between tastefully prominent cheekbones. He showed me some bikini shots (relax), and this girl is fit! She not only has a beautiful face, but she also has an athlete's body.

My speechlessness turned into suspicion. I asked him if he was rich, or if maybe she was crazy, and even if he was lying. I apologized for my insolence, but I told him that this girl was out of both our leagues, combined. He swore that she was his real-life girlfriend, and that he could prove it. He went to another album, and there were all the cheesy, corny, bf/gf pictures that 18 year olds take. Hugging, cuddling, kissing, etc.

I secretly harbored the notion that she could be a hired model, or maybe a slightly morally debased cousin. He put all the suspicions to rest, however, when he recently showed me some more risque pictures. Nothing too serious, of course, but no cousin outside of West Virginia or Kentucky would be caught in a photo like that. And if she's a hired model, well, he really knows how to keep up an act.

So, the real impetus for this post came just this morning when another guy showed me pictures of his girlfriend. This guy is nice and all, but he's a major mooch sometimes, yells like everyone else over every little thing, and simply isn't the angel that our first example is. Looks-wise, he's just normal. He's definitely not fat now, but he was, and he's by no means the type to envy. He's just average, or even a little less... (not trying to be mean here, just making a point).

OK, his girlfriend is pretty much a model too. She's actually pretty similar in that she's dark-skinned with dark, curly hair. I guess I can't really describe a face that well, but let's just imagine a Sephardi Jewish chick that you'd easily introduce to your ubercritical friends with pride. And did I harbor suspicion? No, I didn't. By now I've just kinda grown used to Israeli girls having bad taste.

But honestly, can someone help me figure this out? I know Israeli guys are totally into blondes, mainly because that is more of a rarity here, but are dark-skinned, dark curly haired girls so abundant that even the gorgeous ones are stuck with mediocre partners? If that is the case, which I'm seriously entertaining the thought of, why haven't I met any on a personal level? Not that I'm looking, and not that I'm immodestly comparing myself to these two guys (I am), but come on, at least let me encounter this apparently bottomless pit of dark Jewish girls.

I think that Israeli girls are just better looking than Israeli guys. Or these guys are really good liars.

R&R For Israeli Infantry Units

2009-05-28T17:36:00.004+03:00

"You're going home for the weekend to rest. Go out and have fun.

Drink a beer or two with your friends. Share stories. Eat too

much food. Look for girls. You should feel like kings."

Everyone seems to always ask me how much time I get off from the army. I really wanted to quote what my loquacious company commander once said before letting us go for a weekend, so I figured I'd just explain this part of an infantryman's service for some context.

First of all, your typical IDF soldier gets to go home a lot. Jobnikim, non-combat soldiers, who are a vast majority of the army, can have any manner of schedule allowing them to go home often. Here are some of the schedules that typify why combat soldiers sometimes hate jobnikim:

-Shavua Shavua ("Week week") - Someone that has shavua shavua is on base for a week, and then home for a week. That's their service. Week on, week off. Week on, week off. And so on.

-Chamshushim - I don't think there's a translation for this word, but it comes from Thursday in Hebrew. Essentially, you're on every week, no whole weeks off, but you get off just about every Thursday. So, you'd be on Sunday through Wednesday, and leave early-ish on Thursday.

-Yom Yomot - You go home every day like a nine to five job. And according to one of my friends that had this, he went home well before five many, many times. Often, even. Jerks.

Those are the basic on-off schedules for jobniks, with many others either putting them on base for much more or much less, depending sometimes on their financial or family/personal circumstances. I fully understand that not everyone can have the schedule of a combat soldier, who literally puts his life into the IDF's hands.

An IDF infantry soldier lives a one-dimensional life, and that dimension is the army. During basic training I got off tons of Shabbatot (weekends, let's say), but still closed plenty on base. Advanced training, which I'm finishing now, has found me on base much more for the weekends. However, at this point we're still getting to go home about half the weekends. You could say I'm on base for two weeks, off for a weekend, on for two weeks, and so on. Generally.

(Side Note: All this depends on your company commander, I think. Another battalion in my induction class closed 21 days, got 1.5 days off, and then came back to close 28. That's brutal. Right now they're closing another 21.)

I've been told that in the battalion, once you're finished with all your training, where I'm heading now, you do 17-4. That's 17 days on base, 4 days off. To know you're doing 17 straight is pretty rough, but 4 off sounds great! That's plenty of time to have a personal life, right? I'm really looking forward to it. I mean, they get their 17 days worth of work out of you, don't think otherwise for a second, but more than our current 1.5 days off constituting a "weekend" isn't anything to sneeze at.

But, you see, nothing is really set and determined in this army. For example, I'm writing this post at home because we were given a fluke weekend off. During Israel's independence day my company go to go home for three days of the week, but my platoon was sent up north to Tzomet Golani (Golani Junction) to do guard duty and perform the ceremonies at the Golani Brigade Museum there. You can imagine that we were jealous. If you think that soldiers value meaningful ceremonies over time off... you weren't a soldier before.

Anyway, we've been talking for the last month about whether or not they were going to let us off as a sort of compensation for closing that week. I had accepted the belief that we just got the short end of the stick, and that was that, but the rest of the guys kept up the hope. Lag B'Omer, a Jewish holiday, came and went, and we stayed on base. I was beginning to forget our inequity.

But then, this past week, we went up north to do advanced urban combat training. Shavuot, another Jewish holiday, was coming up on a Thursday, and then Shabbat comes in right afterwards to make it a nice three-day weekend. All the guys got so excited with the speculation that this would be the perfect payback. So much so that our platoon commander came marching right over, yelled for quiet, and then made it clear that he wasn't happy with all this talk of going home. That's weak, you know.

"If I hear anybody talk about Shavuot, I'm giving them Shabbat on base!"

They continued talking quietly about the matter all week, trying to forget how hot it was with frag jackets and combat vests on in the blazing sun as we ran from house to house, doing drill after drill. Through thorns and randomly placed barbed wire they continued the chatter that I thought was so worthless, never letting the possibility go.

Wednesday came, and by mid-afternoon we had finished our drills. After we had packed all the gear away in the convoy truck, we threw our personal gear onto the bus and took our seats ready for the peaceful two-hour ride back to base. All of a sudden the staff sergeant burst into the front entrance and screamed for everyone to get off the bus, twenty seconds or else!

The platoon commander walked aggressively over to us, standing before our U-shaped formation. "Everyone, matsav shtayim (pushup position). NOW."

We dropped down to the dusty ground for the first time, as I thought at the moment, for probably a month. This is basic training-style punishment. I didn't have a clue what we did.

"Who didn't understand what I said?" I didn't, and thought about asking what the hell he was talking about. "The next person to talk about Shavuot, I said, would get Shabbat. Now, every time I say a word, you go down and up, one pushup. Repeat after me: WE."

"WE!" Down, up.

"WON'T"

"WON'T!" Down, up.

"ASK"

"ASK!" Down, up.

"ABOUT"

"ABOUT!" Down, up.

"SHAVUOT"

"SHAVUOT" Down, up.

"BECAUSE"

"BECAUSE!" Down, up.

"TOMORROW"

"TOMORROW!" Down, up, but at this point we all were looking around smiling.

"We're going home for the holiday!"

Everyone jumped from the pushup position to about ten feet in the air with excitement. All the commanders were standing on the side, huge smiles on their faces, and not just because of our happiness. They have girlfriends and families too, you know. The atmosphere was the lightest I'd ever seen in my 7 months of service, all for a three-day break. We still had tons of work to do to get ready to leave, but no one cared. We smiled through it all.

So, to answer the question of how much time an IDF infantryman gets off: not enough!

Almost There

2009-05-24T00:22:00.003+03:00

This is just a little short excuse of a post to tell you two things:

A) Sorry for a coming lack of posts in the next two weeks;

B) It's because this is the hardest month in an infantryman's training.

That being the case, I haven't had the time or the energy to write any new posts. Also, I'm getting off much less, so I just don't have the computer time to physically write. I have posts in my head, don't get me wrong, but I am just plain exhausted. This month has consisted and consists of the worst of the worst, a veritable hell-month. Here's the schedule.

1) "Platoon War Week" - A week of non-stop movement, fully geared up, helmet on for 23 hours a day, drill after drill after drill, two hours of sleep here and there, on and on and on. About 80 kilometers of movement in three and a half days. (Finished)

2) "Beret Masa Preparation" - The second to last masa, the last being the one where you earn the coveted brown beret of the Golani Brigade. This preparatory masa was 38 kilometers. At the end of every masa, you take out the stretchers, load them up (at first with people, now with many sand bags), and continue on. We started way back when doing 1k, then 2, on and on until this masa, which was 10k. For the last 4 or 5 of those kilometers, however, we climbed a mountain. It was literally so steep that you had to have two guys up front pulling the arms of the guys under the stretcher, and at least two behind pushing them. It was so hard for me, so awkward, and I was so exhausted pushing and pulling, that I just grabbed one of the heavy sandbags and threw it on my back, trudging up in that manner for a solid couple kilometers. (Finished)

3) "Tarpal" - Company-wide battle movements. This is the culmination of half a year of training in how to move in battle, starting at doing it alone, and ending here. This honestly is the most important thing, besides urban combat, that you learn. It also sucked, physically, considering you're charging mountains. (Finished)

4) Advanced urban combat training. Self explanatory, no? (This week)

5) Company War Week - The hardest thing an infantry soldier will ever do in training. It's like the platoon war week, except that you go about 120 kilometers, and of course it's company-wide, making it all the more complicated. (Next week)

6) "Masa Kumta" - Beret masa. (First week of June)

OK???!!!!

Swapping War Stories

2009-05-20T21:51:00.002+03:00

(Knowing that I wasn't even going to have a post this week, I typed this up on my phone and am posting it here. I hope it's satisfactory enough. The event itself was extremely impacting.)

Today a former company commander in my battalion came to tell us about the Second Lebanon War. My company commander was a platoon commander of his at the time. He's currently studying in university, and then he's going to return to a prestigious assignment in the army. Officers often do this.

He started talking and was telling a story of his company going to capture a village in south Lebanon. I looked at my comp. commander, who was sitting on the ground with the rest of us. His face was illuminated with no small amount of respect and reverance. Here was his old commander that led him into battle, a very dimunitive guy, and my beefy comp. commander looked mesmerized! It was hard to believe, at least until I heard the story of the battle.

I guess I can't really write any of this, for one because I'm no war journalist, and secondly because you really can only hear it from the guy who lived it.

In short, it was a story of relentless gunfire and confusion. Being pinned down and using countless smoke grenades to move just meters. Numerous RPG attacks from Hizbullah, and combat helicopter strikes on our part. Observations on the unbelievable speed of passing time in combat. And even Fear and the loss of a friend. This last topic was terrible, and he told the story indepth with misty eyes. Can you imagine?

The craziest thing he said? While approaching a house, in crouching position, he heard an airy wsssh over his head and to his right. An RPG went right over his head, and another almost hit the guy's leg next to him. He turned around and watched them explode. Minutes later, an RPG struck in between him and a commander as they were snaking along a house. It hit one meter from him. One meter. No injuries.

I sat there and couldn't help but absorb his knowing words:

"Guys, war is not what you see in movies. It's not like some Bruce Willis killing half the world."

He ended on a positive note, praising our comp. commander, praising what he heard of our hard work, and so on. He straight out talked for a couple minutes about how there aren't any better people than us in the land, because people aren't ready to give of themselves like Golanchikim. We live in a "me society," he claims. Golanchikim are still willing and desirous of the highest service.

I tried not to buy into the propaganda, but when you're faced with the reality of what he described, that reality being the same combat I could find myself in someday, you need some blind feeling of strength. You have to believe in yourself, even if it's of the corny, hyped-up variety.

What'd I take from this speech? War is scary, there is no glory in it, but if it's a necessary one, faith in your comrades, yourself, and your mission can sustain you.

Sweating Bullets

2009-05-18T16:54:00.000+03:00

It's so hot out right now that they keep giving us 20 minute breaks to cool down. I think I underestimated the Middle Eastern summer in uniform.

How do those guys in the infinitely hotter Iraqi desert do it?

Hanging Out At The Bank

2009-05-17T18:26:00.006+03:00

During Pesach (Passover) our unit was sent into the West Bank to guard various Jewish settlements found near Arab towns and cities. I was stationed with a handful of guys on top of a mountain at a highly religious community built by students of the famous Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva. On the hill across from us was Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority.

It was an awesome week. To start off, a large army supply truck made its way up the road to the trailer we were stationed in and dropped off a new refrigerator, two microwaves (milk and meat based, for kosher reasons), and enough food to feed me alone for a couple months. Here's the fridge section, full of cheeses, yogurts, chocolate milk sacks, only a small selection of the fruits and vegetables we got by the crates, eggs, a whole chicken pre-cooked, packaged deli meats and sausages, hummus, and typical Israeli stuff like matbucha.

And here's the fridge, packed with pre-cooked breaded chicken breasts (schnitzelim), hamburger patties, and dozens of hot dogs.

Better than all the food was the lax commander assigned to our group. Upon arrival and after settling in, we had a meeting where he told us the plan for the week, which included running every day, practicing shooting positions and gun jams (which suck and are totally necessary and we do every day and always involve crawling on unhappy surfaces), educational lessons on the area, and of course the point of being there, guarding the village.

Well, we ended up running every day, but his pace was so ridiculously slow that I probably could have walked briskly and been at the front. Our educational lessons lasted about five minutes before we started asking all about his four months of guarding in Nablus, a topic he gets particularly animated about, since it's his lone 'combat' experience. We heard some great stories, so that was fun. And the shooting positions and gun jam practices, and the inevitable crawling? Not even for a second.

The week was full of a blasting iPod in a portable jukebox, jubilant storytelling, delicious food brought by the family of a kid who lives nearby, a day of outdoor grilling, sleeping to your heart's content (a major rarity these days), reading, drinking instant coffee, and of course, guard duty at all hours of the day and night. The guarding was great for me, mainly because this village, as I said, was on the top of a mountain. You could literally see from Gaza, to Tel Aviv and the shimmering sea, all the way up to Mount Carmel of Haifa in the north! All this from the eastern portion of the country.

It really was a breathtaking place, tragically quiet and peaceful and beautiful. The hills were green and gently sloping, the trees spread fully with the end of the rainy season, and the residents, despite their obvious ambivalence towards a group of mainly secular kid-soldiers, were kind enough and smiled if smiled at. I personally had a great time playing with the ineluctable profusion of young children.

And maybe the best part? I thoroughly destroyed the political ideology of my very smart, very well-educated, social elite, politically aspiring guarding buddy in the course of a two hour shift in the middle of the night. I threw around all the fancy theories and scholars I could remember from countless readings I hardly did for classes I begrudgingly attended. To my great surprise and joy, he slumped down with a defeated whimper, declaring that he was now utterly confused. Victory. William & Mary Government Department: 1.

Worst part of the week? See for yourself.

Bottled gefilte fish

But seriously though, this village is absolutely one of those outposts that the international community is condemning for its very existence. I won't make any political comments, but I can say that I felt quite strange feeling so peaceful in such a controversial place. From our village we could see the lay of the land: Arab village on one hill, Jewish village on the next. On one hand it doesn't make sense why this is a problem. These residents live quiet, religious lives inside their self-imposed gates, not interacting at all with neighboring Arab populations. On the other hand, I'm a realist and I know that the tension in the air isn't superficial. There is a history of violence going back nearly a hundred years between some of these very communities.

But when you're there, just enjoying a tranquil day looking out at the orange sun disappearing into the sparkling Mediterranean, all that senseless violence between neighbors seems too remote to consider. It's just not what's on your mind. Why should it be? It doesn't make sense there. There's tons of space, that I can say confidently. Nothing is moving and the only sound you hear is the muezzin five short times a day.

Honestly, I don't know if that community will be there for the long run, but those people are building real lives there. I enjoyed my stay...

IDF Jackets

2009-05-13T21:12:00.003+03:00

What is a simple fleece jacket? You can buy a North Face one for $150. Walk across the street into Old Navy and pick one up for $20. I remember early in high school when fleeces became really popular, and everyone had one, including me. In fact, I had a couple.

But among all the stupid little things you have to earn in the army, among which another couple posts are to be made, probably the most practical is your fleece. Especially prominent among infantry units, the IDF gets their soldiers double layered, green/gray outside, black inside, soft fleeces meant for winter. Typically there is a logo on the front breast of the brigade's symbol, battalion number and name, and the induction class.

For many months I hoped and prayed that our fleeces would be this awesome gray shade that the August 2008 guys from my battalion got. More so than praying for that gray, I silently begged fate to not give us the November 2007 bland dark olive green that some of our commanders had. I would've been happy as a pig in you know what to get anything with a Golani tree slapped on the front, but sometimes beggers find themselves choosing.

Fate, or more likely our RASAP (a combat commander doing logistics), made a compromise that suited me just fine. After our brutal 28k masa, our staff sergeant called us to the center of the barrack's plaza to receive our reward. I watched with open mouth as one by one the guys went in order and took in their hands yet another piece of integration into the IDF and State of Israel. Finally they too had a fleece with a combat unit's insignia on it, rising them just one notch above the dreaded status of young, or green.

Unfortunately, we didn't get the gray I was hoping for, but ours are a much lighter and easier on the eyes shade of green than those Nov '07 guys. Most importantly, our fleeces are thicker, fuller, fluffier, and less scraggly looking. The cuffs are broad and bulky. In short, they're not only prettier, but also warmer. As the guys would say, they've got more wahsach (pimped-out factor).

The downside is that the print on the front doesn't have our induction class month and year on it, as most of these things have. At this point, considering we are very 'young' in the army, it's actually something that many of the guys were happy about, not wanting to shout their undesired status every time they point on the fleece. But in two years when they're still wearing these...

By any account, I'm very happy with it all. And the cherry on the top? My staff sergeant was uncharacteristically nice to me when he handed me mine, assuring me three times that he got me one of the half a dozen or so extra larges available, despite there being other big guys in the company who would be getting larges. He even went so far as to show me the peel-away sticker tag, as if I didn't believe him.

Can't you see my joy in that picture?

Junk Food Helps

2009-05-09T07:21:00.002+03:00

Lately I've been getting an inordinate amount of emails from guys in America looking to join the army before, during, or after college. I suppose they search the net to see what it's like in the IDF, find my blog, and want to ask their questions. I can understand that. If I would have found a blog like mine two years ago, I think the author would've had to end up blocking my emails! I would've driven him crazy.

And so, I've been finding myself lately thinking of all the advice I'd like to give to anyone considering the army. Sometimes I think I should tell them to not worry about getting in shape before joining, since you're going to be forced to push yourself past your limits anyway. But to counter that, I then realize that running and pushups and the like might help relieve the stress and anxiety inherent in such an adventure.

I think about advice for the language, the culture, the work ethic. I think about advice on shoe inserts, socks, and even what type of underwear is best for long marches. I mean, the last thing you want is a wedgie for a 25-mile march.

But then I realize that the only real advice I should give is the one bit that I have fully learned to take to heart myself. And here's the gem of wisdom I have to bestow:

On your time off, eat like a pig.

Three weeks ago I was stationed way up north, basically on the Israel-Lebanon border, and for some reason I found myself longing ravenously for all the food in the world except for the battle rations we were eating. For some reason, tuna and corn wasn't cutting it for me. Every second of guard duty was spent dreaming of hamburgers and soda and Red Bull and on and on, ad infinitum. I knew I was going home for the weekend, and I made a shopping list of what to get.

And true to form, I did just that. In a daze I got off the 440 bus from Tel Aviv into Jerusalem, went to my apartment, changed, and then headed straight for the grocery store. I decided to walk the 20 minute route to the supermarket in Talpiyot in order to really build up the anticipation of a great gorge fest. As I started walking I could feel a change come over me. My aches and pains, the stiffness of my legs and back all dissapeared. Slowly my cognizance was retreating. Images of glorious calories and smiling tastebuds crowded my vision. I was now on a mission, a blind mission, like some drunken traveler in need of shelter. I was now a zombie for comfort food.

This zombie plodded down Emek Refaim Street, and without intention or plan he found a Holy Bagel shop. He shoved a piece of paper across the counter and mumbled that he wanted two everything bagels with cream cheese. And then he realized he needed something to drink.

"XXXL ice coffees are only 14 shekels," the bagel guy said.

The bagel guy could just tell the affirmative answer by the drool running down the strange customer's chin and the blank, zombie stare in his bleary eyes. "Give me milkshake coffee," this zombie-soldier intimated. He sat outside and scarfed down the unplanned and unnecessary meal, enjoying the little slice of Americana while it lasted. Two bagels don't last too long around a zombie-soldier after two weeks of urban combat training, you know.

And he was on the move again. Nearing closer to the supermarket, he happened to spot a Burgers Bar. The mid-level chain hamburger joint is a favorite of a meat-deficient zombie, and he has often been known to dream of it at 4am while staring out at silent, green fields, shifting the weight of his combat vest, wondering when he'll be home again to eat such delicacies. Again without intention, the zombie stumbled into the shop and threw his arms on the counter.

"350 grams, burger!" he blurted.

"Ugh," the cute worker mumbled to her manager, "another Golanchik home for Shabbat."

Once the hamburger was ready, the zombie-soldier ambled with his tray to a nearby table. Ketchup squirted from the bottle of Heinz messily across the fries and onion rings ordered on the side. Only minutes later, the last bite was taken, hardly chewed, and swallowed nearly whole. The zombie soldier gazed blankly, saw no more food that he wanted at Burgers Bar, and rose ungracefully from his seat due to a slowly expanding belly. Forward to the SuperSol, he marched.

Not wanting the security guard to slow him down with a routine search for weapons, the zombie flashed his military ID and brushed past the pre-Shabbat line crowding the entrance to the large, fully-stocked grocery store. He hastily made his way past the exiting customers, past the cashiers and rows of shoppers waiting to unload carts. Without warning he stopped dead in his tracks. As if a bright beam of Heavenly light blinded him, he instinctively threw his forearm before his face to block the overwhelming radiance shining forth. The zombie squinted to dampen the inundating luminescence. Struggling to identify this unexpected glow, he screwed up his eyes and peered out through his fingers.

It was the holy grail itself. He stood before all the aisles of food known to man, packaged handsomely and sitting invitingly on neat shelves. It was as if they stretched as far as the eye could see, from floor to ceiling. His gaze fell from aisle to aisle, row to row, vainly trying to spy the end of this unreality. Only hours before he was in the army, longing for this moment like a man stranded on a desert island. And now he stands, a free man for a weekend, a zombie overcome with a desire to dine.

Ambling through the Garden of Eden, he plucked any treat or delicacy from the various trees that caught his eye. Frozen pizza, Doritos, sugary cereal, and sour gummy worms. Corn dogs, Pringles, Coca-Cola, and flavored yogurts. Chocolate chip cookies, pita and hummus, and pre-stuffed raviolis.

And then the loaded zombie, who forgot to grab a shopping cart and was too engaged to return to the front, arms full of his precious goods, chanced upon a beam of light shooting forth from the dairy section. As if divine inspiration had settled upon him, the zombie found the final missing key.

Chocolate milk

I'm Working On It

2009-05-08T13:25:00.003+03:00

I apologize for the lack of posts of late. If you thought that tax season, or finals in a tough academic college, or a bad relationship were stressful, you'd never believe what the last month of advanced training is like for an IDF infantry soldier. Proof is in the pudding: I can barely walk at the moment, and I'm not even injured.

At least I have the ideas for what I'm going to write! Let's just hope I can muster the strength.

Crazy Eyes At His Best

2009-05-03T12:45:00.000+03:00

I promised myself that I wouldn't talk about basic this long after it, and also that I would let my old commander, Yonni (Crazy Eyes), leave the blog gracefully. But, during guard duty at 3am the other night I was talking with the guy who was posted with me and we got to the topic of that old commander. We shared our favorite stories, commiserated a little, and then he explained to me something that I wondered about a long time ago.

You see, Crazy Eyes and all the other guys tend to do things that just seem ridiculous. Every time it happens, I'm pretty sure there must be a reason and that I'm just missing it. Well, this was one thing that I definitely didn't understand, and there was a reason. I've said a few times that the commanders like to have fun with us, and all the more so when they think they're attacking weakness. Here's the best example I can give:

One normal day at the shooting range a kid named Liav complained about a pain in his knee. The day before, Liav had received a sheet of paper which stated that he had permission to not put too much stress on the knee. So, during a long break in shooting where we had to stand in formation without moving, without talking, Liav raised his hand and said that he needed to sit down.

"Yonni," Liav called out, "I need to sit down. My knee hurts."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I have permission from the medic."

Walking over to Liav, Yonni put his hand out and asked for the bettim permission.

Reading out the sheet, Yonni said in a clear, declaratory voice, "Liav has permission to sit for 10 minutes out of every hour." Yonni handed the sheet back to Liav, and turned around with his head down. He walked back inside the shooting range concrete shelter, and we all heard the staff sergeant's gearbox open and close. A few seconds later Yonni walked out with a smile on his face. A sly smile.

A piece of rope was in his hand. He pointed to a rock the size of a volleyball. Liav went over to the rock as instructed, strained to pick it up, and then huddled back to Crazy Eyes with the weight between his legs.

"Liav," Crazy Eyes began. "You'll get your sitting break every hour, but you're going to earn it." He then proceeded to tie the heavy stone to the back of Liav's vest, where he carried it from the rest of the day.

It was pretty much the funniest day ever.

2009-05-01T10:03:00.000+03:00

Happy birthday, Mom!

A VERY Big Gun

2009-04-28T13:24:00.010+03:00

All my life I heard from my great-uncle about his time during World War Two onboard a PT boat. PT boats were smaller, high speed and heavily armed ships meant to quickly attack larger ships. They were cheaper, easier to navigate, and easier to produce than larger ships, and so they were given quite a bit of action in that war. For example, PT-41 was used to rescue MacArthur. JFK became a legend because of his service on a PT boat.

Besides being amazed at stories of their prodigious speed, and his servicing the triple 12-cylinder, nearly 2,000 horsepower engines (the fastest Ferrari has 650hp, and your average car probably has 150hp or even less), my uncle was very fond of mystifying the "twin fifties." The twin fifties were the 50 caliber Browning M2 machine guns. The M2 is one of the world's most widely used American weapons. Developed during WW1, the Browning is a heavy machine gun that has to be mounted on some type of vehicle.

When I say "heavy" machine gun, I do mean heavy. First of all, it weighs an ungodly 130 pounds. Secondly, it can be used as an anti-aircraft weapon. Finally, it fires a .50 caliber round. Here's a comparison picture from another blog, showing the bullet:

It's on the far left. My Tavor, and the M16, shoots the one

second to the right.

OK, now that you have an idea of just how huge and powerful and scary and "heavy" the Browning Machine Gun is, let me tell you why I'm talking about it anyway. Earlier this month we were at a training base where you learn all about heavy weaponry. One of those heavy weapons was the Browning .50, which is a key tool in any modern army. I'm not giving away any secrets whatsoever when I say I was drooling over the .50s mounted on tops of Hummers and APCs and the like.

IDF guys firing the M2 Browning .50 cal (wiki)

You see, all my life I always thought about the army, in some way or another. My great-uncle the PT sailor, and especially my grandfather, a POW lead B-24 bombardier in WW2, incessantly told me stories about their experiences. My childhood was shaped by the notion that the army is, in some way, what great men do. Grandpa Brothers was a hero to me, a man who owned life and did with it as he wanted, and his war stories are easily the thing I remember best of my childhood. My great-uncle and his stories of all-out combat on the high seas were right up there too.

So many of those stories were centered around heavy firepower, too. The twin fifties. And now all of a sudden I find myself in an army, beyond all expectations, and here I am, lugging around the very same machine gun that was the protagonist of some of my favorite childhood stories! I realize it may seem terrible to glorify a vicious tool of war, but one can't help the fantasies of youth creeping into the reality of adulthood.

So as I struggled to move this behemoth block of steel from one area of the base to another, I was magically transported to the Pacific Ocean, blowing diving kamikazes out of sky, shooting down German Messerschmitts, and strafing Nazi airfields. I guess it felt kind of good to feel like an "army man," as I envisioned those that dealt with tools like these. I think I felt a little bit like my heroes.

But then again, would I have the guts to do what they did? I really don't think so. They were a part of the greatest generation, and their use of such machinery was spurred by a true quest for freedom against tyranny.

But to feel like your heroes, even for a moment...

I will refrain from posting pictures that might exist of the author with said machine gun.

Google Search: Israeli Army

2009-04-25T19:50:00.000+03:00

Looking to see where Israeli By Day stands under a Google search for the keywords "Israeli army," I was surprised to see the Google Images return, which happens to be at the top of the page. As of me doing this search, March 28th, those few select images aren't of dead Palestinians, or Gaza on fire, or soldiers seemingly pointing a gun at a child.

Instead, they are of hot IDF female soldiers. Is that what you see? Here's the link.

Almost as strange as the keywords by which someone found Israeli by Day. Pretty sure it was one guy:

As a matter of fact, I've also questioned whether the
hummus has anything to do with Israeli girls'
physical...er...build.

Good luck my anonymous American visitor...

"Breaking Distance" With The M"M (Platoon Commander)

2009-04-21T19:44:00.002+03:00

Near the end of shavua machlaka (platoon week), where you do drills taking an open field as an entire platoon, our platoon commander opened up to us and “broke distance.” I suppose I have a few things to explain here.

1) Shavua Machlaka is the product of a few other weeks. Essentially, infantrymen have the role of battling in fields and mountains and forests, and that mode of combat involves a very specific set of movements. Field movements, I guess it’d be called. As such, you have to build up from doing those live-fire drills alone, all the way to doing it as an entire company. The platoon week is the last week of this training before company-wide movements. In short, it’s tough and complicated. The platoon commander leads it all.

2) A platoon commander is your second lieutenant (the lowest rank of a commissioned officer). Since he’s a CO, there is major ‘distance’ between him and the soldiers.

3) “Distance” is emotional and personal space between you and the commanders. For example, you call them by their role and not their name, which you officially don’t even know (“Attention, Commander!”). At first you can’t even say things like “good morning” to your squad commanders. Et cetera.

So, now that you have a little background, I can explain to you the importance of our platoon commander (M”M from now on) breaking distance.

After making us sprint to a tree in the distance for seemingly no reason, an activity typically reserved for punishment, the M”M and staff sergeant had us sit down in the shade on the side of a dirt road. After smiling and rubbing his beard, a trait we’ve mimicked secretly to great laughter, the M”M began to speak.

“It’s come the time to break distance with you all. We’re getting close to the end of our time together, and you should know my name and where I’m from. My name is Noam, and I’m from Netanya.

Any questions?”

I looked around to see if anyone would have the guts to ask something really personal, and I was happy to see everyone smiling, nervously, right along with the M”M.

“Do you have any siblings?”

The M”M rubbed his face again, and glanced over at a guy from my squad.

“Shmuel,” he said, “you probably know it all. You’re not allowed to talk right now.”

Shmuel had told me all about the M”M’s sister, who was in his grade. It’s a small enough country that many of the kids had some type of knowledge of our commanders, in some way, before or during the training. From Shmuel, I knew that the M”M had a sister who happened to look exactly like him... in a bad way.

“Any other questions,” the M”M asked.

Shachar, a small Russian kid, raised his hand and asked, “I heard you were in Oketz at first.”

“Dog breeders? No way! Golani, kavod. Respect.”

At this point the M”M shut down the conversation, with many questions left unanswered. Because we like him so much, we wanted to know everything. But, instead, “breaking distance” was limited to name and hometown.

Noam from Netanya. That’s it.

It wasn’t much, but do you have any idea how strange it is to actually call this officer by his first name? We’ve spent so many months being on our best behavior around him, even after being total jerks towards and around our squad commanders. The second the platoon commander walks in, it’s like we’re different people. We sit straight in our chairs, or straighten our shirts, and make sure hundreds of other details are in order. When you respect and fear an authority, it can change your whole act.

But now all of a sudden he is Noam. Still an authority figure, but Noam none the less.

“Hey Noam,” we ask, “Am I doing this right?”

“Yeah, Danny, that’s ok.”

Strange.

And what’s even better is that just a few days ago we finished a week of being split up into separate groups, where the M”M was in a town away from my group. After we all met back up, there was lots of backslapping and sharing stories. I guess we kinda missed each other. I saw the M”M, and I kinda missed him.

So as I found him standing next to me waiting to get on the bus, I asked him how his week was. That’s pushing the buttons on the whole “distance” thing. He gave his typical smile, a restrained affair because of his rank where he looks to the side, maybe puts his hand over his mouth to cover it, and then gives you a short little answer.

“Good,” he smiled to me sideways. And then he slapped me on the back quickly and walked away, crooked grin and all. I wish I had the creative talent to describe his movie-quality deep voice, awkward beard stroking, and a signature smile I can only pathetically describe as enthusiastically 'restrained.'

You just have to see it. I guess you just kinda have to be there to know what I mean. Let’s say that this whole army experience isn’t what you see in movies, with stiff-lipped commanders who seemingly aren’t even human. Instead, your CO might just smile nervously too!

Taking Orders From Real Youngsters

2009-04-17T18:09:00.000+03:00

In a post from early March, soon after the start of Advanced Training, I talked about my unit losing one of our commanders. You can read it here. In short, he was tough but great, and I miss him very much. He was just about as veteran as they get within the three-year compulsory service, and even had a Lebanon War pin on his chest - he was in training still, but helped in logistics during the war, as did all the non-combat ready infantrymen.

And as Commander Crazy Eyes left, as I called him, he was replaced, as well as another veteran commander that left, with two guys from the November 2007 draft. Now, remember, I am from the November 2008 draft. That means these guys have been in the army for just one year more than me. Basically, they finished their training and then went straight to my group. They did half of kav (border guard duty), and then went to the commander course. Now they're leading us.

Don't get me wrong, these guys know what they are doing. They obviously know the army well, know what they're teaching, know the weapons and battle tactics we learn - all of it. They are good guys, I really do like them. One of them seems very smart, even though he is pretty meatheadish, so that's interesting to see. The other is obviously very in love with his girlfriend, so I like to pick on him when he's secretly texting her all day long. Truthfully, I got two good guys.

But having Crazy Eyes telling me what to do, and bossing me around, was something I could deal with. He was drafted way back in 2006, before I even knew if I wanted to move to Israel, much less do the army. In fact, and don't tell anyone in Golani this, but if you asked me then what I would do in the IDF, I would have said the spokesman unit!

The true mark of a 'veteran' currently in the army is whether or not he was drafted in 2006. Crazy Eyes was, and he really is a veteran. These new guys, on the other hand, are truly kids. How young are they? Let's put it this way: If I wanted to, I could have been in their induction class. In my book, that means you're tzair (young - green). So, when they give me five minutes to do this or that, I can't help but grumble to myself and give them the evil eye. I think, "Hey! Kid! Respect your elders!"

I guess I just trusted Crazy Eyes more. I listened to him as an authority figure. When I looked at him, I saw someone with experience and perspective. When I look at the new guys, I see two people who just happened to go to the army before me. That's a big difference when you realize that they are literally running your life.

These are the moments where you notice your age in the army, and all of a sudden 24 years old is old man age. But, as I said, at least they know what they're doing.

Here's old Crazy Eyes himself nonchalantly dishing out some pushup punishment:

I wish I could show the kid's face. He was smiling. Sometimes
Crazy Eyes would have fun with us, and we knew it. If you zoom
in you can see his Lebanon War pin.

Clarification Of Previous Post

2009-04-14T11:14:00.000+03:00

I feel like I need to clarify my previous post. I talked about being tired of training, essentially, but I didn’t mean that exactly. What I mean is that I am so excited and mentally prepared to finally get into the meat of this IDF matter that still being on a training base is kinda getting me down.

Don’t worry, I’m not upset or depressed or sad or disappointed. Everyone has to put in their time. I’m really not tired of the training, either. How could you be tired of jumping out of a moving armored personnel carrier while the machine gunner lays down heavy automatic cover fire? It doesn’t get much better than that, and besides actual war, that kind of experience is limited to your training cycle.

And moreover, I just heard from a very reliable source that our tekes kumta, or beret ceremony, which marks the end of our training base phase and off we go to the real deal, is going to be held on June 10th. Take a look at your calendar.

The hardest is still in front of me, in terms of training, but the timeframe is looking better every day. It's all about perspective.

Still Waiting For Something Real

2009-04-13T14:35:00.002+03:00

Maybe this is premature of me to say, but I'm feeling a bit stymied in my motivations in the IDF. The training done on base, and in the field, before you do anything remotely real is six months. In terms of armies, I don't think that's abnormally long at all to change a civilian into a professional soldier. But, for me, it's seeming to take years, not months.

I'll be honest with you. Before I was drafted, I don't think I really considered just how long and intense the training for infantry is. I thought of what it meant to be in combat, to do checkpoint duty, raids in the West Bank, arrest operations, border duty, and so on. I didn't think about the masaot, or the obstacle course, or the massive company-wide attack drills. I didn't consider the months and months of having to use my stopwatch to time my every action.

The way the army system works is that when you are entering one phase of your training, the group previous to you is entering the next phase. Pretty common sense. So, I'm in the November induction class, which is now in Advanced Training, and the previous draft, August, is now doing border duty (kav). Golani's kav is a certain sandy locale, right now.

I tried very hard to get into the August draft with a friend of mine from ulpan (intensive Hebrew course), but the army didn't take me. That draft date is commonly packed, and so due to having too many people, they delayed me to November. I was pretty disappointed to not go into Golani with him, but I figured it all had a purpose. Well, we both ended up in the same battalion and everything (12 - Barak), so it has been great having him tell me about what I'm about to do before I do it.

Why am I talking about this all of a sudden? As I said, Golani is guarding a contentious zone right now, and that means my buddy is there too. Recently I talked to him for quite a while, asking all my questions about Advanced and kav, and him telling me what it's like being out there. During a pause in the conversation, after him telling me about a certain stake-out he was in, I had an unexpected rush of admiration for him. I told him that "he had finished all the crap, did all the masaot, ate the dirt... and now he has his brown beret and is finally doing what he came to do." He accepted my compliment, and told me to stay strong and I'll be there before I know it.

And that's just the point. I came to the army to be where he is, to guard Israel's borders, even if that means being in some pretty scary places. I just can't wait to get this training over with and do something. I feel sometimes like I'm just waiting. During college I felt an intense feeling that I was waiting for something to happen, waiting to do something... and that's probably just one reason why I decided to move to Israel and join the IDF.

I mean, being in a constantly engaged army like the Israel Defense Force is doing something, right? I know I have to do this training, and as I say to my friends in my unit, "I'm ready in my head and heart, not my body." But that doesn't mean it isn't hard knowing that my buddy is out there actively defending Israel, and I'm still on base.

Two and a half more months...

Druze/Beduin Soldiers In The IDF

2009-04-09T16:32:00.004+03:00

While down south at a training base for all infantry units, I sat down to eat dinner in the dining hall next to some guys from Givati. Givati is one of the few infantry brigades, and on my list of the best brigades, I'd rank it number two. It was my number two choice, but that's like someone saying Yale is their #2. It's an awesome unit.

One of the reasons I love Givati is because it is, as far as I can tell, the place that many or most of the Druze and Beduins serving in infantry go. If you don't know, Druze is a religion that branched off from Islam a thousand years ago, they speak Arabic, and they have an Arab culture. Their ethnic makeup is varied and complex, and I'm certainly no expert. An unknowing observer would, however, probably just classify them as Arab.

That being said, there are over 100,000 Druzeim living in Israel. The majority of these residents are full citizens of the State of Israel, a fact which is based on a tenet of their religion (so I've been told) saying they must give support to the country in which they live. Furthermore, being that they are citizens, boys that reach 18 years of age are automatically conscripted into the IDF.

The Beduins have a similar story in that they are Arab, or essentially Arab, and many of them are found in the IDF among the regular Jewish makeup.

So, as I was saying, I sat down to dinner next to some Givati guys. Dinner happens around 6pm, and after waking up at 5am every day, I'm generally exhausted by this time. I didn't notice until I heard a strange language that I was sitting next to five Druze infantrymen. I listened intently to their conversation, not understanding a word, but trying very hard to hear their unique accent. They speak Arabic, but there is a clear difference between their version and the Palestinian one.

I wish that I could tell you that I struck up a conversation with them and asked them all about their lives, where they live, what their families do, what they think of this or that political situation, if they were in Gaza and what was it like to fight their co-nationalists, and on and on. But, I saw how happy they were, chattering away, laughing with full mouths of food, obviously teasing one of their friends but then telling him they loved him, just being kids and having a good time at it; I saw all that and didn't want to interrupt.

I sat quietly next to them, eating my mashed potatoes, and glanced at their faces and then the IDF symbol on their chests. Purple berets sat naturally on their shoulders. The new Tavor assault rifle rested on their laps. They are very much not Jews, but these young men are Israeli warriors, fighting for our shared vision of freedom and peace for all the residents of this country - Arab and Jew alike.

My admiration for the Druze and Beduin serving in the IDF, especially those that volunteer for combat units, knows no bounds. These are people that could easily get out of doing anything dangerous, and in my speculation could get out of serving at all. I've also read that not a few of them face discrimination or backlash from their communities for serving in these units, especially considering that "combat" means engaging Arab targets.

I was sitting next to young men who know what it means to sacrifice for something greater than themselves. My entire journey to the IDF is one of ideology, a desire to contribute to the security of this state. And here are boys who no one expects to do any such thing - and yet they serve with great pride.

What I'm trying to say is that my 30 minutes sitting next to five Druze soldiers from Givati was more meaningful to me than all the ceremonies I've had, the times I've sung the national anthem in uniform, and inspirational speeches combined. What this really reveals about me, in my own opinion, is that I truly want peace for Israel. I don't care who fights for that peace, as long as there are young men and women out there who are willing to give everything for it. And to see Druze and Beduin soldiers giving themselves for peace only inspires hope.

Because, after all, they don't have to fight for that peace! No one is attacking the Druze. They can sit back and just live in the land they've lived in for a thousand years. No one is going to push them out, or target their children, or blow up their villages. Why would they?

And yet, they fight for peace. I felt pretty good sitting next to those Druzeim that night. I wouldn't mind serving next to them no matter where I find myself in the field. And maybe all this is pretty naive, but I noticed my Jewish Israeli co-fighters displaying the same respect for these non-Jewish protectors of our state.

Yet Another Masa Post - Bear With Me

2009-04-06T20:54:00.002+03:00

(Believe it or not, those are black/gray socks. They were muddy and soaked and worthless, pushed down around my toes)

I once complained to a friend who was finishing advanced training, while I was in basic, that our double digit kilometer masa (big long hike with full gear) was torturous. He said to me, "Wait 'till you do one in the twenties. That's when they get hard." At the time I realized that 20 some kilometers would be murderous, but our 12k was still painful enough.

Well, now that we've done our first masa of advanced training, 21k, I can tell you just how right he was. The two other platoons in my company all did the hike two days before, and seeing them all limp around and talk wildly about the water-filled muddy trail was disheartening. Everyone told the same story, of the 'rivers' you had to run through every half-kilometer, instantly being soaked from the waist down. 21k with soaked legs and shoes and socks.

My group didn't start the hike until after Shabbat at about 10pm, so thankfully I had that free day to rest up. A solid 45 minutes into the hike I was still waiting for the rivers. It hadn't rained for two days, so I figured that maybe all that water had dried up and we would luckily avoid the unnecessary obstacle. But, as luck has it, I too had the joy of encountering slippery conditions.

Just before our first break at the end of the first hour, we had to jump off a section of the trail that was washed away by the week's downpours. We jumped right off into a stream that went up to my calves, with freezing cold water instantly stinging my toes deep inside my otherwise water-proof boots. I tried not to think about it, but during our little break I couldn't help but wonder how in the hell I'd get through another few hours like that.

If I only knew. At the end of each hour you have a very short break, a necessary cooling down and hydration time, and it also serves as an extra gear swap. We have to carry stretchers and water packs, a few to each platoon, so that extra weight has to be switched around. As I've written about in that above linked-to post, the water pack is by far the worst of all the gear, so no one really wants to grab it. I take it for about an hour on each hike, though, a fact I always dread.

So, at the start of the second hour I was strapped up with the water pack. Stupid. It turned out to be the worst section of the hike, with all the uphill parts of the road. I am quickly realizing while writing about these physical tests that I just don't know how to explain them to anyone. How can I write here in this blog and tell you what it felt like at 50 minutes, knowing that another break was just 10 minutes away, to see a massive uphill stretch in front of me, with an unbearably heavy pack on my back?

I can't! Add to that already impossible scenario the fact that I had just fallen twice on each shoulder and elbow, hard, because of the constantly muddied road that was really just uneven trenches from the Jeep driving in front of us. I am writing this post three weeks after the hike, and both my elbows still hurt. Essentially, my legs were going one way, my upper body another, and the water pack a third. The mud was unbearable. I was doomed.

My watch clean

After the masa. If you can see, note the hour

But, like all things, the second section passed and so did the water pack. The trail dried up a bit, the knee-deep water became something I looked forward to since I felt like I was burning up at about 120º, and finally we opened up the stretches with 5k to go. We struggled mightily with our light machine gunner and his full combat vest with Rambo-esque ammo belts on one stretcher, but we finished. We did it, though it wasn't pretty. Despite serious cramping in my legs during the last hour, I finished strong.

It was past two in the morning, we hiked for four hours, but we did it. You know how bad it was? The next day, even the platoon commander, who leads these things, was limping. And check out my friend's heel. Both of them were like this:

I guess I kinda made it out OK! Until the next one...

Haaretz Article On Yours Truly

2009-04-05T06:51:00.002+03:00

Israeli By Day has caught the attention of a journalist from one of Israel's leading newspapers, Haaretz (The Land). Raphael Ahren contacted me some time ago about interviewing me for the Anglo File section of the English version of the paper, and I excitedly agreed. It turned out to be more of a struggle than I realized, being interviewed properly and what not, but eventually we wrapped it up.

Here is a link to the Haaretz article on the net.

And if I may, I'll post the article again here:

American blogger shares insider angle on IDF service

By Raphael Ahren

Serving in an elite combat unit makes moments of respite both brief and precious, yet Danny Brothers, an American immigrant, devotes most of his free time to his blog. In "Israeli by Day, American by Night," Brothers writes about throwing grenades and breathing in tear gas as part of his training, but also describes what it's like to celebrate holidays in the army or to miss a commander. Lengthy explanations about the brigade's inner workings take turns with tidbits about "memorable moments," such as the time a commander barked at a soldier: "Tuck in your shirt and straighten your uniform like an officer in the German army!"

Although Brothers, who immigrated at age 24 in September 2007, only had to do six months of compulsory service, he volunteered for a year and half so he could enter the Golani Brigade. He soon came to the conclusion that Anglo servicemen are much less grumpy than their native Israeli counterparts.

"It may sound weird, but I am surprised at how much these kids complain," Brothers told Anglo File about his comrades in the IDF's premier infantry unit. "I thought Israelis were supposed to be tough, that they never showed weakness. Well, all they do is complain. We work hard, don't get me wrong, but not before trudging through some whining and requesting exemptions for this and that. I feel like the Anglos are much more willing to just shut up and moan inside, as I do all the time. You think I like crawling through thorns? No, of course not, but I didn't come 7,000 miles to get out of the army experience. The Anglos are generally the most motivated group, in my estimation."

Comparing draftees with ideologically-driven volunteers may be problematic, but Brothers is used to saying things on his blog exactly the way he sees them, without always analyzing the deeper context. Right after he completed basic training, for example, he wrote: "Do you have any idea how relieved I am to be done with the high-level discipline crap?"

Brothers grew up in rural Virginia. He graduated from William & Mary in 2007 and was on his way to law school when he came to New York for some interviews and sat down for lunch with a friend's father. During their conversation, Brothers revealed that he wasn't sure whether to proceed with his applications or follow his inner voice and move to Israel.

His father's friend made the decision easy: "He's a successful businessman who had made aliyah long before and returned to America," Brothers said, "and he was really pretty dismissive of the entire [idea to skip law school]. His single-mindedness in building a career really put me off. I ended up canceling all of my interviews and made up my mind to make aliyah."

His army experience has also enjoyed some lighter moments. In a recent post, Brothers described how a sergeant "rewarded" his group, which had worked in the kitchen all day, by sticking a chocolate bar between their teeth and commanding them to go into push-up position.

"'LISTEN UP,' the commander [shouted], 'each up and each down is a mouse bite! What does that mean, you ask? Every time I tell you to go down, you go to the lower push-up position and take a tiny, A TINY BITE! UNDERSTOOD?!' 'Yephss, Cophamnder!' we shouted, or rather garbled loudly. 'Down!' Nibble. 'Up!' Nibble. 'Down!' Nibble. 'Up!' Nibble. Fifteen push-ups later I had finished nearly half the bar, hardly able to continue because of the intense laughter none of us could hold back. The sergeant stood up from his seat and walked in front of us, still on the floor with candy in our mouths. 'Enjoying your treat for hard work?' he asked. 'Aphbsoluthly, Szerghent!'"

Currently, fewer than 150 readers surf to israelibyday.com every day, yet Brothers' texts are well prepared and eloquently written. While in the base, he keeps a journal and takes notes. Once he gets to his computer, he expands on them, working hours on each post. "I wanted to write the blog in the first place to show my audience that we have a normal but unique life here," he told Anglo File. "You know when a person is obsessed with something and can't help but singularly talk about that thing? That's me with Israel, so I had to get it out of my system and tell people why I chose to live here instead of the easy luxurious life I had in America."

While the title of Brother's blog indicates that he'd focus on his dual loyalties, most articles deal with day-to-day army life, without dwelling on his special status as a recent immigrant. Yet he's "totally convinced that the commanders treat me better because I'm American," he said. "I don't know if it's because I'm an immigrant, or if it's because I work really hard to make up for my weaknesses" - such as not being fluent in Hebrew and unfamiliar with Israeli culture - "but I think I get better assignments, better guard duty hours, nicer personal treatment and so on." That doesn't mean that they don't believe the IDF is heads and shoulders above the U.S. Army, Brothers added. "I'm not so sure, but I avoid that conversation like the plague."

Masa? Hmm..

2009-04-04T20:36:00.002+03:00

In the previous post I expressed my dread over that night's expected 6 hour hike. Well, like so many expected events in the army, we were left guessing what was going to happen until the last minute. All night we were hearing various rumors.

"The masa is cancelled!," Ben whispered.

"What, are you stupid? Of course there's a masa? Why wouldn't there be?," Uri assured.

The night went on like that for a couple hours, while I busily worked away organizing the storage room. I spoke of the "incentive" that we had to do the masa, a physical item that I was unfortunately forced to work next to in the storage room. Though I hate the masaot, I wanted this item so badly that all this possible postponing of the hike was really getting me down.

And eventually the night came to an end, and we were given a half-hour to go to bed. When they gave us a half-hour instead of a full hour, like usual, I figured that they would wake us up in the middle of the night to do the hike. All night I laid in bed, unable to sleep, just waiting for them to break down the door and get it started.

But no, quite anti-climatically no such thing happened. Instead, we did a company wide 2k run with full gear on, and then 1k with open stretchers and a person on them. That was hard enough, but it certainly wasn't a 28k excursion. And so, my one foray into "live blogging" was a failure.

Don't worry, we're still doing the masa. It's just that I now have more time to dread it. Dammit.

Masa Tonight - 28k

2009-04-02T18:50:00.000+03:00

Here's some live blogging for you.

I'm feeling my usual level of dread right now for the masa we have in a few hours. If you haven't read my few posts on it, a masa is a fully geared up hike, at a ridiculous pace. Its the backbone of our physical training. They suck.

Anyway, its a 28 kilometer beast (17.4 miles). That's 20k regular, then 8k with loaded stretchers open. The stretchers essentially end any semblance of strength you may have had. It'll probably take 6 or so hours.

There's a nice incentive at the end, though, that ill definitely blog about. Pray for me in the meantime.

Coulda Been Worse!

2009-04-02T17:11:00.002+03:00

Golani and the paratroopers (בלאי) have new training bases, built only in the last few years. We have beautiful rooms with central air conditioning, well equipped and modern bathrooms, fresh paint on the walls, and sturdy bunk beds. I love our facilities, especially coming from the drabness of the old Michve Alon base. Here's what it looked like there:

Close quarters, I'd say, and everything was old and falling apart. Our new base, however, is large and clean, all the rooms are so brightly lit and fresh, and you can't help but get the feel that you're staying in some kind of ultramodern hostel. Only the Air Force has nicer bases than this, but I bet we give them a run for their money (minus the swimming pools, movie theaters, and bowling alleys...).

Anyway, I was reminded of that cheerless Michve Alon during a short stay at a very large southern base near Gaza. We were there for a simulation, as I mentioned in the previous post. As soon as we got there we had to get to work setting up the huge tents in which we would sleep. They had concrete floors and drains on the side to capture water, and in the middle were holes for the poles to go into.

It took us nearly an hour and a half to really get the tents finished, as in rain and wind ready (weatherized as only us Americans say, apparently). For beds we had cots and tough mattresses. And of course, you needed your sleeping bag. Well, the sleeping wasn't so bad, but there was no room to put any of your gear, no closets, and no central area to move about. It wasn't comfortable.

The point of this post is to express my sympathy to those myriads of Americans serving in Nachal, another infantry unit. I'd say that most Western immigrants in infantry go to that brigade, and they even have a very popular non-citizen infantryman program. People come for 18 months just to do the army, and they go to Nahal.

You see, Nahal are still sleeping in tents. At the end of my worst days on base (not counting in the field, of course), at the end of miserable days spent in the mud, I still come back to luxurious living. I lay on my bed with the A/C blasting, tons of space all around to walk and put your stuff wherever you please, and personal and private space in my locker to keep all my mementos. At the end of a long day I crawl up in my corner, isolated by the closets between the beds, and find my privacy.

I don't think Nahal has that. I'm sleeping in comfort, and they're out in tents. They're braving the cold or the heat no matter what. I strip down to basketball shorts and a t-shirt, even if it's five degrees outside. They're sweating it out or bundled up in their jackets, even when going to bed. I empathize.

But hey, that's why Golani is called #1. I would say "Suckers!," but honestly, the Nahal base is a real problem. Here's an article from JPost about the Nahal base being a carcinogen, literally. I've been told to give advice if I'm criticizing the army in any way.

Here's the advice: Give my good American-Israeli brothers in Nahal a nice new base!

Soldier Gear In A Metal Detector

2009-03-30T12:00:00.001+03:00

Recently we were sent down to a base in the south to be involved in a large scale training simulation for reserve soldiers, but due to a mistake in calculation, my group was sent back to our base. We got all dressed up in our alefs, dress uniforms, and with combat vest and sleeping bag in hand, took the bus and train up north. How funny it was to walk through train stations and busy city streets with field gear, but yet being dressed in the nice, clean uniform. I think the guys were fairly embarrassed, for some reason I can't divine. They literally begged to travel in our work uniforms. I bet they just wanted to look tough, like we were coming from Gaza or something.

I thought it was hilarious. What was the best part? The beautiful young female security guards at the Be'er Sheva train station made us all put our combat vests into the metal detector. I mean, think about what kind of stuff you would put in a combat vest. Honestly. What was she looking for? Dangerous things? Hmm...

That's a picture I snapped very quickly with my phone. Sorry it's not clearer, but you get the point!

Open Question

2009-03-28T21:07:00.001+03:00

Any computer people out there know why the right hand side of this webpage is magically on the very bottom of the page?

Send me an email if you know what's up:

dannybrothers@gmail.com

Commander Names

2009-03-25T08:05:00.002+02:00

When we returned from our 10-day break after basic training, we all were wondering what would happen to the 'distance' between ourselves and the commanders. We were asking each other whether or not the squad commanders, the lowest level of commander, and the guy you refer to as "my commander," would open up and tell us about themselves, their lives, and all of that. Would they be like friends, we asked, because many of them are just obviously great guys and you can't help but want to talk to them as human beings. They are 19-year-old kids, after all.

My commander was fairly slow on revealing his last name (which we already knew anyway) and his family story, but the day we got back from our break he instituted a new policy. Let's say his name is Eitan.

"Anyone that calls me Commander Eitan, as we did in basic, is going to buy me a can of soda," he declared to us while in our room.

"Seriously," I asked?

"Seriously."

Do you have any idea how hard it is to go from three months of getting in trouble if you don't say commander this or commander that, to all of a sudden getting in trouble for saying it? That's the hardest reversal of reinforcement ever! It turned out to be a crazy first few days, with many a funny incident that I can't really relate.

At the end of the first night, Eitan came to our room with an empty plastic bag, and left with about 10 cans. We all messed up so badly with the first new rule of advanced training that he decided to just make us all buy him one can each. It was really pretty fun.

Honestly though, I'm personally just not sure how all this 'breaking distance,' as it's called, is working. You see, all the squad commanders are still very much authorities, but they walk around being so much more close to us. This one lanky guy from a different platoon always talks to me about some current issue, and then this other guy always teaches me new close quarter combat strikes (chokes, hand twisting, karate chops, etc), and yet another wants to try his English on me - or rather make fun of American accents, I think.

But yeah, what's up with me and Eitan? He's such a great guy. He looks out for me and my rights as a lone soldier, makes sure I'm doing ok, and all that. I love him to death. Sometimes he just smiles at me, and that is one of the best feelings in the army, to know that you're human and looked at as a peer. But all of this is strange, because all of the closeness is always a one-sided initiation. The commanders initiate the personal connection, not the soldier.

What that means is that it's still a little strange, and maybe frowned upon for all I know, for a soldier to just go up to a commander and ask him what's up. "Hey, how you doing?," for example, is something that I only ask when I'm trying to push the buttons a little. I know who to do that with, and who not. I asked one of our new commanders that the other day, a meathead kind of guy, and he just looked at me blankly and walked away. I really just don't know our standing with these guys on an official level.

And maybe the entire point is that there is no official stance. Everything seems so up to the interpretation of the commanders at this point. Two commanders have said to me in private after yawning and rubbing their faces, "ugh, so exhausted," and that's fairly unheard of from a commander. Those little glimpses of imperfection are so encouraging. Even those guys get tired. I just wish they would be so personal and honest with us as a group, instead of those rare moments alone with them when they let down their guards (generally when you have guard duty together at 4am).

I'll keep you updated on all this, if you're interested. I am constantly pushing the boundary on this, so it's a fun part of my current life in the army. A sergeant of another platoon in my company (you're al in the same area all the time, by the way, so you interact occasionally) is a funny looking little guy, and so I like to just walk up to him and stare at him. I'll go up, look at him, and say something like, "Hey. Nice weather, yeah? How's your group doing? You need a real soldier like me to help them?"

He can't help but smile that goofy crooked smile of his. If I have to wake up at 5am, I'm gonna have some fun with it!

The Worst Feeling Ever - Part 2

2009-03-21T14:03:00.001+02:00

For the first part, please scroll down. It's the post directly before this post. Enjoy.

After a struggle of about 45 minutes the first of us pulled each other up the slippery hill, only to have to run back and help the people about half a kilometer behind. Once we were all up by the road we dropped our gear into a semi-circle and waited. The platoon commander was being yelled at by the bus driver, which I later found out was because he didn’t want us to go onto the bus with our wet rain jackets and pants. Now, mind you, this was the base bus, which has a metal floor, Plexiglas windows, and school bus style plastic benches. It’s not a touring bus, so I’m not sure what his problem was.

I took a look at my watch and saw it was about 8pm. We were finally told to take off all our rain gear, put them into our vests, and bring that onto the bus. I stood in front of the bus and used the headlights, rain illuminated by the beams, to take off and pack my gear. Once I pulled myself up into the bus I saw down, and by now it was pretty cold, and I was soaked. I was sitting on a tiny seat with another guy, drenched jackets on and a dripping vest on my lap. The bus was steaming inside from the cold weather and our warmed bodies all crammed together.

There wasn’t an inch to move, with people standing and sitting in the middle aisle, not an empty space to be found. Gear was piled on us, around us, and under us. I actually felt a little claustrophobic, being soaked, feeling heavy, crammed in, unable to move my legs, feet, or arms, people crushing me from on top, vests next to my head, the heavy air hardly able to breathe. It was really the physically miserable condition I’ve ever felt.

And then the rain started. All of a sudden it came in a sheet, smacking against the roof and plastic windows. PING PING PING, we heard, pings of sharp rain. As terrible as it was inside, at least we weren’t out there, I thought. I looked around and saw everyone huddled in their jackets, fighting the cold, trying to forget where they were. It seemed like we were waiting for hours, and for what we didn’t know. I finally freed my arm and looked at my watch: 1 hour had passed.

To my right out of the hazy window I saw a pair of headlights come up the hill, slicing through the interminable rain. I recognized them the vehicle as the transport Hummer that I had helped unload upon arriving at the camp a couple days before. The sergeant then stood up and told us, many of us sleeping, by the way, to put on our rain jackets, not the pants though, and to get off the bus. I didn’t move, thinking that wasn’t happening, and looked around and saw only a handful of people budge.

“NOW,” the sergeant barked, “NOW NOW NOW!”

Most of us got up as quickly as possible, considering the state of the place, and I woke up about five different guys who were in deep sleeps. They looked so confused, and I felt pretty terrible. I eventually found myself at the exit, and like I was about to dive underwater, I took a deep breath before stepping outside. My foot slipped in the mud, and instantly the rain stung my face. I then realized why it was making a pinging noise against the bus: hail and freezing rain.

If Noah’s flood was acid, as our tradition holds, this was certainly the closest I’ve ever come to understanding such a destructive force. Also braving the conditions were a couple commanders, and they quickly had us go over to a large transport truck. The Hummer backed up to the truck, maybe 15 feet away, and then we were told to start unloading the gear that was crammed in. A light in the Hummer revealed hundreds of sleeping bags stacked on top of heavy metal poles, sharp wooden sticks, and all other various shooting and camping gear.

About 50 guys stood there, unsure what to do. The rain was coming in so hard from the wind that you couldn’t see, sheets of it blinding sideways, and gusts of wind that must have been 50mph. I was one of about 10 people that actually worked, the rest standing huddled together on the side of the road. I was reminded of those penguins that stand huddled against the Antarctic winter, just waiting for better weather. The soldiers were just waiting for us to finish. I looked over at them, through the darkness and blinding rain, and saw indistinguishable shapes. It was that bad. I didn’t blame them for not working.

After unloading the sleeping bags, their slick muddy fabric sliming all over my face and dripping down my neck into my shirt, we had to unload the sleeping pads. I would grab about five at a time, lose four to the wind, and stand with the pad between me and the gusts. By now it must have been hurricane conditions. I couldn’t see anything except a light from the Hummer, and I just endured behind the mattress for as long as I could, waiting for those in front to pass it up into the transport truck and the guys stacking inside.

I was wet to the core, pants just totally useless as they were drenched and clinging to me, shoes and socks squishing with each step. From the relative safety of the mattress, which I hung to for dear life, I peered into the wall of the rain and saw the huddled masses again. They stood totally unwilling to move, statues of shiny camouflaged rain jackets hunched over. They ignored the yelling coming from those of us working. I shivered every second we were out there, my body unable to move, my jaw unable to stop chattering.

I saw them and thought nothing. It seemed so natural to me that they were standing together, grouped on the side facing us, heads down and hoods covering all signs of a face. They were like some dark creatures with no features in a movie, a sign of something bad to come, something gloomy.

I didn’t know why I was working, why I wasn’t standing with them. I understood. For the first time in my life, I actually thought that I was in a position to die from weather conditions. In my mind I said, “If I’m out here for another 15 minutes, I’ll get hypothermia, and if I didn’t have on either this rain jacket or winter jacket underneath, I’d already be dead.” I swear to you that I said that to myself.

Finally we finished unloading the Hummer and loading the transport truck. We were rushed back to our bus, and I got back to my seat and huddled together with the guy next to me. I felt so disgusting, and even nauseous, but I tried my best to fall asleep. I couldn’t, however, and started looking around to see my compatriots. I’d say 90% were sleeping. “Defense mechanism,” I thought.

And then I saw two. They had no jackets on, no warm gear at all for that matter. They were shivering, soaked, and pale. They looked near death. Their faces were expressionless, and they sat hunched over and shaking. I for sure thought they were going to get hypothermia. I just remember thinking, “Where are there jackets?” There was something different about the way they were shaking, and their eyes... eyes that really didn’t look alive, somehow.

I can’t explain how it felt after sitting there, literally begging for the bus to move, when we were again commanded to go get off the bus and unload another full load of the Hummer. I just can’t explain it. I’m not that good of a writer to explain such intense emotions. Either way, we finally finished that second run, which included being forced to take the hoods off our rain jackets, reentered the bus, waited some more, and then it started to move.

No one cheered. No one said a thing. We were just alive. It was 12am. 4 hours of that.

We got back to base, terrified they would make us unload it all, but luckily only had to show our vest to the sergeant and check to make sure we had our magazines and the contents of our vests. They gave us 30 minutes to prepare for bed, we all took hot showers, and then got into our beds. 2am.

I can’t tell you more than that. Thank G-d for the base. Now I know why they say “achla bach,” which loosely means that the training base is the best place to be. I just can’t tell you anymore. I can’t tell you how I felt, how good it was to be back and out of that situation. I was just there, unthinking. (The two guys were fine).

Afterwards, the next day, I felt strong. I felt like I did something. Proud. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

The aftermath in the bathroom