Squad/Platoon Role Assignments

I hope that picture doesn't scare anyone, or give the impression that I'm some fanatical gun loving freak. What you're looking at is my Tavor-21 rifle with a nice little addition to it. Instead of the standard (amazingly) red-dot scope with laser, the sights that everyone gets on their duty rifle, I now have a Trijicon ACOG scope. In short, I've got a better sighting system on my gun so I can see farther (further?).

What does all this gunspeak mean, you are asking. What's the big deal? Why is this a post? Well, a few weeks ago now we had our "shavua klia," or shooting week. All we did from sunup to sundown was shoot. We shot from all different distances and in different positions. After a full week of this we had a test to see who was the best of the group. Those that scored the highest on the test were to be selected as the platoon sharpshooters. In fact, the platoon and each squad has role assignments, like the grenade launcher, light machine gun, heavy machine gun, and so on, but the sharpshooter assignment is the only one that is selected through a test.

Because of the selectivity, being a sharpshooter is probably, maybe definitely, the most desired role. I, like everyone else, was aching to be selected, just wishing for the Trijicon zoomed scope. When the time for the test came I stood waiting for the word to begin, breathing deeply and slowly to steady myself. I relaxed my arms and hands, hoping to ease any shaking from adrenaline. Like a trained athlete I visualized the bullet flying from my barrel in a straight line into the center of the target. I was ready...

As you can see above, I succeeded. Maybe it's not fair, but I wrote back in November about my shooting experience. Go ahead and give this a read if you haven't before, at least if you want to catch up with my story. Anyway, I was so relieved when the commander called out our role assignments and I wasn't given the light machine gun, the Negev.




Honestly, and don't tell my commanders this, but half the reason I wanted to be a sharpshooter was because I didn't want something really heavy or cumbersome like the Negev or the M203 grenade launcher:




As sweet as the grenade launcher is, it just ruins the compact size of the Tavor. How can you take a sharp corner inside a house with that thing? How do you crawl on the ground with it sticking way out there ahead of you? No thanks. Secondly, being a sharpshooter has the obvious advantage that you can see further distances. Though it's still a few months off, when I was preparing for the sharpshooter test I told myself that when I'm in a combat situation I'm really going to want to be able to see what's happening 300 meters away, or whatever the distance may be. I have a feeling that when you're standing in an elevated guard tower, it's nice to just raise your gun and zero in on something suspicious far away.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. It's just exciting to have a bipod and special sights on my gun, special ammo, and the best role assignment. Oh, did I mention the $30,000 night vision scope we slap on there when the sun goes down?

I'm not saying yes or no, for obvious reasons, but maybe I happen
to have the same night vision scope they put on the greatest sniper
rifle known to man, the Barrett .50 cal

Death Knells Of Basic Training Discipline

Being that we have three days left in basic training, literally, I have noticed a vast increase in the amount of silliness coming from the commanders recently. During just about every non-serious thing we do it seems that they are messing with us somehow, making us do ridiculous things, and generally taking advantage of their position of unmitigated power and unquestionable demands. I'm not saying they are abusing us. In fact, it's entirely the opposite.

For example, after a day starting at 5am and lasting until 10pm of working in the kitchen cleaning innumerable dishes, trays, floors, and preparing food for hundreds of hungry soldiers, we had to stand in formation while the commanders talked to us. After announcing our sergeant's presence and calling for attention (think "commander on deck!"), he began to open a brown cardboard box that was sitting on the table next to him.

"I know it sucked working in the kitchen all day," the sergeant commiserated uncharacteristically, "but you all worked hard. I'm not giving you a compliment. Just know that we noticed." After finishing, he began pulling out handfuls of chocolate wafer candy bars. Score.

The group sighed with relief, knowing that even after a full day with no breaks the commanders could easily make us go exercise. The last thing you want to do after mopping the same floor for 14 hours is go running at a pace you can barely, if at all, keep up with. We'll take candy bars over sprints any day.

Commander Yonni, a tiny guy with crazy eyes who despite his size you would never mess with, was standing off to the side. Sergeant Slaughter was readying to hand out the candy bars when Commander Yonni stepped in and grabbed them. His crazy eyes were particularly bulging with excitement.

"You think you worked hard? Huh?..." He paused to let it sink in that we might not be done just yet. "Huh?"

"Yes, Commander!," shouted a lanky guy up front.

"Maybe," Commander Yonni replied quietly. The sergeant smiled out of the side of his mouth as the commander began passing out the candy bars. "Listen closely. Everyone take one, ONE, and take it fully out of the wrapper. Put the wrapper in your pocket."

As we received the bars we followed the directions, taking the bar out and putting the wrapper away. The chocolate was quickly smearing our fingers, but all we wanted to do was wolf down the rare treat. I, however, couldn't help but wonder what he could possibly be scheming.

"Now," he said after everyone was ready, "take one end of the bar and put it in your mouth. One end between your front teeth, the rest of the bar sticking out. If anyone eats even one crumb... I don't even know what."

We did as we were told, everyone laughing nervously as much as possible with a candy bar hanging from our teeth.

"PUSH-UP POSITION!," tiny Commander Yonni shouted.

I dropped to the floor instantly, chocolate bar in place. We all were looking around at each other, giggling like little girls.

"LISTEN UP," the commander properly shouting now, "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!"

Memorable Moments In The IDF

Israelis have a very strange relationship with the Holocaust and all that German stuff. As I've written about before, you see survivors around every once in a while. A huge proportion of the population fled from Europe to settle here. Strangely enough, despite or maybe because of all this, Israelis make Holocaust jokes or say things in reference to the Holocaust when they aren't satisfied. For example, we got a real tiny breakfast consisting of two slices of bread and a tomato, and a guy said, "What, am I in Auschwitz or something?"

Anyway, that's not the quote I wanted to post. Maybe you had to be there, but we were on kitchen duty last month when Avichai (not his real name), a rather sloppy guy, was stopped by a rather strange commander.

"Avichai!," the commander yelled.

Avichai stopped dead in his tracks and turned around, replying timidly, "Yes, Commander..."

"Tuck in your shirt and straighten your uniform like an officer in the German army," he barked.

"...Yes, Commander."

Gift Bags For Lone Soldiers

Sorry for the silly video, but I got kinda bored and wanted to change up the blog a bit.

Lots of people like to hook up soldiers in the IDF with gifts, from donating money for pizza (thanks Laird's mom!), to buying cold weather clothes and other necessities. Sometimes these gifts are for combat soldiers in scary places, like current drives for the guys in Gaza. And sometimes they are directed to us lone soldiers, guys that don't get presents from their parents and relatives.

I recently got a gift bag for Chanukkah, and this is the video of what I received. I can't even tell you how awesome it is to get stuff like this.

February Isn't Half Bad

If you'll forgive me I think I'll try out my new impulse purchase, a preposterously expensive Nokia E71 smartphone. I can do everything with it, from email to YouTube, and as we have here, even a little live blogging from the base.

February has come, and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am. My 3 month long 'basic' training draws to a close in 2 weeks. Here's what my schedule looks like: Last week we were in the field, this Shabbat we were on base, we have a week of guard duty around base (easy), and then we go home for the weekend. Sunday we come back to base and then head back out to the field for a short week of intense combat maneuver training, which we've done many times before. Somewhere in there there is a grueling hike to signify our transition. And finally, we have a 'yom tarboot' (culture day) in Jerusalem, museums and talks, and then they'll release us out into the civilian world to do as we please for...gasp...10 days.

That's right, a 10 day vacation! Do you have any idea? I literally can't think of anything else right now.

Oh, and we throw grenades for the first time this week. I'm sure that'll be a post to come. February is looking up!