I DROVE A TANK!!!!

After shabbat ended it was back to scrubbing pots and pans for 6 hrs until 1230AM. When I woke up Sunday morning I had found out that just about everyone had already been sent to work in the kitchen (so it worked out best that I was there saturday night). Until late afternoon I was part of the guard duty crew which meant when I wasn't guarding I was relaxing and doing whatever I wanted.

Later in the week we went into the field for 2 nights in order to do the driving course - one time druing the day and again at night. Before I talk about the driving which was by far the most awesome thing I have done in my life, the second best part was sleeping. If we didn't go driving this week the best part of the 2 weeks by far would have been the rediculous amount of sleep we got. The first night in the field the drivers were doing guard duty and were supposed to wake us up after our required 6 hours of sleep at 230AM. Well they didn't and our commander woke us up 2 hours later at 430AM. The next night after we finished driving they literally had nothing for us to do so we got 7 hrs and 20 minutes of sleep. The next night was Thursday and we are required to get 7 hours of sleep before we go home. I can't remember the last time I got that much sleep in 3 consecutive nights. It's not so much that these 2 weeks were fairly boring that banking a few extra hours of sleep ranks #2 behind the coolest thing I've ever done in my life, but extra sleep is pretty much unheard of and we never get an extra second of the required 6 hours of "need". If your thinking that this isn't really exciting or noteworthy you just have to take my word for it. And I know that all my army friends are very jealous. I think I might even be able to stay awake all of friday without having to take a nap on my kibbutz considering I woke up at 320AM and slept an extra hour or so on the 6 hour bus rides back to the kibbutz.

On to the driving!!! The course involved 3 obstacles - two 3-5 meter hills we had to overcome and maneuvers we had to do on a large hill - simulating going up and down to a firing post. Driving a tank is kind of similar to driving a car with the following differences:
1. You have to give full gas. ALWAYS
2. It's a 65 ton vehicle, so you need 2 feet on the brakes. Sometimes its not enough to push with your feet but you also need to grab the wheel in order to push harder on the brakes.
3. There are 3 tiny windows which gives you about 100 degrees of sight. That's assuming there isn't wind blowing dust in the windows, your on an incline and staring at the sky, decline and your staring at the ground or in reverse where you can't see at all. When you can't see the commander gives directions because he has his head outside the tank.
4. When you have to do a hard turn your not supposed to hold the wheel at its maximum position, but hold it for a second and then easing off the turn in a pumping motion and you do it quickly and repeatedly.

So I was cruising at about 20km/hr and switching gears at one point to hit 45km/hr. The first obstacle I had to overcome was a 3 meter hill where you don't see anything but the sky, so you don't know when your at the top until you feel the tank start tipping forward and you start to see the ground, so thats when you take your feet off the gas. It was kind of scary at first, but the second hill went much smoother and because I knew what to expect it was more fun.

The most exhilarating part was going up and down from the firing post. The hill was about 40 degree inclineso the ENTIRE time your staring at the sky. The idea is to the do maneuver as fast as possible in order to maximize your time at the firing post. Everyone that had already done it reminded me that no matter what give full gas. ALWAYS. You start by driving up the hill with full gas until the commander says stop. The next command is "driver, backwards fast!" at which you release your feet from the brakes and start to feel the effects of gravity on a 65 ton vehicle and then you put the pedal to the metal and give full gas. "Driver, right hard!" and you and you start to pump the wheel repeatedly t0 the right as your flying backwards down a hill at 35km/hr. As I started to turn diagonally down the hill you start to see the sand again, but it didn't matter because it was just as useless as staring at the sky. "Driver, left hard!" and I switched from pumping the wheel from the right to pumping to the left to the point where you feel like your going to break the wheel and now looking again at the sky. "Driver stop, forward fast!" I slammed on the brakes with all my weight and threw the tank into drive and full gas again to the top of the hill. I did 2 other similar maneuvers and that was by far the coolest part of driving. Flying backward with complete control of a massive tank and not seeing a damn thing was scary the first time, but awesome once I got the hang of it and did it the way it was supposed to be done.

At night we did the exact same thing, but this time with nightvision, which was very cool. It also cut your vision range to about 60 degrees - and the sky and sand was the same colour - green. I didn't see the 2 hills I went over until I felt the tank tip forward, so that was unexpected and kind of scary.

I never thought in my lifetime that I would get to drive a tank and there aren't that many people that can say the same. Unless I become a commander this was hopefully the first and last time I drive. I say hopefully because I would only drive again if G-d forbid something happens to the driver. This was an awesome experience and I'm fairly confident that there isn't enough money in this world to pay for the experience I had. There is a chance that other things and exercizes I will do in the tanks will top driving it, but I have a feeling that driving a tank will definitely rival other awesome experiences I will have throughout my service. Definitely a one of a kind experience.

Another 3 weeks of basic training: on base for 2 weeks then a weekend off before our masa kumta! (masa where we get our black berets) - not the green ones that identify us as trainees.