Touching the wall

This week was a complete waste of time. Tuesday and Wednesday was a holiday so we only came to base for Sunday and Monday and returned again on Thursday. The time that was not spent travelling to and from the base and the field was spent cleaning the tank. Monday was excruciatingly hot - reaching about 40 degrees celcius by 9AM. It was so hot that I couldn't touch any metal part of the tank (99% of the tank) with my bare hands for more than a few seconds. For the holiday of Shavuot on Tuesday I went to Tel Aviv to stay with a friend visiting from Toronto until I returned to base first thing on Thursday morning. We went out to dinner and there was this guy standing 5 meters from our table staring at us the entire time. Midway through the dinner we realized that 2 tables beside us was the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, which explained his body guard staring at us. On his way out I introduced myself and got a handshake.

Thursday it was back to base for 16 days - 2 full weeks of technical tank training in the field, but first we had to finish cleaning the tanks. Today I officially touched the wall. This is figurative because I did not actually come in any contact with a wall the entire day as I was out in the field, without any walls to touch. The army is seen as a race, and everyone is looking towards the end regardless if how long you have been in the army for. In this race, once you get to the halfway point you 'touch the wall' and start heading back for the second half of the journey. It's hard to believe that I have already been 9 months in the army - the time really flies by.

We headed back to the base for shabbat, but before shabbat entered they decided to punish us for acting like morons throughout the day. They decided to give us a 3rd guarding post for the duration of shabbat. That increased the amount of time we had to guard to 3.5 hours - about an hour extra because of the punishment. Shabbat is supposed to be our free time where they are not allowed to give us orders and there is no work they can make us do EXCEPT for guard duty.