Regila!!!!

As I left off in my last post, I have my second one week vacation since I joined the army 13 months ago. They even let me off in time for rosh hashana - the Jewish new year. (Happy 5771!!!) I spent the holiday with my cousins and spent 3 days sleeping and eating. I am not exaggerating - I literally spent more than 50% of 3 days sleeping. It was nice to catch up on some sleep (but at the time of this blog, 4 days later, I am back to being exhausted).

The exciting news is that on the Sunday I went to Tel Aviv to pick up my plane ticket. Thanks to the Friends of the IDF (http://www.fidf.org) they are paying for my round trip flight! After being in Israel for 1 year and 5 months I finally get a chance to come home for a 2 week visit starting in mid october!!!!!! After running around the city in the morning to get the plane ticket I met a friend for lunch in Tel Aviv, then it was off to Jerusalem to meet up with 2 other friends and unexpectedly bumped into a 3rd. Monday it was back to the kibbutz to catch up on some movie watching. Within a 24 hour period I managed to watch 6 movies. It had been months since I had seen any movie, so it was good to catch up on them and also discover new box office hits that I never knew existed. For example, the movie 'The Other Guys' with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg - I never knew such a movie had ever been made despite it being a major box office hit during the summer. Based on its ratings and its cast I decided to watch the movie and it was hysterical. I had no idea what I was missing!!!! Tuesday I managed to pull myself off the couch and meet a friend for coffee. All in all, my regila was very relaxing and stress free. I actually had time to relax, unlike my 4 day weekends where I try and do as much as possible.

My biggest accomplishment of the week and the year (yes, both 5771 and 2010) and maybe even longer is that I successfully packed my suitcase (alone I might add) not just hours or days in advance, but an entire MONTH in advance of my flight!!!! One can look at this from several angles. The first being that having been given a week off from the army, so now I have plenty of time to pack my suitcase so why leave it to the last minute? If you think that this is my train of thought you probably have no idea who I am. In fact, I am more of the type of person to leave things to the last minute. So why the change of attitude? Well, I haven't really changed my attitude. Despite the fact that I finished packing an entire month before my flight I still managed to do it at the last minute. How does that work? Well, chances are the next time I will get to my kibbutz will be the day that I have to go to the airport. I will have exactly enough time to be completely stressed out and have to run to my kibbutz grab my bag and run out the door to go straight to the airport. Before I left the base I had asked my company commander when I will be let off base before my flight in order to arrange my things and get to the airport in time. Hopefully I would be given a real answer that would allow me to pack before heading to the airport. He told me not to worry. That statement "don't worry" actually causes the exact opposite effect; not only does it cause me to worry, but it also causes massive amounts of stress. The last time I was told not to worry was in fact not that long ago. I was concerned about when I would be going home for my regila. I knew I was going home on wednesday, but that was precisely the problem. Since Wednesday night was the start of rosh hashana the buses stopped running in the afternoon. The problem was that the people that were coming to replace us were arriving Wednesday morning and we weren't allowed to leave until sometime after they arrived. Long story short, I caught the last bus home, and got there one hour before the start of the holiday. So whats the big fuss? Firstly, if I didn't get off base on time I would have been stuck on base for the holiday meaning the next bus out of the base was Sunday morning. Additionally missing the bus would have been being stuck up north without a place to spend for 3 days. That would be better than being stuck on the base, but not much better. So when my company commander told me not to worry about packing and getting to the airport in time, for me that translates to 'pack now while you still have the chance. Maybe we will give you enough time to get to the airport on time. I can't promise anything and you will receive an answer only at the last possible minute.' I don't know if I will be back at my kibbutz before my flight, so this is how I managed to pack a month early, yet still at the last possible minute.

Its back to base for 2 more weeks. Back to Toronto in a month!!!!!!!!!!!! And finally some pictures!

Me by a waterfall on one of our hikes

Some pleasant surprises

In 3 weeks a lot has happened, so I will change the post layout by separating each topic with a heading.

• Getting sick on an army field trip
• Yom Kef
• The cook: friend or foe?
• My first solo mission
• Surprises

Getting sick on an army field trip

I returned on Monday to the army for a few days of fun. They brought the entire battallion together (everyone that had just come back from their weekend off, that is) and took us to do some fun (and educational) things. Think school field trip, but more fun. This gave me a chance to see friends from training that I hadn't seen since. They took us to Kibbutz Tel Chai which was one of the first settlements in the north in the 20s or 30s. We learned about how they lived and about Josef Trumpledor. He was an officer in the Red Army during WW1 where he lost an arm. He was also the most decorated jewish soldier of any army of all time. He immigrated to israel and helped to found the kibbutz. He was killed when a neighbouring group of Arabs came to tak econtrol of the kibbutz. His dying words were טוב למות ליד ארצנו - It's good to die for our land (Israel).

Perfectly timed after the end of the tour (just as we were were walking out of the building) my stomach decided it wanted to throw up. After feeling a lot better after the puke a few hours later it happened again. It seemed as though I had either eaten something bad in the morning or I got a bit dehydrated. They took me to go see a medic where I puked a 3rd time and they let me get a good night sleep of 14 hours!!! After that I felt fantastic and it was well worth not feeling great for a few hours. On top of that I didn't miss anything fun OR important.

Once I rejoined the group we went on a short hike through one of the streams that flow into the Jordan River. Afterwards we went rafting down the Jordan where it was more of us pushing each other of the rafts. It's more like rafting down a lazy river than anything else.

Day 3 they took us to Kfar Giladi -the first Jewish settlement in the region. The founders of the kibbutz were new immigrants who wanted to live on the values of Jweish work of the land and Jews guarding their land. until then Jews hired arabs to work in the fields and guard them at night. This group of Jews travelled the land to try and convince the communities to hire them for work instead of the Arabs. Without any experience or knowlege of how to work the land or guard it they were not given any opportunities to work. After Finally getting their chance and proving their worth this group started to take on all the work for all the communities in Israel. Anyone who wanted to become a part of the group had to go through a years worth of grueling training before they were accepted. At the end of training they had a ceremony where they were handed a pistol and a bible - similar to the ceremony I went through. This elite group was the best of the best as only 120 people were tasked with guarding and working the land of all the Jewish settlements in the entire land. This organization then turned into the Haganah and later after the establishment of Israel in 1948- the IDF.



Yom Kef

Our fun eneded there and we went back to base to get back to work. Thursday I was told that on the upcoming Monday there was a yom kef (fun day) for lone soldiers and I was going to get to go. SWEEEEEEET!!!! But..... there is always a but. My officer didn't want to tell me what to do or convince me in any way but in short if I 'decided' to go to the yom kef someone else would have to come back to base a day early etc. etc. In short, someone else was getting screwed big time. Fine, I won't go I said and from then on I didn't think a bout it. On Sunday morning out of the blue I was told that I am going. They said 'those are the orders' and I wasn't about to argue or start asking questions.

So how long does a fun day last? Believe it or not the answer is a day and a half! I had to get to a dfiferent base on Sunday because thats where the meeting spot was. I got off duty in the afternoon and on top of that they told me not to take my gun - this is going to be more fun than I thought! I got to the other base, caught up with some friends who are now in other companies and hadn't seen in a while and finally went to bed and slept like a human being. Having gone 4 days without sleeping more than 2 hours at a time I was in need of a normal sleep. I then woke up for the start of the actual fun day. I managed to take another nap on the 3 hour drive to the beach!!! They had a whole lot of fun things to keep us occupied - the water, food, games, music, etc. They also had free massages. I thought maybe I could use one of those after 'sleeping' uncomfortably in a tank for so long. The second I layed down on the table I went from awake to 90% asleep instantly. The table was by far without a doubt the most comfortable thing I have layed down on in over a month. The first 4 seconds of the experience was great - I almost fell asleep, then the massage started. I was tempted to tell the guy just to leave me a lone and take 15 minute break and just let me sleep. The best way I can describe the massage is that someone was trying to wake me up for guard duty and I wasn't cooperating so they start pulling on my limbs and jabbing me in the back. All in all the fun day was a lot of fun. A nice day at the beach with friends I haven't seen in a while and good food - which I also haven't seen in a while.



The cook: friend or foe?

Smoothly moving onto the next topic - food. For those of you who know me you already know that I like to eat. To be more specific, I like to eat tasty things. So about a month ago we got a new 'cook'. I use the quotes because I would say that someone needs to prepare food in order to be called a cook. What he does manage to prepare I have a hard time placing it in the food category. Fone one shabbat we were out in the field and we always get our meals delivered to us. The problem is that the food is enver enough. We tell them we are 50% more people than we actually are and we are still left hungry. These are complaints by everyone - not just me. It also doesn't help that the meals come 2-3 hours after the ideal meal time. This is a regular occurrance every meal.

I think the following story describes best the situation I am in with the food. So one day after not receiving breakfast at all (already not off to a good start) I was on guard duty while everyone else was eating lunch. When someone came to switch with me so I could go eat he told me that when I see what lunch is I'm going to start to swear. He was right in one respect - that I would start swearing, it just didn't wait until I got to see the food. The next person I saw told me that when I see the food I would laugh. I asked 'laugh or cry', to which he responded you will cry. The 3rd and last person I saw on my journey to the lunchroom was one of my commanders who flat out told me 'don't eat.' Well I can't say they didn't warn me. So what was for lunch? - disgusting army kebobs with leftover salad from a few days earlier. So there are a few things wrong with the meal and surpringly the disgusting army kebobs wasn't the problem (disgusting army kebobs are always disgusting). The first problem was that ther ewas no potato/rice/pasta dish next to it whcih ALWAYS accompaniesthe meat. Problem #2 - leftover salad. Not that I have a problem with leftovers, in fact leftovers can often be better than the food made fresh. The thing is there is no such thing as leftovers in the army, everything is tossed after the meal.These 2 things point out the lazyness of the 'cook'. So as I was eating the disgusting 'meal' I put a lemon slice (part of the salad) in my mouth and it caused me to make the all-too-familiar sour lemon face. One of my friends started to laugh and to which I responded 'and that's the best part of the meal!'

My first solo mission

I was taken to another base to meet wtih teh batallion commander where myself and the 3 other lone soldiers in the battallion were given presents for rosh hashana (the jewish new year). When I got to the base they told me to be back here at 1220. I looked at my watch and saw it was 12 - Lunch time! I very quickly made my way to the lunch room to eat a dsecent and normal (army standards) meal. We walked into the battalion commanders office where he gave his speech - 'Thank you bla bla bla we appreciate etc. etc. etc. difficulties of being a lone soldier yadda yadda yadda happy new years, here's your present.' This entire time I was preparing myself for my mission at hand:

Mission: Consume as much baked goods as possible before I have to leave the office. Secondary mission - if possible do this in a casual manner.

Setting: 8 people in the air conditioned room standing around a table FILLED with chocolate croissants, ruggelah, cinnamon rolls, apples + honey, watermelon, drinks, chips, candies and other snacks.

Enemies and their capabilities:

• Battallion commander trying to engage me in small talk and catching me with a mouthful of food.
• The clock and unexpectedly running out of time.
• My digestive system causing me to choke.

Allies and their capabilities:

• The head nod - always a substitute for speech.
• Watermellon and drinks to lubricate my digestive system and prevent me from choking.
• Pockets for placing wrapped candies.
  

Debriefing: Given the amount of time provided (and not knowing this amount of time in advance of the mission) I was able to consume a fair amount of food. All I can say is that I tried my best. The watermellon performed above and beyond its call of duty as it did a fantastic job of both satisfying my tastebuds and lubricating my digestive system allowing for easier consumption of the baked goods. The opportunity to make use of the pockets were not that frequent and I was only able to save a few candies for later. The small talk was kept to a minimum however the questions required answers and a head nod was not an applicable response. Eating baked goods at a constant and fairly fast paced rate I feel as though I could have continued for a lot longer had more time been provided. The fact that I had consumed a meal less than half an hour before did not affect my performance in any way.


Surprises:
On top of the surprise fun day and presents I received I also got a few other surprises. 2 days before going home and a few hours before the start of the mission while everyone was standing around the tanks, my officer came up to me and said take my phone and put it inside. Waiting with a somewhat puzzled look on my face not knowing what to do afterwards, he said 'thats it. I'm taking your spot'. What does that mean? He's taking my spot in the tank for the day and I have a 16 hour break where NOBODY is in charge of me and can tell me what to do! How awesome is that??!?!?!!? (non rhetorical question. The answer is very awesome). Everyone was in shock and started asking 'why not me?' The second commander insisted that the officer switch out his loader and give him a break because 'alex is going home in 2 days' and also he is more senior than I am. Fantastic, now I'm going to get screwed I thought. Immediately after making that suggestion the commander went back on his word and said on second thought my loader doesn't have a good handle on the roads in the area so switch with Alex. Phew. Not giving them any more time to argue about it I head inside. Within 5 minutes my gunner comes inside and says get back out there. SHIT! In the end he got switched out because he had just returned from his brothers wedding and hadn't slept a wink.
The next day it was the same deal, the officer was going to switch someone out again. It was decided to switch out the other loader this time. Then at the last minute the officer decided to switch me out with his response to everyone else who then started to complain 'just beacuse'. Sweeeeeeet. So I had some time to relax, pack my bags get a good nights sleep (which didn't happen) and go for my 7km run before heading home. I now get a regila, which means a 1 week vacation from the army (instead of 4 days).

The second surprise I got, which was more of a releif is that I was FINALLY given confirmation that I will be getting a vacation to come home and visit my friends and family for 2 weeks in the middle of october! More details to come in an upcoming blog post within the week.

Major General Israel Tal (RIP) passed away over the weekend. He was named one of the top 5 armored commanders in history, and he was in charge of designing and producing the Israeli Merkeva tank. Here is a quick article about him.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=187548

I know its a bit late, but I want to wish everyone a shana tova and a successful new year.