Let the shooting begin (its just training, no need to get excited)

I wanted to give this post the title 'let the shooting begin and cows', but I didn't want to mislead anyone.

I got back to base on Sunday, and this week we finally started our training! This means we finally got to start shooting again (at non living targets - i feel i need to explicitly say that). On Sunday I returned to base, and immediately we headed into the field. We set up the area with a few tents (tents for briefings, not sleeping - sleeping is only done in or on the tank) and some flags, and thats about it. We went to bed early in order to wake up super early.

Monday we finally got to do some shooting with the tank - something we hadn't done in almost 8 months. It was a lot of fun, especially because everything went smoothly... for the first time... EVER! The guns didn't cause me any problems. My gunner took down a lot of targets, and I myself hit 3 targets with my MAG. We did however have to stop for about 5 minutes, which somewhat interrupted our momentum because of cows. There were cows in the way and someone had to go herd them out of the way. Once they were out of the way, we were able to continue. We did the same thing in the nighttime. Immediately after the night training, at about 11PM I was told that my crew was going back to base in order to be the guard duty crew. Since we had already done our day and night practice we had effectively completed what we needed to do for the entire week. We didn't know how long we would be there for. The next 2 days an nights were spent doing guard duty, other random jobs, and playing ping pong. One of the nights of guard duty, it was really boring (as usual) and at 2 in the morning I was pacing back and forth in order to keep myself awake and my head was looking down at my feet. Randomly I raised my head and found myself staring directly at a cow no more than 10 meters away from me. He looked at me as if I was an alien, and i was just shocked to see how a cow got so close to me without me noticing!

Wednesday night we were told that everyone was coming back to base - great! Since everyone was coming back to base (in order to eat well, shower, spend some time inside, etc.) I was headed into the field to be the guarding crew over there. It was supposed to rain, but luckily for us, not only did it not rain, but we had relatively nice weather and thursday was even warm! The field wasn't that bad because they brought us cots so we didn't have to sleep on the tank, and I got a fair amount of sleep because aside from guarding there wasn't anything else to do. When I got woken up to do my shift of guard duty I immediately started to hear lots of mooing from various distances. When I stepped outside the tent the guy that I was to switch started pointing in all directions showing me where the cows were. It was pitch black and I could barely see anything but there were at least 30 or 40 cows within 50 meters of our tent. I didn't understand what they were saying, but I was sure that they were plotting against us.

I woke up on thursday and we had to clean the tank, as usual. My commander told me some good news. He said I was getting the weekend off and I was either going home that day (thursday) or first thing on Friday. I was chosen as outstanding soldier of the week in my platoon and therefore was given the weekend off while everyone else had to stay on base. That means that I get 3 weekends off in a row! Yippie!!!!!! After cleaning the tank starting first thing in the morning all through the afternoon, my commander suddenly tells me at 2PM that the bus leaves at 3, so I should head back to the base and get ready to go home. Well, I'm not exactly sure why they waited until the last possible minute to tell me, but I had a lot of work to do in that hour. Firstly, I had to walk about 2km to get back to base, with my massive kitback on my back. Then I had to shower and get all my things together. Luckily even though I was stressed for time I did not forget anything critical on base - unlike last week where I forgot to take home my dirty laundry. Most importantly, I had to make plans for the weekend! Having expected to spend the weekend on base as per the schedule I was not concentrating on making weekend plans. I suppose it was a good problem to have!

Preparation for inspection

Back to base Sunday morning meant back to work. After the backbreaking work I did last Thursday to take out and replace all the ammunition it was another 2 weeks of nonstop work. We were preparing for a review from the Battalion Commander, and thus EVERYTHING had to be clean, checked, and in order. Therefore, I spent the better part of the 2 weeks cleaning the tank. Firstly, we received the tank in a filthy filthy condition for a number of reasons. It had rained the previous week which means lots of mud will be tracked through the tank. In addition to that, the tank crew that was using the tank knew that they did not have to clean that specific tank because it was ours, so they were not too concerned about keeping it clean and tidy.

In continuing with going over everything - which we had started with the ammunition, it was now time to do it with every tool in the tank. We laid everything out on the ground, went over the approximately 7 page list of things that we need to have and then put everything back in its place. We then went over all of our personal equipment in the same way. Without getting into too much detail about tank cleaning, the main tools I have in my arsenal include a steel brush, broom, toothbrush, screwdriver, and sponge. Don't ask how each tool is best used to clean a tank, but it gets the job done. The tank got a new paint job, and soon enough became ridiculously clean.

A quick note on the topic of sleeping. Soldiers are constantly exhausted, and are able to sleep ANYWHERE and ANYTIME! Case and point - I have no problem sleeping in a tank. Now, this won't top a tank, but this week I managed to take a nap in probably one of the weirdest places. They sent me to work to clean up a warehouse and organize some stuff. Once I was done I was allowed to take a break, and I was looking for a place to lie down. I scouted out the storage room, found the spot and said to myself with all honesty "this looks really comfortable". What was this comfortable location? It was a giant bin filled with gas masks. I sprawled out ontop of it and took a very comfortable 45 minute nap. Not a regular person's ideal place to sleep, but I was more than happy!

This week we got a new Battalion commander. What does that mean? Ceremonies and celebratory meals! Wednesday we had a tasty celebratory meal for the outgoing battalion commander. Thursday was another delicious meal for the incoming commander (one of the best meals I have eaten in the army), and the Friday was Shabbat, which meant a third day with a great meal! Now as for the ceremony, I was the lucky one that got to do guard duty instead! Typically people want to get out of guard duty because it's not any fun, and we do enough of it as it is. However when there is a ceremony, everyone suddenly wants to guard. Why? Because being at the ceremony is worse than guarding! At the ceremony you have to stand perfectly still in formation for a long period of time. What makes it even worse is that before the ceremony, you practice standing for a long period of time! The kicker to all this is that everyone has to get dressed in their nicer uniforms without jackets while it is cold outside. As for me, the guy who got 'stuck' doing guard duty, I didn't have to get dressed up; I was able to wear a jacket, walk around (only in circles, but nonetheless) and even talk to myself if I wanted to.

In addition to the training that we will be doing, we are also frequently 'on call' for any emergency in the golan heights. If we are on call and there is an emergency, we have only a few minutes to get the tank started and be on our way. While I was on call, the new battalion commander came by for a test and we were told that there was an 'emergency', and thus we had to jump to the tank as fast as possible. We passed the test, and afterward we had a debriefing. He started by asking everyone their names and where they were from. After I said I was from Toronto his follow up question was "and why do you want to sign an extra 2 months in the army". It seems that I am quickly making a name for myself on the base as the crazy foreigner.

Finally the end of the week rolled around and I was finally able to enjoy it! Just like the rest of the country, the rules of shabbat are also followed in the army. As long as we are not doing any operation activity, we are not allowed to be given orders! For the past half year, everything we had been doing was operational and therefore our shabbat did not feel like shabbat - it felt like every other regular day. Thus being on base for 17 days straight felt like one very very long week. Now that we are in training I only had to do my hour of guard duty and couple of hours work in the kitchen but other than that it was time to relax! And that I did - before I knew it, shabbat was over and I had slept most of it away (approximately 15 hours, non consecutively, however). After being somewhat re-energized, it was time to get back to tank cleaning.

Wednesday was the inspection by the Battalion commander. I was expecting it to be a lot like the previous expection from the battalion commander before we left for the border with Lebanon in July, but I was very quickly in for a big shock. The last time we had the inspection, only 3 tanks were inspected. By the time the deputy battalion commander randomly came to inspect my tank I had already taken a 45 minute nap on the tank waiting for him. This time the battalion commander called over my direct commander as well as two others talked to them for a minute and then all of a sudden my commander comes sprinting towards us and tells us there is an 'emergency'. shit! That means we have to go run to grab our equipment, get back to the tank and start driving - obviously as fast as we can. So sprinted into my room and grabbed all my equipment which was conveniently spread out neatly on my bed for the inspection instead of being all inside my vest, bolted back out to the tank. The tank was also in inspection mode - with all sorts of doors and hatches open, so I had to close those as well. Once the entire crew was in the tank we started the engine and were the first ones to exit our 'parking lot'. Afterwards we were bombarded with a lot of operation questions for about 20 minutes to test us about what we knew. After that the battalion commander came into the barracks. He randomly decided to come into my room and interrogate everyone about all sorts of things. I was able to answer his questions without making a fool of myself or making myself look like an idiot.

After the inspection everyone seemed to be a lot more relaxed, as we were no longer working like dogs day and night in preparation for the inspection. These two weeks of logistics and cleaning was simply brutal, and everyone is very glad that it is now over. Thursday was the holiday Tu b'shvat, which is the holiday of the trees. One of the other companies in our battalion got to go to the carmel forest to help plant trees. Unlucky me, we were stuck on base doing nothing important, except waiting to go home. We were scheduled to leave at 4PM but they were unsuccessfully trying to move that up a few hours because as they said there really isn't anything for us to do here. So by 3PM we were ready to leave, but we had to wait for the bus at 4. We loaded the bus and only by 430 did we get permission to leave. aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrg!!! I ended up getting back to my kibbutz at around 730 after missing one bus, and practically jumping over people in order to get onto a second one.

Next week we actually start doing exercises in the tank, thus shooting ammunition and making the tank dirty again! It should be fun after more than 8 months of not doing anything 'fun' in the tanks.

Playing tug of war

Moving week

This was the week of the switch - I didn't go back to the tanks, but I went to another base to help pack up everything. By everything I mean E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. - from TVs to desks, mattresses, toilet paper, picnic benches, bricks, and everything in between. The first few days there wasn't much work to do - just a few hours worth each day. I was able to catch up on my sleep as well as watch some TV. It also rained a fair bit so I was glad to be inside most of the time, unlike my platoon which was outside with the tanks. Most of the work we did was when we had to load up the 18 wheeler trailer with everything that was mentioned above. We didn't get much help as we were only about 5 people. The worst part was that the trailer came at 1030PM in the rain. We didn't finish until 3AM and we had to wake up at 730 in order to finish the last minute packing and clean all the rooms. After lunch, we had literally nothing to do until the bus came so everyone gathered in one room and tok a nap on the floor until the bus came.

It was exciting to finally leave after half a year of boring monotonous difficult work. We are now moving to a base in the Golan Heights where our entire battalion is stationed (3 tank companies) so it was exciting to finally be reunited with my friends from training after having not seen them for more than half a year.

In the next 2 weeks, we have a lot of work to do before we actually start training. The battalion commander will be coming to check the tanks and the barracks so everything has to be in order and the tanks have to be super clean. Before heading home on Friday we had a full day of work ahead of us. Our first task (and might I add that it is one of the worst jobs related to the tanks) was to take out ALL the ammunition, have it checked and then put it all back where it came from. In daditino to there being tons of ammunition (I'm not exaggerating - the ammunition does weight a number of tons), it is also difficult to access and awkward to remove. We couldn't start working on my tanks because it had not yet arrived from our previous base, so we did the owrk for the crew that was tank sitting for us. Once our tank arrived we did the backbreaking work for a second time. The third tank in our platoon did not arrive until the afternoon so I had to assist them as well. In the evening, while everyone went to a company meeting my commander and I had to stay back and fill up 2 tanks with gas. From this description of my day it doesn't sound so bad, however I started working at 630AM and finished at 1030PM. I also had to work straight through dinner, so the last break I had I had taken was for lunch. The only thing that kept me going was the light at the end of the tunnel, which was that the following morning I was heading home for the weekend!!!

SOME of the ammunition.

On Friday it was time to go home!!!! Wake up at 530, and by 7 we were on a bus heading home. At about 9AM we stopped for a pit stop on the side of the road. We hadn't eaten anything all morning because we were too busy scrambling to get things ready in order to go home. We were given 10 minutes and everyone got off the bus and all we saw was a sea of people because there was another bus full of soldiers that had gotten there before us. We manage to push our way to the front and we see about 10 tables full of food - cookies, cake, candies, salads, sandwiches, etc. pretty much an entire brunch buffet. It was all free!!! The only catch was that once we got on the bus we got listen to this woman's amazing story of why she decided to give free food to busloads of soldiers.
Twenty years earlier across the street from the bus shelter on the side of the highway which we stopped at, a terrorist with a knife was stabbing a woman who started to cry for help. It was a friday morning and like many bus stations there was a soldier waiting for a bus on his way home from base. The soldier heard the cries for help, subdued the terrorist and ended up saving the life of the woman. A local citizen of the community (this woman who was speaking to us) wanted to do something to show her appreciation for what that soldier did, and what the soldiers do as a whole. The following Friday morning (this is the time that many soldiers are on their way back home from base for the weekend) she showed up to the bus shelter with homemade cookies and handed them out to the soldiers who passed by. She continued to do this every Friday morning with some of her friends. The project began to grow when one morning a soldier asked if she happened to have a sandwich instead of the cookies because he was hungry; the following week she made sure to prepare sandwiches. She began accepting donations from community members - however the donations can only be made in food, she does not accept money. As the project grew, the city asked how they could help her. She said that since the bus shelter is simply on the side of the highway, she wanted a space that was more off the side of the road and safe. The city decided to build a fence where it was cornered off and there was a safe place to park for the buses and passers. Her idea has grown and now there are numerous stations like these around the country where regular citizens hand out free food to soldiers on their way home from base. This woman has been doing this every week for the past 20 years in order to show her appreciation for what the soldiers do for Israel.

I spent shabbat in Jerusalem as a guest on a trip sponsored by the JNF (Jewish National Fund) entitled Greeks Build Israel. It is a trip for students in fraternities and sororities to travel to Israel for one week to do volunteer work. I participated in the trip 2 years ago (and blogged about it here - blog posts from December 28th 2008 - January 6 2009) and they requested that I join them for shabbat and share my experiences about being in the army. We headed to the Western wall with the group to welcome in the shabbat and we had quite a long and wet walk back to the hotel. Our walk brought us through the entire city. I have done lots of walking in Jerusalem, but this walk took me into different areas of the city that I had not seen before as well as areas that I have been to by bus because they are too far away! All in all the walk was about an hour and a half. On the walk back we passed by the Prime Minister's house. I previously had no idea where it was located, but I found it to be quite close to a main intersection that I frequently pass by. This is noteworthy because since September the parents of Gilad Shalit have been sitting outside the house on the sidewalk as a protest to the governments inability to bring back their son from captivity. For those who don't know Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by hamas terrorists about a month before the start of the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Since then his whereabouts are unknown and he has been denied his right to see the Red Cross. More on Gilad Shalit here. His parents feel that the government is not doing enough to get his son released. Outside the Prime Ministers house, on this cold rainy Friday night, his parents were sitting at the shabbat table, singing the prayers and welcoming in the shabbat. There were about 100 people that were standing around the table and joining in with the singing. His parents have vowed not to leave the tent until their son is released from captivity. We only stuck around for about 10 minutes before we continued our walk, but I had the opportunity to see what was going on and now that I know where it is, I will have to make a point in going back.

I apologize for not posting this 2 weeks ago when I was off base, but I did not have an opportunity to get to a computer because I only got 2 days off base. Now that I am in training I spend 11 days on base and 3 days at home.