Week 1 - In the army now!

So I have seen the sunrise every day this week - but despite the fact that the base is located in the mountains and the scenery is beautiful (will take some pics later) its not so fun to be up by 530 and earlier every day. Today we got to leave base for the weekend, so we had to wake up extra early - 830 so that we could clean and make our beds in order to be released by 630.

I am on this base for the next 14 weeks - the first month is basic training, and after that is an ulpan - where I will be learning Hebrew. Everyone that is with me are foreigners who have either just made aliyah or are not Israeli, like myself. The officers and everyone only speak in Hebrew, and luckily mine is good enough to understand about 90% of what they are saying - the missing 10% I can still figure out what is going on. However, there are some people that are completely lost.

The first few days of the army they were taking it easy on us because everything was new. But after dinner on the third day things changed. The first few days they were teaching us the formations that we have to stand in. They gave us our on base uniforms - which are not as nice as the ones we wear in public. Everything we do is timed - so we have to watch our watches constantly and know whats going on - we will get 3 minutes to go clean and then have to be back outside in formation. Or we will get a 15 minute break. Never a second more. We had some classes about Israel, and the army. We also took a few Hebrew tests to see where our written, reading, and speaking levels are at. Surprisingly after not having any formal Hebrew teaching in about 15 years, I managed to pick it up quite easily.

The base is full of people from all over the world - the first group I was in called a tzevet. Of the 12 of us in the group there were 2 people from France, 2 Americans, 2 Argentinians, and one each from Panama, Holland, South Africa, England, and Russia. Just as our tzevet was starting to get the hang of things - like counting, showing up on time, making formations, and writing something similar to an attendance sheet (which has to be written every time we are given more than 7 minutes to do anything) everything got switched up and we were all given new tzevets after 2 days.

We don't get much free time. We are outside and dressed well before 6AM and its lights out between 10 and 11PM. Every day we get an hour (or sometimes one and a half) of free time, where we are given free time to use our phones, buy food, and wear something other than our army uniform. But also in this time we have to shower and get ready for bed. We get a lot of breaks throughout the day, which is good, but its not enough time to do anything substantial except go to the bathroom and sit around and talk - its not like we are actually allowed to do much else in that time anyways.

The first night before our free hour they were explaining to us about what we can and can't do and all that stuff, and also about fire drills. That should have been a hint that there was going to be a fire drill 5 minutes into our hour break, but everyone kinda forgot about that because we were excited for our free hour. So just as everyone got changed out of their uniform, naturally they had a fire drill. During a fire drill you have to have a shirt on past your shoulders and at least have a pair of shorts on; we also must wear our army boots and obviously run outside and get into formation. So this was a preface to what happened next. We were sent to bed at 10PM, and 45 minutes later while we were about 80% asleep - one of the leaders called mefakdim comes into our room and says is Alexander so and so here - silence because this person wasn't in our room. 30 seconds later he comes back and says is Alex here. My response was Alex who? - it seems that every other person on this base is either named Alex or Alexander. He said don't ask questions, is your name Alex? So obviously I say yes, to which he responds with 'Aish! Aish! Zuz! Zuz!' which translates to 'Fire! Fire! Move! Move!' So half asleep I have to jump out of the top bunk, look for my boots, which looks like everyone else's especially when the lights are out and I have to run outside while everyone else in my room is still in bed. So I'm running outside and following the guy in front of me. I get into formation with a different tzevet thinking what the heck is going on, and why am I here. There definitely had to have been a mixup because the only person to take note of where I went was the guy who was yelling at me to get out of the room. As I was standing there I heard the exact same thing I had heard in my tzevet before we were sent to bed. That tzevet was then sent to bed, and I went back to bed. When I got back to the room, the guys asked where the heck I went to which I responded that I have no idea what just happened. Day 1 and already rediculous stuff is happening ONLY TO ME!!!!

On Tuesday, the mefakedet asked for a volunteer after lunch. So I decided to volenteer........ for kitchen duty. So when I got there, I learned that kitchen duty is AWESOME. I picked up chairs for 15 minutes, then sat around for half an hour. Mopped the floor for 20 minutes, sat around for 45 minutes. threw out empty boxes for 10 minutes, sat around for 45 minutes. The lunch ladies are awesome. They just told us to sit around, and we were able to rest, and sleep if we wanted and they would call us if they needed anything. There were 2 other guys on kitchen duty - one from France and the other from Azerbaijan so we sat around and had a conversation in Hebrew, because that was the only common languge. It was also a great opportunity to rest my feet because they were killing me - 2 blisters after day one on my left heel and a huge blister on my right heel by day 2, and working on a third at the base of my baby toe. It was hard to walk, yet alone run.

That night after dinner our mefakedet said 'okay, now that you have seen a bit of the army, now we are really gonna start with the REAL army. We then spent the next 2 hours running in the dark down a huge hill at 10-15 second intervals and stopping each time in formation. At the bottom of the hill we stood at attention for about an hour while they talked to us and gave us tags identifying what group we were in. After that we ran back up the hill again in 10-15 second intervals.

On Tuesday we were assigned to new tzevets, and now I'm with a bunch of people who don't know how to do anything. They don't count the time left, and therefore are always late. Also none of them know how to write up one of these attendance sheets. I am pretty much forced to do everything so we don't get into trouble. After lunch, the mefakedet decided to send me kitchen duty for my second time. Not only was it a relief that I was able to get off my feet again cuz they were hurting even more than the day before, but I got an extra satisfaction knowing that kitchen duty means that I was doing a good job, and that my tzevet would be screwed without me and would most definitely be running, pushups and situps all day long. I did 8 hours of kitchen duty, and maybe an hour and 15 minutes of work. Once my duty was done it was our free hour and a half off and then bedtime. My entire tzevet was exhausted from running, pushups and situps as I expected :-D

Because I know whats going on and actually doing things properly, I can't seem to get in trouble. When the fools in my group were cracking jokes and doing funny stuff I was laughing and while others got in trouble for laughing and misbehaving I didn't. One example was that myself and worst person in our group were sitting together on the ground while we were discussing something as a group. I was sitting in a very relaxed position and so was he. The mefakedet told him to sit upright, to which he pointed out that he was sitting in the exact same position as me, yet still the mefakedet told him not to talk back and to sit properly while I sat and chuckled and not got in trouble.

Can you believe they gave me a gun??? Well - they did! We only got them towards the end of the week this week, but we got long M16s. No ammo this week, but we had to carry our gun around everywhere. In the army if you lose your gun, its 7 years in jail. You take it to the shower, and sleep with it and take it EVERYWHERE you go. We only get the guns on base though, so I have to turn it in before I go home for the weekend. Aside from our gun, the other thing we have to have on us at all times (aside from our free hour) is our canteen. So a gun in one hand and canteen in the other - everywhere I go.

On tap for next week:
Aside from the usual - early mornings, running, situps, pushup, cleaning and all the non fun stuff, we get to practice shooting on Monday.
Secondly I get to see the doctor on Sunday to try and get my profile raised so I can do Nahal. I have to be at the doctor at 10AM in Tzfat - which is probably at least 4 hours away then I have to get to base. That should be an adventure in itself. I'm estimating at least 7 different bus and or train transfers.

First day off

I decided to meet a friend for lunch on Friday in Jerusalem. One of the benefits of soldiers are that we get free public transportation if we are in uniform. I had no other plans for the day so I didn't mind taking the hour bus each way for only a few hours in the city - in fact it actually paid off. My friend showed me how to properly tuck in my pant legs and how to tie my boots ( these things are not intuitive). Once the boots were tied properly the pain in my feet changed from nearly constant excruciatingly unbearable pain to extremely painful. (side note: yes mom, even though I put the insoles in the boots my feet still hurt like hell). It's kind of like working in a brand new pair of hockey stakes except I have to wear the boots ALL DAY LONG!

Army day 1

Bright and way too early (6AM) I had to wake up in order to get tot he army base by 730. Life is already changing too quickly considering I haven't set my alarm in over 3 months. Once I got to the base I sat there and thought 'what the hell do I do now', until i found someone else who spoke English and together we said 'what the hell do WE do now?'. Within 10 minutes they put us on a bus and drove us 3 minutes around the corner where we sat on the bus for the next 45 minutes. Luckily we still had the AC.

They took the 30ish of us off the bus and started talking to us in Hebrew (obviously). Our group consisted of mostly foreigners, like myself and new immigrants where are in the country for about less than 2 years. Luckily my understanding of Hebrew is good enough to understand what was going on, otherwise I would have been in big trouble, like a lot of people there.

Similar to sitting on the bus and waiting most of the day was spent sitting and waiting or standing in lines and waiting. Aside from asking for my banking information so they can pay me and letting me go home at the end of the day, the processes seemed a lot more like jail than the army. Additionally we didn't know that we were going home at the end of the day until the end of the day. Mugshots, haircut, fingerprints, x-rays, DNA test, immunizations, medical questionaire, interview, clothing and lunch all seemed to be processes that one would also go through if you were going to jail.

One of the things I needed to do was to speak to a doctor to try and get my medical profile raised in order to be in Nahal (the name of one of the infantry divisions). Due to the fact taht I told them I have asthma the options I was given were tanks or artillery. Apparently answering yes on a medical for to the question 'would you like to see a doctor and learn more about your profile?' is not enough to see a doctor. After I turned in the form (filling it out was hard enough - the form was in hebrew and russian) I was given a peice of paper and sent around the corner. That guy took the paper and sent me downstairs. There I saw a warehouse full of clothing and not a doctor. So I went back upstairs and said that I wanted to see a doctor. The soldier said 'it's okay, just go downstairs'. To which I responded in a louder voice how rediculous this process is considering the way I filled out the questionaire. After some more arguing he sent me back to where I filled out the form where I went thru the same conversation with that soldier. 45 minutes later I see a doctor, and he said that he would refer me to a specialist who would be able to raise my profile.

Next I went back downstairs where they gave me a huge bag full of clothes and boots and told me to get dressed. I then spent the next hour trying on different sized boots. It's not like a shoe store with different styles, they just have differetn sizes. I have rediculously wide feet so its always been hard to find footwear that fits. I was one of the last people in the group to get dressed and was waiting for the soldier to tell me to move on to the next station. It's approaching 2PM and we are still waiting - at this point I'm starting to get restless because they have not fed me yet. The soldier then calls me and tells me to go back to the warehouse and tell them I am supposed to be #4. I go back and tell the soldier who ten looks at me like I'm from another planet and asks me what does that mean. As I giver her the shocked are you joking me look while I tell her I don't know what the heck is going on - I don't speak Hebrew. Apparently #4 means go over there and take off your red boots. For the next 5 minutes I'm standing there in my socks with boots in hand saying what do I do now, and what do you want from me? Someone finally took my red boots and gave me black ones (red boots are for nahal and black is for everything else). Even though I'm not in nahal I wanted the boots because apparently its a massive hassel to have to swithc boots for any reason. I tell them to give me back the red boots. This caused a problem that required 6 people to solve, as there was a large crowd around me. Someone asked me if I was in mahal (foreign volunteer soldiers) I say yes. He then asks me if I'm in nahal to which I said yes (even though I'm not yet). After waiting for 10 more minutes they take back the black boots and give me the red ones I was originally wearing. Score Alex: 1, IDF: 0. I get back to the end and as I'm explaining to the soldier that after half an hour the end result was absolutely nothing another person comes from a distance and asks the soldier that I was talking to if the group of us waiting had eaten yet (its 230PM). I yell back to her that we are starving and haven't eaten. To my happiness lunch was much better than I expedcted - but I'm sure the fact that it was already 230 and starving definitely had something to do with that.

After lunch I sat and waited. About an hour later the small group of people that were waiting with me before lunch all showed up with black boots on instead of the red ones they were originally wearing. They were pissed off (rightfully so, they were actually going into nahal) - I smiled and laughed. After 2 hours of waiting I was finally called. They took us to get our stuff that wehad checked at the beginning of the day and took us over to busses. At this point we still didn't know if they were taking us to the base up north or if we were going home for the weeekend. They started to explain to us the basic rules for soldiers conduct while off base and the proper dress code. Tehy also told us where we had to meet on SUnday morning and how to get there. They put us on a bus drove us to the central bus station in Tel Aviv and let us go home! After a very long day I got back to Rehovot by 7PM. I checked the internet to see how to get to Carmi'el by 930AM on Sunday and I need to be out of the house by 6AM - CRAP!

It was great ot have a long weekend after only one day in the army. For the next 3 months I get the majority of the weekends off - however they define weekend as leaving base Friday morning and I have to back on base Sunday morning. Despite the weeekend I am eager and excited to go back for my first week!