basic training - shetach

Despite the fact that I didn't have to go directly to the base on Sunday for 945, I still had to wake up at 520AM to get to the doctor. I had to take 8 busses/trains to get from my place in Rehovot to the doctor in Tzfat and back ot the base. Miraculously I did not get lost. I had to go see a lung specialist in order to get my medical profile raised. After taking a few lung capacity tests, the doctor asked me what my profile was. I expected him to then say, okay I will raise your profile up to the next level, but instead he asked me what I wanted it to be. Naturally I said 97 - the highest profile. He said sure. So now I need to go to the doctor on the army base to get her to accept the doctor's recommendation.

When I got back to the base I was voluntold to help move boxes of battle rations halfway around the base. We were going to shetach (the field) for 2 days and amongst other things, we needed food. We stacked about 100 boxes of food onto a cart and had to wheel it halfway around the base - both uphill and downhill. It also didn't help that a few of the boxes on the bottom started to cave in and caused everything to topple over. Luckily we made it without everything falling off - despite the fact that 3 people were practically hugging the tower so it wouldn't fall over while one person was pulling the cart. It took us about 25 minutes - when the walk on its own only took a fifth of the time. Aside from the problems they were causing us just transporting the food, the battle rations suck. It contains 3 cans of tuna, 3 cans of peanuts, 2 cans of halva, 1 can of chocolate spread, 2 cans of loof (the kosher equivalent of spam - it tastes like bad salami and hot dog meat in a can), some teabags, juice mix, and a loaf of bread - for 5 people. Notice the generalization of the term battle ration - as opposed to breakfast battle ration or lunch battle ration or dinner battle ration. its the same crap for breakfast lunch and dinner. Something else i learnt about the battle rations is that if you get punched in the face with a can of peanuts it hurts. I'm okay, only a small cut on the inside of my upper lip. When we were eating our first meal of battle rations someone from my tzevet came up and wanted to take food from our box (we already had 5 people to our box, and there were other boxes). After explaining that to him, he got upset, and half an hour later came back and punched me in the face with a can of peanuts.

We had to wake up at 4AM on monday in order to get everything in order to go out to the shetach. We spent 2 days out in the sun practicing shooting and learning how to maneuver in different positions. It was a lot of fun, and I didn't do half bad. One of the rules when your in the shetach is that your not allowed to take your gun off your body. On base, your not allowed to be without your gun, but you are allowed to take it off your body (for example, if your doing pushups you put your gun down next to you, when you shower you hang it on a hood, when you go to the bathroom you can put it next to you). In the shetach you do pushups and situps with the gun around your neck, and there was no showers so that wasn't a problem. We had to pitch tents and sleep in our clothes and boots. Everyone also had to do half an hour of guard duty throughout the night (luckily I never got a turn). After waking up at 4AM and baking all day in the sun, we didn't get to bed until midnight. Shortly thereafter we had a terrorist drill - so everyone had to jump out of their tents and get into position. So, we didn't get to bed until 1AM. Day 2 was more of the same, battle rations, baking in the sun and shooting guns.

After we got back from the shetach they explained to us the specific sanctions for specific infractions. Surprisingly, there wasn't a standard punishment for punching someone in the face with a can of peanuts. Something tells me that doesn't happen too often. So I've been doing a lot of pushups and situps - not because of personal sanctions but because of group sanctions. At the end of the day the mefakedet read out a long list of sanctions and things we did wrong, and then made us do about 40 minutes of pushups, situps, and sprints.

Some of the classes we had this week as part of basic training were shooting from different positions, camouflage (unfortunately we only learned some theory behind it - no practical), and some first aid. It seems somewhat rediculous that the first 4 weeks of the course is basic training and then AFTERWARDS you learn hebrew. Here is one example of I'm sure many more to follow of why this is backwards. The mefakedet was explaining how to do CPR - one person was the guy lying on the ground, and a second was the one doing practicing doing the CPR. Through explanation in hebrew of how to do things and most likely a combination of poor instructions or complete lack of understanding of hebrew, the following was supposed to happen: to roll the person from his back onto his side you put your thumb through one of the belt loops on the pants to help roll him over. What happened was that the 'victim's' belt was unhooked. The buildup to this was quite hilarious because throughout the steps he didn't really know what to do and he was getting things mixed up, and the hesitation before he unhooked the belt reinforced that fact he knew he probably shouldn't unhook the belt but he had no idea what she was saying.

Thursday mid afternoon there was some ceremony on the base, so we had to change from our bet uniforms (the ones you get dirty on base) into our alefs (the ones you wear in public) and stand out in the sun for an hour, sweat and NOT move. Someone important was taking over some important job on the base. I don't know what was being said, but this one person had a lot of people to thank for who knows what. The only good thing about the ceremony was that it was ONLY an hour. After that we got an hour for sports. Ideally this would be good, but apparently the army has a different definition of sports. The hour of sports was us being taken on a run and then we did a bunch of pushups and situps - sounds a lot like punishments. The only difference was that I got to wear shorts a t-shirt and running shoes, as opposed to my uniform. This just reminded me of how much my army boots suck. After 'sports' we were given time to change - so I decided to hop into the shower and cool down - I figured there was no point in actually showering because I was changing back into dirty clothes and it was only 5PM, so still plenty of time left for pushups situps and running. After dinner we got hour free hour where we could do what we wanted (including actually showering because after that would be bedtime). After our free hour we have to be back outside in whatever clothing we want where they tell us what time we have to wake up in the morning and other important things. Only this time, we were told we have to be back outside in our running shoes. The bad thing about that was quite obvious, but the plus was that I saved an extra 10 minutes of free time beacuse there is no point of showering. After half an hour of what seemed a lot more like the sports that we had earlier in the afternoon it was bedtime - not showertime, but bedtime. Since Friday is the weekend, we had to be outside by 445AM in order to get off base by 630. No chance I was going to be able to move fast enough that early to get dressed AND shower. Also, I was changing into my alefs that were already dirty, and we still had an hour and a half of running around to do. When I finally did get to shower it was well earned and extremely necessary.

This weekend is a long weekend!!!! Every 2 months lone soldiers get one extra day off in order to do stuff they can't normally do. Luckily I ONLY have to go to the bank, so the rest of the day is free. I don't have to be back on the base until 11AM on Monday!!!!!

Every morning we have to make our beds perfectly. Besides arranging everything properly on the bed, the 2 time consuming steps to making the bed is one of the blankets -called scabies has to be put on the bed like a sheet, and the second one has to be folded properly as an 8 fold - its complicated to do, because you need 2 people and if you don't do it perfectly it looks like crap. And if it looks like crap you get in trouble. The trick is to never get the scabies in contact with any part of your body - just by looking at them you might get sick. So every night I put my own sheet ontop of the the scabies and in the morning rip off my sheet, so the bottom one is made perfectly. Secondly, you take the 8 folded scabies and fold it again in half and put it under the mattress behind my head so it acts like another pillow, then in the morning just place it neatly on the bed and fix it. It saves a lot of time this way. By the way mom, apparently I do an excellent job of making my bed.