Army trip to Jerusalem

I was supposed to get the day off on Sunday to go to the bank, but at the last minute I was told I had to return to base on Sunday because I had to take an important hebrew test on Monday, but that I could go home on Monday and return Tuesday to take my day off. This was a real pain in the ass because I wouldn't get my entire day free. Going to the bank would only take me about an hour, and the rest of the day I could relax and do nothing - but the army screwed that all up. So Sunday was a complete waste of a day where we did nothing - which included waiting 2 hours at our meeting point for the army bus to take us to base. This wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't between 11AM-1PM: lunch time. Monday I was just itching all day waiting to go home. I figured I would have the hebrew test early in the morning and at the latest grab an early lunch on base and then leave. Well I didn't have the test until after lunch, and on top of that they remembered that I needed to have a court case because I went AWOL. So I didn't get to leave base until 3PM. This pissed me off because had I taken Sunday off i would have been back on base in time for both my court case and my hebrew test! On top of that, when I returned to base on Tuesday there was also time to have my hebrew test! For most of my day off I was planning on doing nothing - but because my day off was in the middle of the week and it felt like more of a pain. I spent more than half of my 2 half days either sleeping or travelling to and from base. So when I finally got back to base on Tuesday I waited for everyone else to have their hebrew test and then wasted the rest of the day away. Wednesday and Thursday we had a trip to Jerusalem, so that made the week very easy and short (we ended the week on Thursday evening, so we didn't have to return to base!)

So court was interesting - I explained my situation and then I basically got chewed out. I got off really easy - only with a warning, so I got lucky. I guess being a good soldier for 3 months finally paid off. So now on to the trip to Jerusalem. I was excited to go on this trip because doing anything aside from being on base is fun. Also I was excited to tour Jerusalem from a different perspective this time - not tourist, but soldier. Our first stop was Yad Vashem - the holocaust museum. We got a tour in English!!! The way the army works is that if you don't understand something they will explain it to you in english in all situation except one - if you are on our base. I was surprised that they didn't force us to have tours in hebrew, however, if there is only one thing in the past 3 months that we needed to understand 100%, this was it.

Next we went to Har Hertzl - which is the miltiary cemetary. In addition to soldiers, Presidents and Prime Ministers are also burried there. At the pinnacle of the cemetary is the grave of Theodore Hertzl - the man who created the idea of Zionism and the need for Jews to return to the land of Israel. In addition to Hertzl's grave we also visited the graves of Yitzhak Rabin (Prime Minister who was assasinated 14 years ago for his peace efforts), Golda Meir (Israel's first female Prime Minister), Chana Szenes (Jewish female Hungarian paratrooper who was captured and killed in Yugoslavia on a mission during WW2), Michael Levin (Paratrooper killed in action in the Second Lebanon War - more on him on previous blog posts), and a Memorial for terrorist victims. One story we were told was one of the worst situations ever. Yuval Harel from a community in Jerusalem called Talpiyot was killed during the First Lebanon War in 1982. Officer's arrived at the soldier's house to tell his family that he had been killed. While the officers were talking about Yuval the parents were in shock and thinking this isn't my son. Yuval was killed by a bullet to the head and his parents couldn't understand how this could happen and why he would get outside of his tank. Only when the officer was saying how Yuval loved being a paratrooper did they know that it wasn't thier son. Having made an honest mistake the officers left and drove to Yuval Harel's house in Talpiyot to break the bad news to his family - yes, same name, same community. It gets worse. Two days later the officers returned to Yuval Harel's house - the one in the tank and told his parents that this time they did not make a mistake. Yuval Harel from Talpiyot is burried 2 graves away from Yuval Harel from Talpiyot. Having been to the cemetary before, It's hard to describe the feeling being there as a soldier.

Hertzl's grave

After Har Hertzl, we were running behind schedule, so we travelled almost an hour to spent 20 minutes at mini Israel - a miniature version of the entire county. It was fun, but not nearly enough time there.

Thursday we went to Ammunition Hill. A very hard battle took place there in the 6 Day War in 1967. The 66th Paratrooper brigade was tasked with taking the hill. Each third of the brigade was to take the hill through one of the 3 trenches. A mistake was made and nobody took the eastern trench. This mistake needless to say was deadly - 37 Israeli soldiers were killed in the mission to take the hill. We did a little demonstartion to show how hard the battle was. Half of our machlakah was sent to the bottom of the trench, the other half to the top. We were instructed to switch places as fast as we can. The trenches are wide enough for exactly one person to stand. So 60 people have to pass each other where the path is only wide enough for one person, and on top of that you have to crouch down because if you stand upright your head is sticking out, which means your dead. It wasn't easy, and on top of that we didn't have bulky vests with large M16 guns with the dead and wounded literally on the ground in the trenches. This battle was really one of the hardest battles of the war.

We took a tour of the Old City which culminated with the singing of Hatikva at the Kotel as part of a little ceremony with our entire pluga (company) of about 150 soldiers. Having been to the Kotel countless times in my life, this time was obviously more special. To visit the holiest place in the world tasked with the job of defending it and everything Judaism stands for is a feeling that can't be put into words. All I can say is that it has been over two thousand years since someone from my bloodline was standing where I was with the same mission: defending Israel and the Jewish people.

Wearing tefilin at the kotel