MAGAMAGAMAGAMAGA!!!

We started our first full week of learning on the tanks. The classes are really interesting and more applicable to engineering than any engineering job I had while in university. We started learning on all the systems in the tank. One other thing that we are learning a lot about is the job of the driver - we had classes on the engine (which is massive), transmission (which is massive), treads and spring system (ya, i think you get the point now - everything is massive) and driving princibles because the loader is also the backup driver!!! Which means I'm going to get to drive a tank!!!
The main job of the loader is to load and prepare all the ammo in the tank. They took us to the tank to show us where all the ammo is stored. It took the commander a long time to explain becauser there is a rediculous amount of ammunition that needs to be loaded into the numerous weapons in the tank:

• Flares
• 1 0.5" (12.7 mm) calibre machine gun
• 3 7.62 mm calibre machine gun (MAG)
• Mortars
• 120 mm main cannon
• grenades
• and my M16

The best part of the week was when the commander took me in the tank to practice checking a firing the MAG. (Only when we start advanced training do we get ot practice with ammo now we just practice with nothing and just holding the gun and pretending to shoot). So the commander was giving ourder to check the gun, load the gun and other things we need to do and when he gave the command to fire I jumped onto the chair and with my head and arms outside the tank I grabbed the MAG and sharted to shout "aish aish aish...!!!" (fire in hebrew). The commander then said to me what are you doing? With a puzzled look on my face he said your not firing from your M16 - what gun is this? Then it clicked in my head, so I grabbed the gun again and started to shout "MAGAMAGAMAGAMAGA!!!" That is how you practice shooting from a MAG. All the while as I was pretending to shoot the commander is drumming on my helmet with sticks yelling "they are shooting at you!" Shouting MAGAMAGAMAGA is a lot more fun than shouting aish aish aish, so I can't wait until we start shooting for real.

Our daily schedule is is going from classroom to classroom to the tanks and back to the classroom. We get homework to do, very few breaks and therefore even less time to do the homework. We have 2 types of homework - written questions and 300 daily pushups (which is on top of all the pushups they make us do as punishments). We need to be in good physical shape to be able to load 3 45-70 pound shells in the main cannon in under 20 seconds (which is the benchmark).

We had another masa this week immediately after it finished pouring rain. They delayed it an hour until the rain stopped whichw as a bummer because it would have been even more fun in the rain. The masa was 9km plus another 2km with someone on the stretcher. Aside from all the weight we already carry we had another few added pounds of mud stuck to our boots. Once we started witht he stretcher we got into the really muddy part where my feet sunk into the mud up to my ankles and it felt like the ground was moving beneath you due to the mud and it was difficult to stand upright even without carrying the stretcher. The masa was again really easy and I was more than ready to do it again right after we had finished.

I go back t base for 2 more weeks where I'm sure I'm going to get to do and learn some awesome stuff and even drive!!!!!!!!

I am a tankist!

So we finished the last week with our basic training and now we are starting the miktza'ot (profession) phase of training. This is where they tell us what position we will hold in the tank (driver, loader, gunner) and peach profession learn their job independently of the other two. Until now our pluga was broken down into 3 machlakot, now it has also been reshuffled to be broken down into the 3 streams of professions (megamot). Now we have the opportunity to work with the other people in the pluga. The mood in our megama is much more laid back because we have a bunch of jokers in it. A couple of guys like to talk to me in enlish because they think its funny and their english accent and grammer is hilarious. Also in all the classes we have we start by introducing ourselves where we are from and there is always an icebreaker type question (ex: what superpower would you want?, where do you want to go travelling after the army? etc.) People are usually really loud during this part laughing and interrupting, but when it comes to me everyone stops talking and is really quite. Why? - because just as I'm about to say I'm from Toronto, Canada everyone at once says it loudly trying to mock my accent, which is really really funny.

Thursday we had the ceremony in which the pluga commander tells us all our profession. The ceremony was really simple - we stood in formation in front of the tanks and the pluga commander calls your name, your respond and then he says your profession and then you leave to join your new group. Just like that, in a split second your army carreer is now laid out in front of you. There ceremony wasn't big, but it was a big deal because it means we have finally become tankists and now I know what I'm going to be for the remainder of my service. So what happens if you don't like your job? - 2 options: Learn to love it because your shit out of luck, or two become a commander where you get to learn all the professions and obviously now be the commander with different responsibilities.

So whats my profession? LOADER!!!! Which is exactly what I wanted, so needless to say I was very excited. Being the loader is the most important, physically difficult and demanding job in the tank. The loader is responsible for loading all the ammunition (and there is a LOT - see the next blog post for more on that)One tank has the firepower of about an entire machlakah of infantry (about 80 soldiers). The loader stands to the left of the commander, has the use of a machine gun (MAG) outside the tank where i can stick my head out and shoot to the left. The loader is also second in command if G-d forbid something happens to the commander. The job is the bussiest and there is always something to do.

After the ceremony we got a tour of the inside of the tank which was aweosme. The loader has room to move in the tank, unlike the gunner and driver who can't even stand up. I have room to stand easily without hitting my head but not enough room to get comfortable. The instant I stepped into the tank and put my foot on the ground the commander started yelling at me 'don't step there! Don't you ever think of crossing that line! Do you want to lose a limb?' He could have at least warned me before I got in the tank!

we now start learning in the classroom and practically on the tanks. Our first class was on the machine gun MAG) whic h we had already learned about before so at least I had some understanding of what the teacher was talking about. We started the class by introducing ourselves so I'm not sure what gave away the fact that I dno't speak Hebrew- my accent, poor grammer, worse vocabulary or the fact hat I said I was from Toronto, Canada, but somehow the teacher figured out that I wouldn't understand. After she explained one of the things she asked if everyone understood and looked directly at me. I smiled and nodded nope. Luckily ther were others as well. University has prepared me well for this situation in the fact that I have become used to not understanding a damn thing during the classes and the teachers not speaking english. However, there are a lot of differences - firstly I have to show up and stay awake all day, which is a lot harder than it sounds. The rest of the differences between learning in university and the army are positives: I'm learning practically about tanks and not theoretically about calculus or something more boring than that. And most importanlty, our teachers are not ugly old boring professors, but gorgeous 18-20 year old Israeli girls!

After the class I had a few qyestions. In the middle of her explaining to me how a solenoid valve works, I interrupted her and said I know how a solenoid valve works becuase I have a degree in mechanical engineering, I just have no idea what you said what connected to it! It seems that it will be easier to learn how to work a tankin Hebrew than it will be to learn Hebrew!

Now that we start working with tanks, we also start to guard tanks, which means guard duty twice as often, and now we are out in the cold in the middle of the night.

Living like a king

When I got back to base on Tuesday, the week was nearly half over. Instead of joining the rest of my pluga I joined in the middle of a week of ulpan (hebrew lessons). It was good to get a bunch of formal classes of hebrew as opposed to trying to learn it on the fly. The best part of the ulpan was that I lived like a king, and by king I mean jobnik. A jobnik as it sounds is someone in the army wthat has what can be compared to as a normal 9-5 job - only about 10% of the army is combat soldiers. Jobniks don't go through the same intensive training, they tend to sleep moer and even get to go home mostly every weekend if not every day. We were treated like real human beings. The people in charge of us were not commanders, so we could talk to them like normal people becuase there is no distance between them and us like there is with our commanders. They gave us a reasonable amount of time to do things - for example 20 minutest o do everything as opposed to breaking it down to (3.5 minutes to run and brush our teeth, then 4 minutes to run and shine our shoes, 4 minutes to shave, and 5 minutes to make our beds). They took away our guns because we don't need them when we sit in the classroom, so we didn't have to do guard duty and got to sleep 8 consecutive hours, whcih is practically an eternity. It's ironic that I got a better night sleep during the 2 days of ulpan than I did staying in a hotel with my parents for a week! My only responsibilities were to be in the classroom on time after the breaks and to stay awake all day , so it was kind of like a vacation. And the best part was that we were allowed to do as we pleased on our breaks including using our phones! So what was the downside to the ulpan? I missed out on the FUN stuff (yes I did say fun - read on). So I missed 3 hours of krav maga and getting gassed. What is getting gassed you ask? you stand in a tent with your gas mask on, they release the gas and you remove your mask. (Yes I did say fun stuff if it wasn't clear before). From what I heard it was obviousy horrible in the moment but awesome after it was all said and done.

The Milford Academy, Touring with the family and the hashba'ah

This week we had our survival week, or as the title says The Milford Academy - 'where children are neither seen nor heard'. If you don't get the joke, watch Arrested Development. If you have seen the show and still don't get the joke, shame on you. And yes, I have been waiting a long time to use this joke. We started by digging ourselves ditches so we can pitch our tents lower to the ground. The next day we did exercises with moving and communicating without speaking and creating lookout points where you are hidden. It was really interesting and a lot of fun.

After only one day of that they sent me back to base because on Tuesday I got to go home to meet my parents for the week.I ended up missing a game of capture the flag type game in the evening where each tzevet had to try and remain hidden from the others while trying to catch them. I also missed a 7+1 km masa. That means it was 7km plus 1km while carrying someone on a stretcher. I was upset that I had to miss those fun things but it was good that I got time off to see my parents and my uncle who came for Toronto to visit me.

When I got off base I went to meet my family in Eilat. There was not really much to do there, so we eneded up doing a boat cruise that had a glass bottom so you could see the coral and the fish. On Wednesday we made the long trip up from Eilat to Jerusalem with some stops to sight see along the way. I have seen a lot of Israel, but it was finally nice to check out some sites I had never seen before. We went to Mitzpe Ramon, which is a giant crater in the middle of the desert. I drive by there on my way to base, but I am always asleep, so I had never actually seen it. From there we went to Sde Boker which is where David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister lived and is buried. After finishing with politics he decided to move to the kibbutz which is in the middle of nowhere in the desert. His focus was on the importance of the desert and the need to make the desert bloom in order to make Israel stable and successful. His house was preserved to the way it looked on the day that he died. Unfortunately I could not take pictures. From there we went to Jerusalem and spent over 2 hours getting lost and looking for a parking spot.

Ben Gurion's grave in Sde Boker

Thursday was my swearing in ceremony in Latrun, which is the armored corps museum and memorial. I had to show up in the morning so that we could practice standing still and the few different stances we need to be in. The one good thing about the ceremony was that it was short - only 45 minutes, and there was no marching involved. That saved a lot of practicing time considering it was a hot day. I didn't understand most of the speeches or what people were saying during the ceremony, but it was really meaningful to get sworn into the army as a combat soldier and especially to have my parents come from Toronto to see it. After the ceremony we got to take our gun home for the weekend which was awesome.

Me receiving my gun

The next day I took a tour of the Old City with my family. I was strutting around with uniform and my gun, so I felt quite good about myself. The one thing the army does not prepare us for is tourists. What do you do when I'm standing alone talking on the phone to a friend and some tourist stands 4 feet next to me and poses for a picture? Do I have to tell my friend to hold on a second while I take a picture, ignore the tourist, or take out a tip jar? Also, is it my job to know the name of the border crossing to Jordan just south of the King Hussein Bridge? And if that question wasn't hard enough, the follow up question was what time are they opened until and how much does it cost to cross? Do I tell him I don't know, say to him in Hebrew that I don't speak english, or say to him in perfect english 'How the heck should I know? I'm not from here either!'

I go back to the army on Tuesday, so I still have time off which is awesome. I'm going out to restaurants with my family, so I'm enjoying the good meals. I am excited to get back though because I get to find out what my job will be in the tanks. We now start our basic training with the tanks which will hopefully be very exciting. I'm stuck on base for shabbat, so my next update will be in 2 weeks.

Me and the Merkeva 3 (My new ride)

My foolproof plan to take over the world

With all the 'free' time I have while doing guard duty in the middle of the night in the field I have a lot of time to think. To review, when you guard you are allowed to do 2 things - stand and guard. I don't think your even allowed to think, but there is no definative way for them to check on that. So the title of this blog post kinda gives it away, but here is how I'm going to take over the world...



I'm starting my recruitment now, so if you would like to join me send me an email or a facebook message or something. What are the requirements? You have to be left handed - thats it. Sorry to the majority of the human race, but soon enough you will be under my control and there is nothing you can do about it. I know what your all thinking now and the answer is yes! There will be jobs for polar bears (they are all left handed). I don't know what yet, but give me a few more weeks of doing guard duty and I will think of something wicked awesome that polar bears can do.



Aside from the language the most difficult part of the army is using any piece of equipment because the army was designed for right handed people. When I got my M16 I asked for a left handed gun and they gave me one. What's the IDF's definition of a left handed gun? It's a right handed gun with an extra piece of metal sticking out of the side behind where the shell casings get rejected to make sure they dont hit me in the face. For righties their face is on the other side of the gun so they don't have this problem. I said to them 'what about everything else that is backwards this is just a right handed gun!' Their response was the IDF has no money and only in the USA do they have left handed guns. That excuse is the trump card and works in every situation, so I didn't have anything left to say because they were right. Not only are all the weapons backwards but also all the desks and most importantly can openers. In every battle ration we get a can opener and I can't use it because its made for righties. I have ot rely on other people to open the food so I can eat.



So what makes me think that a left handed army can take over the world? Lets take racket sports for example. Righties have a lot of trouble playing against lefties because lefties are uncommon and therefore righties don't have much time to practice against them. Righties are often baffled by the 'backwardsness' of how lefties play. On the other hand lefties understand how righties play and can also play against fellow lefties - thus advantage to the lefties. If I could redesign all the weapons and can openers for lefties and introduce some left handed strategies nobody would be prepared for us!

Sick in the field

So like all weeks, this week it was back to the field. Surprisingly to everyone but me I managed to learn the commands quite quickly. I never have problems memorizing things and it doesn't make a difference what it is or if I understand it. I even managed to learn it better and faster than most of the machlakah, which was a bit surprising to me. My samach (samal of the machlakah) was actually shocked to the point where he asked me how I managed to learn it so quickly. I even got to be the commander of the exercize, so I was the one giving the commands, which definately made it a lot more fun. I got to lead by giving the commands while the other 3 people pretty much only had to repeat after me.



I ended up getting sick in the field which is definately not fun at all. I had a fever one evening and when I woke up I felt like crap. They let me rest in the tent because I was freezing cold. At about 1030 when the sun was beating down on the tent I was inside with long underwear a long sleeve undershirt, my full uniform including my boots, a jacket, gloves a toque and a sleeping bag and I was still cold. They had decided that I had done enough sleeping (even though they woke me up numerous times throughout my napping) and told me to sit in the shade on a bench for the classes they were giving. They then told everyone else not to sit on the bench next to me. That was pretty much the best news they could have given me because that meant that they were most likely going to send me back to base, which they did a few hours later. This happened on Tuesday, and I only managed to feel better towards the end of Thursay - just in time to get ready to go home!



So how did I spend my New Years Eve? 6PM dinner. 7PM free time - called a few friends and got ready for bed. 8PM bedtime. 245AM I wake up and start getting ready to get off base. 4PM bus leaves base for Tel Aviv! The best part is that my parents came to Israel to visit me for 2 weeks. So I finally got to see them for the first time since I got to Israel 7.5 months ago. Next week I get a week off the army to be with my parents which is awesome!



I go back to base on Sunday for a couple of day of survival week before I get my holiday on Tuesday. Thursday I have my swearing in ceremony (call me for details if your in the area!!!) at Latrun and then I don't have to return to base until the following Tuesday!!!!

Tironut week 4: the MAG!

Sunday we took a day trip to Jerusalem. We went to Har Hertzl again. We were given pretty much the exact same tour so it was a bit boring considering I was just there a month ago, but it was more meaningful to be there now as a kravi soldier. Afterwards we went to the Kotel and a also had a scavenger hunt in the Old City, which was a lot of fun. Not so surprisingly I bumped into a friend of mine in the Old City who is visiting from the states. As we were standing in 2 lines waiting to walk to the next part of the tour I saw him walking down the stairs and said in a rush to my mefaked 'Mefaked, I know him! Can I go over there?' I was pissed off because he gave me literally 60 seconds to speak to my friends who I hadn't seen since the summer. A lot of my friends are in Israel for the December break and conveniently I'm stuck on base and can't visity any of them.



Monday it was back to the field to finish our last week at the shooting range. We had some pretty exciting and difficult exercizes - shooting with gas masks, running with the gas mask and then shooting while out of breath. We also started practicing walking while shooting; up until now all the shooting we have done has been in static positions. We started practicing for our exercize next week which involves 4 soldiers all moving through the field at once, giving commands and shooting while running and in static positions. We started practicing dry runs (without ammunition) and I can already tell that next week is going to be a lot of fun. However, I do have homework this weekend because I need to learn the commands. A lot of them involve Hebrew words I've never heard before so its pretty much like memorizing jibberish. Slowly but surely I'm learning the commands, but its still frustrating that I can do it, but I actually have to sit down and learn it.



We had another masa where we hiked back to the middle of nowhere (AKA the base). Surprisingly the field was a lot closer to base than I expected - every time we took the bus there I managed to pass out instantaneoulsy and it felt like I had a solid nap even though it was only a 10 minute drive. The hike was 6km in about 45 minutes and I had a lot of fun - it was an okay workout for me but still not difficult. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in my machlakah who is pumped up and excited to go on the masaot. Most of the people think I'm absolutely nuts (again, this is nothing new). I'm still upset that I'm not going to get a chance to do masaot like in infantry which are upwards of 50km. In shiryon our longest masa is only (yes, I did say only) 30km. Most of my machlaka was not only unexcited about the 6km masa, but petrified of it. After the masa we received the shiryon pin to put on our beret.



On Friday we spent the day cleaning and doing pushups because we were not running all the dime during our weekly misdar mefaked, where we have to clean all our equipment and our rooms. It's a lot easier mentally to do the cleaning when I know I'm going home the next day. But everyone was not energized because we were only halfway through our 2 weeks on base.



The best part of this week was definately the 20 or so bullets I fired with the machine gun (MAG). It was awesome - there was a lot of kickback with the gun pounding against your shoulder as you hold down the trigger. What a rush! In 2 weeks we finish with the basic training and start learning our job in the tank. I had to rank the 3 jobs based on which one I prefer. I'm not guaranteed to get the job I want but they say they take it into consideration. I ranked the jobs 1 - loader, 2 - gunner, 3 - driver. I want to be the loader because asside from the commander he has the most responsibility in the tank and is second in command. He is in charge of loading (duh) all the shells into the turret, communications and he has the use of a MAG out side the tank, so like the commander he can stick his head out of the tank. I also feel as though the driver has the coolest job if I could do it for about a week, but afterwards I would get bored.