masa kumta

The week started off with a day off which was pretty awesome until it ended up getting me screwed. As a lone soldier I am entitled to one day off every month to take care of personal business. I haven't been asking for mine partly out of laziness and my commander approached me about it and told me to take a day off (how cool is that?). I ended up going to Tel Aviv to meet up with some friends, which definitely made the day well worth it. I also baught a pair of new Asics running shoes that cost less than my lunch! (and I didn't have anything noteworthy for lunch). I paid about $12 for the shoes at a discount of about 94%!! It's actually quite easy to get the discount - all you need to do is put your life on the line and join the IDF as a combat soldier. The day was a lot of fun and the only thing i missed on base was the BEGINNING of cleaning.

Since we finished basic training we have to clean, scrub, paint, arrange, and inventory everything. This week really did suck, and I haven't even gotten to the crappy part yet. We gave back all our equipment, inventoried it and then packed kitbags with all the equipment for the new trainees. We cleaned the tanks and did inventory on all the tools. We cleaned the barracks until they were brand new, then did it again and scrubbed the walls. It was like we were preparing for the massiah. This took about 4 days and was horrible.

So what was the worst part of the week and how did I get screwed? Well what was supposed to be the best part of the week ended up being the worst - the masa kumta and everything related to it: the preparation, the actual masa and the ceremony which followed. I had just come back from a meeting and my samach (the disciplinarian) told me to "get ready for the masa that you probably aren't doing." WHAT?!?!?! He said because I didn't sleep on the base last night I might not be able to do the masa. I said I'm going on the masa and went to get ready. I was outside waiting with everyone else and I had managed to get my hands on the stretcher for some extra weight on the hike (extra fun). After a few minutes the samach came up to me and said take off the stretcher becuase I'm not doing the masa. I said I don't care what you tell me, there is no way I'm not doing the masa. An argument ensued with my main point being how this was fucking bullshit that the army gives me a free day off that I didn't ask for and now I can't do the masa because I didn't sleep on the base. His counterpoint was "your not doing the masa". He did point out that he only found out about this 'rule' a few hours ago (which was true) however it didn't make the situation any less rediculous. I then ended up speaking with the company commander and he gave me permission to join the masa partway through, which I still wasn't satisfied with. After that I ended up seeing the doctor who gave me permission to do the masa, then everything was okay, or so I thought. We took a bus out to the middle of nowhere where we were going to start the hike (yes the waiting and preparation phase of the masa lasted about 5 or 6 hours). 10 minutes before we were about to start the masa the samach came back to me and told me to get on the bus because I'm not doing the masa from the start. Another argument ensued with me outlining my previous points as well as that the doctor said there was not a problem. His response was get on the bus and join in the middle or your going back to base and not doing it at all. I ended up having to leave the stretcher for someone else to carry and get on the bus, and I was more than pissed off. I ended up doing 20 of the 25 km hike and was pissed off and in a horrible mood for the hour and a bit I waited until I joined the hike and then the other 4 hours of hiking in silence.

After the hike we had the ceremony where we finally get our berets. I was in such a shitty mood, it was the last place I wanted to be. I was soaking wet from sweat and therefore freezing cold because it was after midnight. I was hungry because we hadn't eaten anything since lunch, and I was just generally pissed off because I couldn't do the entire masa. On top of that the ceremony was going to take a while, we still had to eat and get our hour of free time, so it was going to be a while before I got to bed (we ended up going to bed at 3AM). So the last place I wanted to be was out in the cold, hungry, tired and standing for an hour while I got my beret. So after a bunch of ceremonial procedures I was standing there like a zombie wondering when it was going to be over so I could go change clothes, eat and sleep the commanders finally came around to give us our berets. The commanders come around one by one and take your green beret off your head and switch it with a black one. Then they give you a congratulatory punch in the upper chest. I wasn't really paying too much attention to what was going on, so I didn't take notice that the commanders were giving the congradulatory punches until I received mine - but more on that in a bit. So I'm standing there thinking come on, lets get this over with I want to get the hell out of here and then I hear someone behind me say Alex, turn around. I turned around to face the mashad (his main job is scheduling for the entire pluga, and he is the highest ranking person in the pluga that is not an officer) who ended up giving me HIS beret, not just a beret. Every commander gives his beret to one person, which is completely subjective and up to each specific commander. So after he put his beret on my head out of nowhere he took half a step backwards, wound up and punched me as hard as he could in the chest. I was totally not prepared for it and after the ceremony the guys around me said that I received the hardest punch from any of the commanders. It hurt like hell, but I didn't react to it. Chances are I caused him indirect grief when I put up a fight trying to go on the masa. Or stressed him out when I was doing exercises in the tank with him, or he just get kicks out of punching people, but whatever his reasons I probably deserved the punch. I was in such a shitty mood I wasn't able to appreciate the honor of receiving the beret from one of the top commanders, and the only thing that was on my mind was how cold, wet, hungry, tired and now in pain I was.

I later found out that my pluga was the only one that managed to overturn the rule so that I was able to do at least part of the masa. I was still pissed off, but at least the fight I was able to put up accomplished something.

Wednesday was the last day of basic training, and we ended up breaking distance with my commander and samach because they were not continuing on to advanced training with us. We were notified that our pluga was going to be split up into 2 new plugot and that we would be getting our week vacation starting next Thursday, as opposed to having it right away and getting 9 days off instead of 7. That was a real bummer because I would end up being on base for Purim - another holiday, as well as having to miss the gold medal Olympic hockey game. On Thursday we split up into our new pluga and had a meeting with our new commander of the pluga. As he was talking about general introductory things he told us that we were going home for the weekend and going on vacation so we would be getting 9 days off!!! I wanted to jump out of my chair and hug him! This happened at 3PM in the afternoon and we left base at 5PM. It started to pour and I had to take home EVERYTHING I owned - which was four bags worth of clothing. I didn't get to my kibbutz until 1130PM, but it sure beat the hell out of staying on base in the rain. By the way, it rained the entire way home and the bus was leaking because of the rain so my entire right side of my body was soaked for about 4 hours of the drive. It was a pain in the ass because I had no time to plan my vacation and the army tends to do things like that, but I do have most things planned out. I plan on doing a lot of traveling visiting friends and family on my time off. When I get back to the army we are taking a trip up north for a few days to see exactly what life will be like after training and then we head back to base to start our advanced training stage which will last four months.