Technical training week 2 and 3

After shabbat it was back to the field for a week of training with the tanks and ammunition. We did 2 different courses - one at night and the second during the day. We finally started firing real shells which is a lot more fun than the practice shells because firstly there is a big boom and a massive 70 ton recoil of the cannon in front of my face. It's also a lot faster and easier to load the real shells. I was also able to shoot my MAG and M16 in automatic mode. The crappy part was that gun jams only allowed me to fire 8-10 bullets from my MAG and from my M16 - only 1!!!

At the end of the week instead of spending shabbat on base they sent us down near Eilat to guard the border with Egypt. Instead of being able to sleep on a base in a room with a bed and eating lukewarm prepared food which is typically more tasty because its Shabbat an doing minimal guard duty, I had the following conditions:we got dropped off on the side of the road close to eilat - we set up shop 30 meters from the road and 30 meters on the other side was the border. Our mission - 28 hours of guard duty (the duration of shabbat). I clocked 9 hours of guard duty, and the rest of the time was spent sleeping. For the 7 of us we were given food (battle rations), water, a camoflauge tarp to build our shelter, some poles to hold up the shelter, string and a hammer. The personal belongings I had to bring with me were my vest and its accessories, sleeping back and jacket (yes it can get cold at night, and additionally it can double as a pillow. On top of those items I was ALLOWED to bring all of the following items: toque, gloves and a neckwarmer ( come as a package with the jacket), sunglasses, toothbrush and toothpaste, snacks and this booklet where I write my blog (it is important to note that the pen was borrowed from someone else). No phone allowed, no reading allowed, no fun allowed. Its a good thing I have this blog to keep myself entertained and semi-sane. After taking away our weekend we go back to the field for another week of training where I get to launch my first mortar shell!

After dinner on saturday night they drove us back to the field. Everything was a big balagan (mess) and nobody knew what was going on with respect to logistics. I ended up sleeping an hour on the bus on the way to the field before having to switch buses. Only the smaller bus was able to go down the massive hill in the field. The driver of the small bus was pissed off because it was 1AM and we were running hours behind schedule - so he refused to make 2 trips to bring everyone to the campsite. Our commanders told us to unload the equipment from the big bus and grab only our sleeping bag and get on the small bus. I maanged to be the last one on the small bus because the driver shut the door when he was ready to drive, conveniently a split second after I got on the bus. Half the company was left at the top of the hill, 2km away from our campsite. I ended up lying in my bed for almost 45 minutes waiting for the people at the top of the hill to walk all the way back to camp after arranging all the equipment which was to be brought in the morning. We got our free hour of time and then went to bed. There wasn't much to do at 2AM with only my sleeping bag and phone. I had already called toronto while we were waiting for the people to walk back, so for the free hour the only thing there was to do was sleep. And that I did - 7 straight hours!!! In the past 2 days with all the guarding and driving we did I managed to sleep almost 21 hours (which is 3.5 regular nights sleep in the army). I am now completely re-energized for the upcoming week.

Sunday and monday was spent doing nothing. It wasn't until Tuesday that my tzevet did our training. Monday afternoon I spent lying in my bed and 'learning'. By about 3PMwe had our first work stoppage due to heat. There are different levels to how they measure what translates to heat strain, but can be better explained as how absurdly hot it is. It reacehd level 5 which means that we stop all work not directly related to primary training we are doing on the tank. The heat strain scale is dependent on a number of factors, not just temperature but to give you an idea it was 40 degrees Celsius in the shade. After about an hour of heat strain level 5 we were suddenly ordered back to work because there was a drop in the heat strain to level 4. I don't know which one of the factors changed but I felt no difference whatsoever between levels 5 to 4. My commander told my tzevet that now we were going to the tank to practice switching pins in the tank tread which is the most physically demanding exersize involving lots of sledgehammering and a tug of war with the tank - just what I wanted to be doing in the 40 degree heat. Luckily there was a mechanic on the tank so we were sent back to doing nothing. phew!

Tuesday was our turn on the tanks where during the day I got to fire 2 mortar shells. The gunner tells me the range and I have to aim the launcher according to the range, load the mortar and turn the dial to fire. It makes a "blooop" sound, then I jump up on my chair with my head out of the tank and wait for about 25 seconds before I see the explosion. The first one I fired was perfectly aimed but offset to the left a bit, but the second was right on target. Again I had the opportunity to fire my M16 in auto mode, but there were other gun jams I had to deal with first. By the time I was al prepared to fire my M16 and had hte safety turned to auto and one moment away from pulling the trigger the commander said "hadal!" - Stop! It was the end of the exercise. shit.

At night we did the same thing we had done the week before during the day, but now at night. The main thing being firing a shell from the cannon. From the loaders perspective, firing the cannon at night is much more intense than during the day.Sound at night is much more intense so the boom is a lot stronger. On a side not 2 days earlier as I was in the process of lying down in my bed to go to sleep while one of the other tzevets was practicing. They fired the first shell of the night and it scared the crap out of a bunch of us. We are used to loud bangs all the time but this was idfferent becuase i twas the first loud bang at night. Additionally the tank was less than 200 meters away from our tent when it fired. I thought how the hell am I going to fall asleep with this noise occurring throughout the night, but eventually I succeeded. So in addition to the loud bang heard from within the tank, there is a big flash inside the turret blinding me for an instant and the entire turret fills with gas from the explosion of the shell. So after not being able to see or breathe for a second its back to work and I loaded another shell as fast as I could. I got to fire from my MAG and M15 again. After shooting about 100 bullets from the MAG I went to pick up my M15 but again we reached the end of the course. shit again