War Week

After another shabbat on base I was ready for war week. Before we start every week we have a safety lecture regarding specifics about the week so they ended up spilling the beans so to speak (or so I thought) regarding thing they would end up making us do. One of the things they stressed was regardless of what happens nobody is to load the magazine into their gun unless there are direct orders from a commander. On sunday at lunch - about an hour before we headed to the field to start the week my commander told my tzevet (minus our driver because he was at home and not coming back to base until Tuesday) that we were staying on base to do tank maintenance instead of participating in most of the war week. I think im being naive when I say that most people would have been thrilled about that news. In fact everyone else wan'ted to take my place! Tank maintenance on base is pretty much a free pass to do nothing and relax. I had to find a way to get out of tank maintenance duty and join everyonelse for war week. I have a twisted idea of what is fun. A part of the reason for them needed people on base was to also be a part of a first response team in the event that there was an emergency in the area. Luckily the platoon commander's loader was not feeling well and I asked the commander if I could switch with him. After he thought about it he came back to me and said yes! Phew! What a relief that I would be able to participate - and even better, I would be with the platoon commander. Since there are more people than tanks there are typically 2 tzevets per tank, except for the platoon commander who only has the one tzevet. This means that the entire time I would be participating and they wouldn't take me as an extra person to go and do other bullshit. When I boarded the bus to the field with a smile on my face everyone waswondering why I was there because they all knew I was supposed to be on base. When I told them that I asked to switch with the suck guy and they said yes I got comments like 'are you crazy?', 'your nuts', 'your an idiot', 'your messed in the head', etc. However my favourite comment was 'how do you have a university degree? Your an idiot!'

To put this into perspective, writing this story from the other perspective would sound something like this. Shit - this week is war week. I'm going to get no sleep on the tank and they are going to wake us up numerous times every night. They are going to work us like gos - its going to be hell. I just found out that they are keeping me on base to do tank maintenance! How did I get so lucky? I feel like I won the lottery!

Once we got to the field we still didn't really start he week. We thought that the second shabbat went out ( the end of our weekend) they would come running at us and yelling get your stuff. Now! Move move move. It still hadn't happened and we were already in the field. Finally it happened at around 8PM on Sunday. Grab your helmet, bulletproof vest and regular equipment vest and get to the tank NOW! Rule number 1: you can only remove your helmet and vests when you go to sleep in the tank. Now you all have 2 minutes to run to your bags and pring your phone and watch (we wouldn't be needing those things throught the war week). We got on the tanks, drove about 200 meters and set up for sleep in the tank. As I have mentioned there isn't much room for me to stand in the tank, and speeing would definately be uncomfortable. I didn't sleep well, waking up numerous times to switch sleeping positions. It wasn't a matter of getting comfort able, it was about contorting my body in such a way that I wouldn't be in pain.
I woke up after a horrible nights sleep, and to my surprise they actually had let us sleep our regular 6 hours. I couldn't believe that they hadn't woken us up in the middle of the night. Maybe things were going to get harder starting on the Monday and they just wanted to give us a break the first night. The first thing we did was to prep the tank for our first exercize which was on the platoon level. When we do exercizes on the platoon level or higher, the loader's job is made a lot easier (and less fun) because we are not allowed to fire from our MAGs or M16 because of safety concerns. One of the interesting things was that I was in the tank with the platoon commander so I could see everything that was going on as it unfolded while he was giving the orders to the other two tanks.
The rest of the day was relatively dissapointing for a war week. we didn't do much of anything - just preping the tanks for the next exercise. We spent a lot of time sitting around thinking why the hell aren't they making us do stuff? where's the fake war? It was more like we were at war with boredom. We went to bed at night and once again I woke up to light outside. And this time I was upset, and the first thought that came to mind was how the hell did they not wake us up in the middle of the night??!?!?! In the morning we spent time learning about anti tank missiles from a special forces anti tank unit (Orev Givati) who came to partake in an exercize with us. We learned a lot about the threat that then antitank missile causes and how we deal with it. The exercise of the day, which I didn't get a chance to participate in was to maneuver a platoon of tanks through a wadi - which is a dry riverbed. The objective of the exercise was to spot the anti tank missile crews. For those of us like me who weren't in the tank, we got dressed up in 'enemy uniforms' (old US army uniforms) and sat on the side of wadi throughout the exercize. I should be more specific - I didn't side on teh side of the wadi, I lied down and went to sleep for a few hours!
For the third night of sleep in the tank I decided to sleep outside ontop of the tank, which was a lot more comfortable than sleeping in the tank. Four people can sleep in the tank, and you can fit up to about another 12 on top of the tnak for a total of 16 people. Now obviously 16 people sleeping on the tank would be non ideal conditions, but than again even if here was one person nly on the tank I don't think it would be possible to get a comfortable sleep. Again to my surprise I woke up after a full night sleep without unexpectedly being woken up by the commanders in the middle of the night.
Wednesday was the company wide exercize, which was going to be awesome. It was without ammunition, however because I was in the tank with the company commander I would have the chance to seehow he works and get to see everything as he sees it. The beginning of the exercise was somewhat boring, because we were just looking at the field and splitting up responsibilities. About 5 minutes before we were about to go on the 'attack', we ran into problems and the transmission oil temperature started to overheat. After waiting for it to cool, we ran in to oil pressure problems, which basically rendered us useless. So the company commander called over another tank, and he switched spots with its commander and continued on the attack. That was a real bummer because right then and there the exercise stated to get interesting. I listened in on the radio and heard all the commands. After a while we got out of our tank to walk up to a point where we could see what was going on. After a while we started to get hot and wanted to find some shade. I ended up going to sleep on the tank for about an hour an a half before the mechanics came and woke us up. By this time the exercise had finished, and I was pissed off because I had missed it because of our piece of shit tank. With the conclusion of that exercize we had finished 'war week'. The fact that the tank broke down and I ended up missing the exercise tells how the week went - not how I expected and not my idea of a fun war week. The week was less of a war week as it was a week without luxuries - phones, watches, tents, beds, and light in the nighttime.
The rest of wednesday and Thursday was spent taking apart everything we had built up in the field for the past 4 months. After 4 straight weeks in the field we had finished all of the training in the tanks and with the 2 remaining weeks we have a week of logistics (cleaning, organizing and returning all of the equipment) and a concluding week. The best part of the logistics week is that I don't participate in it!!!! Instead of logistis I get a week of hebrew classes on base! On July 1st, I officially finish training and have my ceremony where I receive my warrior's pin.