First day on the kav - what could possibly go wrong?

Firstly in regards to the title, the word kav in Hebrew means line, and in this context it can also refer to the work soldiers do in guarding the border. More on this story further down in the post.

This week we finished preparing/cleaning the tank before we headed up to start guarding the border with Lebanon. One of the tasks that I had to do was to take out ALL the ammunition from the tank, and then shortly thereafter refill the tank. This was backbreaking work that involved removing 45 shells each about 60 pounds and about a meter tall. It's a shame that us combat soldiers have to do this horrible work and that they couldn't bring in some temporary jobniks to do some real work. Another critical part of cleaning the tank was to scrub all the birdshit off its cannon :-P

We finally finished cleaning the tank and set off for the border with lebanon. Lifestyle here is very different from anything we had in training. Firstly our base is very small. Aside from having to be in uniform just about 24/7 i'm allowed to walk around in half my jumpsuit and tie the top half around my waist (it is a very hot thing to wear). Another important thing we have here is a TV! With a lot of free time, we are able to chill out by the tv, play cards and relax.
So what is a typical day like? I'm not really sure when my day starts, so lets define a starting point. Lets say that when I get out of bed (assuming I get to sleep in a bed) is the start of the day. Having said that, my day will usually start sometime in the afternoon. We will have a few meetings, clean some stuff and have downtime until about dinner. At night we start getting ready for out guard duty inside the tanks. This lasts about 8 hours throughout the night and into the morning. During this time I stand on my chair while looking outside with my nightvision goggles and trying not to fall asleep.We get a couple of hours to sleep inside the tank during the night however it is uncomfortable at best. When we do get a chance to sleep the 4 of us have to take turns being awake to listen to the radio to notify everyone if something has happened and we need to wake up.Once we are done with the mission we have about an hours work to prepare the tank for the day. Then we do our regular morning routing where we clean our guns, boots, etc. Afterwards we can finally eat breakfast (after we make it for ourselves - we get lunch and dinner 'catered in' from a different base). Once breakfast is done and we clean up after ourselves we are given time to catch up on our sleep, and i get to bed anywhere between 10-1130ish AM.

So taking a step backwards to the first day when we got to the base we started to learn the area - where we were situated, and the terrain around us. We walked up to one of the outposts by foot to see what we will be looking at on a daily basis. We get up there and take a quick glance around and the question on everyone's mind is where's Lebanon? The platoon commander (mem mem) points in the direction of Lebanon, and everyone looks directly in the direction where he points. At that EXACT MOMENT where we all simultaneously had our eyes locked onto the specific point in Lebanon which was no further than 100 meters from the border, we heard a huge boom and a giant mushroom cloud rise up from the EXACT POINT where our mem mem pointed! Everyone looked at each other with an expression on our faces that say wtf?!?!?!?! did that really just happen???? (yes it really really did just happen, you can't make this shit up!) And yes, the expression is the same in english and in hebrew - if you were wondering. Other things that were going through my mind were holy shit, what do we do now, this is just my first day!!!! how did my mem mem do that? can he do it again? does he have other super powers? is that what they teach in officers training course? I could go on and on with questions of those sort, or I could just add 'etc.' but in this case only one additional rhetorical (or maybe its not rhetorical) questions is necessary: is my mem mem part of the First Earth Battalion? If you understand the question then you can fill in all the other applicable questions. If you are confused by the question watch the movie Men Who Stare At Goats. So at this point the mem mem decides that it might be best if we swiftly made our way back inside to figure out what the hell is going on! "Oh that?" Someone says nonchalantly, "That's just UNIFIL (United Nation Interim Forces In Lebanon) clearing landmines". This is one of the things that they do. Now I bet that has heightened your curiocity as to what else UNIFIL does. Well what they are SUPPOSED to be doing is keeping the region quiet while enforcing UN resolution 1701 created after the 2nd Lebanon War in 2006 which states that Hizbullah is not allowed to be armed south of the Litani River. To say that they are doing a poor job would be an understatement. enough about that nonsense.

On Tuesday - 2 days before we were going home, the tzevet that returned to base from being at home took our place on call so we no longer had that responsibility. If anything ever does happen while I'm on call I have to run and grab my vest and helmet and run to the tank and wait for further orders. We had a few drills over the past 2 weeks which helps to shake up the routine of boredom. So the tzevet that is not on call usually helps out with the daily work on the tanks and are extra bodies to do guard duty and other random things. That night the tanks left for the field to sleep in tents for a while. My tzevet didn't go because there was nothing for us to do there without a tank. We then realized that we had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do for a day and a half before we were scheduled to go home. Downtime isn't so much a rarity, but this much consecutive downtime is. There was so much nothing to do that they let me go home one day earlier than expected - 5 day weekend!!!! (My usual schedule is 17 days on base and 4 days at home). I found this out Tuesday night. I was then able to get a good 8 hour's night sleep. I woke up an hour early for some unknown reason and was unable to go back to sleep because I was excited to go home, so I ended up just laying in bed for that hour attempting to drift back asleep. I ate a good relaxing breakfast and went for a run before heading home in the afternoon!

On a side note below is a feature done by the military channel called weaponology that chronicles the history of the state of Israel and the weapons that their commando units used. Highly recommended.

http://www.israellycool.com/2010/07/27/navy-seal-vs-israeli-commando-tonights-the-night/

The new life

This week I got to my new company. It's a completely different atmosphere as to when I was in training. When we got there there was a table of food and everyone there was singing and welcoming us. Everything is more relaxed and there is no distance with our commanders or officers. The people are really nice and overall I enjoyed myself. In the barracks there is also a TV and ping pong table. One of the best things is that while we are working on the tanks there is music playing!

This week was spent getting adjusted to the new life, arranging our equipment and cleaning the tanks. This week we didn't do any guard duty or any of the crap jobs. Typically all the new guys end up getting all the bad jobs (which will surely start next week) While in training I had another tzevet that was on the tank with me because there wasn't enough tanks for people, but now I have my own tank, so I have to do twice as much work as before.

Once the work is done for the day, we are given our free time. It's not like in training where we only had an hour and then we had to be in bed, but we are given more time, and sometimes people order pizzas or sit around and drink coffee. The atmosphere is more relaxed. The only downside is that the additional free time we use to 'hang out' cuts into our sleep time, and thus we don't get a 'full night sleep' - whatever that means. On Wednesday night they set up a projector outside and we got to watch the semi final game of the world cup.

Sorry for the quick blog update, but I don't have much time by the computer this weekend. You can take this time to catch up on my previous posts if you have fallen behind on the blog reading.

warriors pin סיכת לוחם

Thursday I had my end of training ceremony. There ceremony was for the 380 new lochamim (fighters/warriors) like myself that have just completed the same 7 months of training as I have. In addition to us there were 150 additional soldiers that have just completed the 4 month tank commanders course who participated in the joint ceremony.

We have been practicing for the ceremony for a week now - just about every day we would stand out in the desert sun for about an hour to an hour and a half and practice standing, marching and transitioning from one standing position to another. This was the worst part of each day - so much so that

everyone was arguing as to who would go do guard duty so they could miss the practice.

On the day of the ceremony I had to show up at Latrun by 9AM. From then until 130PM we were practicing. During that time we had 3 breaks where we were able to go drink and sit down to rest our feet. The only positive thing about practicing was that the sun was beating down on top of us and not directly in our faces, which was the case as the sun began to start setting at 5Pm - the start of the ceremony. The ceremony was an hour and a half and it was HOT! So much so that one guy in my company passed out due to dehydration (he was fine afterwards, and this is a regular occurrence at such ceremonies).

Invitations to the ceremony were given out a few weeks ago and it said that vi

sitors were able to come at 130 and that hte ceremony started at 5. Everyone was falsely misled because we thought that we would have free time to spend with the visitors during that time. I figured that we would have to start standing and waiting in our positions well before the ceremony started (4:20). What nobody expected was that directly after we finished practicing at 130, everyone had to go and do paperwork and register to the new battalion. This is where I finally found out where I would be going and when. The first thing I learned was at I had the weekend off and that I could actually go home after the ceremony (something that was still unknown). The second thing I learned was that I also get off next Thursday - 2 weekends in a row!!! I then found out what new company I will be going to: its name is ze'evim (wolves). Like the other companies in the battalion all are up guarding the lebanese border. I also found out that a fair amount of good people from my company are also going to ze'evim, so I will have friends there. Other than that I don' know much else.

After all the paperwork, I finally had an hour of free time. By 4 we had a quick platoon meeting before we had to line up for the start of the ceremony. So within that free time I finally got to ea

t lunch at 3PM, change uniforms, shine my boots and meet up with my cousins that came for the ceremony. In addition to my cousins, a friend from Toronto who was visiting in Jerusalem managed to make it out to the ceremony.

So after 7 months of training and a full day of standing out in the sun without shade what di I get besides a sunburn? I get my sicat lochem (warriors pin) which every combat soldier receives after finishing training. Below is the pin for the armored corps. As part of the ceremony, the commanders distribute the pins and pin them on our shirts. I wasn't just given a pin, but the company commander removed HIS pin from his shirt and pinned it onto mine. Definitely a huge sign of respect from the leader of the entire company.