The first rain

I returned to base for 8 days before I headed home to Canada for a 2 week visit. Before I got back to guard duty we had a 2 day break where we spent it sitting around for a bit of a refresher course on some of the things we learned about the communication system within the tank. We also had a lot of free time in the evening and got to eat some much better food because we were on a different base.

I got back to base to continue my normal work. We were getting ready to head out into the field on Friday and the weather was not looking good - calling for rain. I was not looking forward to rain and getting soaked in the field and I was hoping that it would pass. Well, it didn't pass but luckily we missed the worst part of it. All the while we were hoping that the rain would stop. We then found out that due to the rain and other reasons we were not going to the field!!!! After that news we hoped that it would continue to rain so that when we did eventually get to the field we would have missed it all. One thing I learned about the rain is that the water itself and getting drenched can be the LEAST of my problems. Water in Israel is celebrated because there is a major water shortage and this was the first rain of the season. Everyone was very excited about it except for anyone who owns a tank. The problem with the rain is that rain turns the ground into mud, which eventually gets brought into the tank via our boots. So your probably thinking, whats the big deal, so there's a little (or a lot) of mud in the tank, suck it up. Well, true there is nothing we can do about it, and I don't claim to be the biggest neat freak however I would rather not track mud through my 'bed' and 'bedroom' as I also sleep where I work. Luckily, as I mentioned we missed the worst part of the rain and we didn't spend a lot of time in the tank, so it stayed relatively clean. However, expect more interesting blog posts in reference to rain and mud in the future.

So after only 8 days back on base I headed home - back to Toronto!!!!!!!! The week flew by, except for the last day and a half that I was on base, which felt like an eternity. I had a 1AM flight out of Tel Aviv and got to the airport at around 930 only to find out that the plane was delayed by about an hour. Not such a great start to my vacation, but that was the only bump in the road on my journey home. I managed to get a seat on the plane with nobody next to me so I was able to stretch out a bit and get a descent amount of sleep. The best part of the flight was that it was a 12 hour El Al flight without any crying babies - simply amazing! I landed in Toronto at 830AM local time without being jet lagged. Here is a fun fact you probably didn't know about IDF soldiers: we are immune to jet lag. The secret - always being completely exhausted 24 hours a day. With the ability to sleep anywhere and anytime, a 6 hour time change did not make my body any more tired than it already was. It was nice to get home for a 2 week vacation to visit family and friends. After exactly 1 year and 5 months in Israel, I finally get a much needed (in my opinion) vacation.

shetach shetach shetach

After forgetting to go to bed I headed back to base for 14 days and immediately headed to the shetach (the field). The first 10 days were extremely difficult. Not much to explain or elaborate, so here are some of the stats from the first 10 days:

• Days spent with access to running water AND electricity: less than 1/2
• Showers taken: 1, but I was lucky to even have time for that
• Hours spent guarding: too many to count, but for 10 days straight I either did shifts of 2 hours of guarding with a 4 hour break in between or 4 hours of guarding with a 4 hour break in between. Break time does not mean I can do whatever I want, break time is better defined as time not spent guarding.
• Longest consecutive sleep: less than 4 hours.
• Days spent not eating or drinking: 1 (yom kippur). Hours of which spent guarding - 8. Time spent waiting for a meal after not eating for 25 straight hours: 3.5. Ate mediocre cookies and cake in the meanwhile.
• Warm meals eaten: 3
• Mosquito bites on my hands and arms after sitting at a mosquito infested guard post for hours on end at night: 46
• Nights spent awake in a broken down tank instead of asleep in a bed: 1 (more on that to follow).

The first week went by as expected, and not so out of the ordinary with doing 2 hours of guarding followed by 4 hours of not. It didn't help that yom kippur was spent in the field doing a lot of guard duty and not spent indoors. One of our nights that we were supposed to have 'off' - allowed to be inside, sleep in our beds and not the tank, sleep without shoes and fewer hours of guard duty turned into what I mentioned before - an entire night spent awake in a broken down tank.
After we spent an entire day cleaning the tank we were supposed to be given the evening and night off just to hang around and have time to shower, and sleep. Instead, an hour and a half after we finished cleaning we had an exercise where we had to go back and sit in the tank. Usually we don't really do much in the exercises, but this time they had us drive somewhere. On the way there, we managed to take out a fairly descent sized tree branch. Once getting to the destination we waited there a few hours until we could return. On the way back, my driver decided to venture a bit from the middle of the road and end up demolishing some sort of concrete post that most likely was supposed to stay in tact, hence its placement away from the road. Now as we are on our way back all I can think about is getting out of the damn tank and into a bed and indoors where there is both running water and electricity. We had to wake up at 8AM, so I was eager to get into bed by what I was projecting to be about 1130. The only obstacle left was this massive hill that the tank has to climb, which has never been a problem before. Well, what do you know, all of a sudden at 10PM this massive hill is causing us major problems and the tank won't climb it. Here is a brief rundown of the next 7 hours:
Commander attempts to drive the tank up the hill, and fails. Same story for the platoon commander. We then call a D9 bulldozer to pull us up the hill. No success there. Bring in the second working tank. The D9 pulls the working tank which then tows us. SUCCESS!!! Once at the top of the hill we had a couple more hours of tank maneuvering, which were quite similar to the following video clip. The only difference was that each time we went from forward to reverse or visa-versa the working tank had to pull the dead tank from the other direction (remember you can only pull the tank - you can't push it).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLKR9tCiwvA&feature=related
Next, we had to prepare the spare tank for use and close down the broken tank. While this is happening, the sun is rising. 5AM - go to bed. 7AM - wake up for half an hour of guard duty. 730 - grab a quick bite to eat and take a shower before wakeup at 8AM.
So that was week 1. For week 2, as I mentioned we were alternating between 4 hours of guarding and 4 hours of 'break'.
After 2 weeks like that I got a well deserved 5 day weekend (because it included shmini atzeret/simchat torah, which was a holiday). I was also finally given the opportunity to see a dentist which I have been asking for for almost forever. So when was my appointment? On my day off, obviously! Where was my appointment? Literally on the other side of the country! (obviously). Why is that obvious? because I have to go see the dentist for my battalion, and my battalion is all the way up north. As if I didn't hate the dentist enough to begin with, I had to wake up at 6AM (on my day off!!!!) to get to my dentist appointment at 12PM. So I ended up spending the better part of the day riding buses instead of enjoying my weekend.

Back to base for 9, but hopefully 8 days before I get my vacation time to go back to Toronto!!!!