New Tzevet

First thing Sunday morning it was back to the army. My first stop before going back to base was to go sign out my gun that I had returned while I was abroad. Once I got to the base where I could sign out my gun I was told by one of my commanders to "hang out and wait - it could be a while" Perfect!!!! This gave me time to hang out with friends on the base and even catch up on sleep. 7 hours later I got my gun and then it was back to the field to get back into the routine.

This week the draft of March 2010 finished training and now joined the pluga - like I did 4 months ago. This means that most of my machlakah (12 people) are new and I have a new tzevet. My driver and gunner are new from training and my commander was previously a commander of mine in the machlakah. We headed back into the field for another week with the only highlight being the weather - temperatures in the mid to high 20s. For half of the week we did not have electricity so I had to conserve my phone battery and therefore couldn't spend most of the day on the internet or talking on the phone. Obviously we were also without running water. Surprisingly the week went by relatively quickly, mostly in part because there were new people around to talk to.

There has also been a huge improvement in terms of the food - not because there were enough complaints to force a change, but because the infantry company that was here was switched to another company of miluimnikim (reservists). This means no more of the crappy cook! The miluimnikim are laid back and they aren't being ordered around with discipline so it makes for a nicer and friendlier atmosphere. For the past few months with crappy food, our company has often brought us additional food or fruits when we are in the field because they know we aren't being treated well with respect to getting the food we need. Just this past week when our company brought us food, and "didn't know what to bring us" so we received a couple of packages of radishes and a 10kg sack of carrots. Needless to say everyone is ecstatic that the miluimnikim have arrived!

I have been spending a lot of time on the tank recently. Over one 55 hour period I spent almost 40 of them in or on the tank. They are really making me work for my money. Once I got to my kibbutz I received my new ID card for combat soldiers. This enables me to ride the buses and trains for free while I'm NOT in uniform!!! Previously I had to be in uniform to receive those privileges. Since I tend to ride the buses a lot while I am off duty its great to finally get this card!

Vacationing in Toronto

*Sorry for not having written this earlier once I returned from Toronto.

After a year and 5 months in Israel, I finally got a chance to go back to Toronto for a short but sweet 2 week visit. It was great to get a break from the army where I didn't have to do any guard duty, and I was able to catch up on some sleep. I was able to eat what and when I wanted, sleep indoors in a bed as opposed to outside in a tank. For the first time in about a half year on any given week I spent more time cleaning myself rather than guns (and the rest of my tank for that matter). I was able to dress myself how I wanted, get changed into clean clothing and not have to sleep with boots on.

During the 2 week visit I managed to avoid a heat wave in Israel, but back in Toronto it endedu p raining 5 or 6 of the 14 days I was at home. Without getting into too much detail, some of my highlights back at home were:

• Attending a Friends of the IDF fundraiser as an honoured guest.
• Going to a Leafs game - they lost in overtime but it was a very exciting game.
• Playing ice hockey for the first time in over 2 years and playing squash with my dad.
• Going back to my university to party with my fraternity brothers and celebrate a friend's birthday.
• In between all these I managed to spend time with lots of family and friends I hadn't seen in ages.

Most importantly while I was at home I spent lots of time eating lots of delicious food prepared by moy mother, sister, and grandmother. In this situation lots is defined as gaining about 10 pounds in 2 weeks. In order to satisfy my dietary needs I had to go and play lots of sports so that I would have room in my stomach to eat more. I managed to spend more time playing sports and being active in the 2 weeks at home than the last 4 months I have spent in the army while sitting on the border with Lebanon. Once I returned to Israel, put on my army pants and attempted to button them up I encountered some difficulty.

After 2 fantastic weeks at home it was time to say goodby andhead back to Israel to complete my last 4 months of army service. I landed to a nice sunny Friday afternoon. I only had to return to base on Sunday morning so I was able to spend Shabbat with a cousin. After Shabbat I headed to Jerusalem but beofrehand I was able to take a spin on one of his Segways which he happened to be s toring at his house for his business. I took about a 20 minute ride around the neighbourhood - it was easy to handle and a lot of fun!

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!!!!

Regila!!!!

As I left off in my last post, I have my second one week vacation since I joined the army 13 months ago. They even let me off in time for rosh hashana - the Jewish new year. (Happy 5771!!!) I spent the holiday with my cousins and spent 3 days sleeping and eating. I am not exaggerating - I literally spent more than 50% of 3 days sleeping. It was nice to catch up on some sleep (but at the time of this blog, 4 days later, I am back to being exhausted).

The exciting news is that on the Sunday I went to Tel Aviv to pick up my plane ticket. Thanks to the Friends of the IDF (http://www.fidf.org) they are paying for my round trip flight! After being in Israel for 1 year and 5 months I finally get a chance to come home for a 2 week visit starting in mid october!!!!!! After running around the city in the morning to get the plane ticket I met a friend for lunch in Tel Aviv, then it was off to Jerusalem to meet up with 2 other friends and unexpectedly bumped into a 3rd. Monday it was back to the kibbutz to catch up on some movie watching. Within a 24 hour period I managed to watch 6 movies. It had been months since I had seen any movie, so it was good to catch up on them and also discover new box office hits that I never knew existed. For example, the movie 'The Other Guys' with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg - I never knew such a movie had ever been made despite it being a major box office hit during the summer. Based on its ratings and its cast I decided to watch the movie and it was hysterical. I had no idea what I was missing!!!! Tuesday I managed to pull myself off the couch and meet a friend for coffee. All in all, my regila was very relaxing and stress free. I actually had time to relax, unlike my 4 day weekends where I try and do as much as possible.

My biggest accomplishment of the week and the year (yes, both 5771 and 2010) and maybe even longer is that I successfully packed my suitcase (alone I might add) not just hours or days in advance, but an entire MONTH in advance of my flight!!!! One can look at this from several angles. The first being that having been given a week off from the army, so now I have plenty of time to pack my suitcase so why leave it to the last minute? If you think that this is my train of thought you probably have no idea who I am. In fact, I am more of the type of person to leave things to the last minute. So why the change of attitude? Well, I haven't really changed my attitude. Despite the fact that I finished packing an entire month before my flight I still managed to do it at the last minute. How does that work? Well, chances are the next time I will get to my kibbutz will be the day that I have to go to the airport. I will have exactly enough time to be completely stressed out and have to run to my kibbutz grab my bag and run out the door to go straight to the airport. Before I left the base I had asked my company commander when I will be let off base before my flight in order to arrange my things and get to the airport in time. Hopefully I would be given a real answer that would allow me to pack before heading to the airport. He told me not to worry. That statement "don't worry" actually causes the exact opposite effect; not only does it cause me to worry, but it also causes massive amounts of stress. The last time I was told not to worry was in fact not that long ago. I was concerned about when I would be going home for my regila. I knew I was going home on wednesday, but that was precisely the problem. Since Wednesday night was the start of rosh hashana the buses stopped running in the afternoon. The problem was that the people that were coming to replace us were arriving Wednesday morning and we weren't allowed to leave until sometime after they arrived. Long story short, I caught the last bus home, and got there one hour before the start of the holiday. So whats the big fuss? Firstly, if I didn't get off base on time I would have been stuck on base for the holiday meaning the next bus out of the base was Sunday morning. Additionally missing the bus would have been being stuck up north without a place to spend for 3 days. That would be better than being stuck on the base, but not much better. So when my company commander told me not to worry about packing and getting to the airport in time, for me that translates to 'pack now while you still have the chance. Maybe we will give you enough time to get to the airport on time. I can't promise anything and you will receive an answer only at the last possible minute.' I don't know if I will be back at my kibbutz before my flight, so this is how I managed to pack a month early, yet still at the last possible minute.

Its back to base for 2 more weeks. Back to Toronto in a month!!!!!!!!!!!! And finally some pictures!

Me by a waterfall on one of our hikes

Some pleasant surprises

In 3 weeks a lot has happened, so I will change the post layout by separating each topic with a heading.

• Getting sick on an army field trip
• Yom Kef
• The cook: friend or foe?
• My first solo mission
• Surprises

Getting sick on an army field trip

I returned on Monday to the army for a few days of fun. They brought the entire battallion together (everyone that had just come back from their weekend off, that is) and took us to do some fun (and educational) things. Think school field trip, but more fun. This gave me a chance to see friends from training that I hadn't seen since. They took us to Kibbutz Tel Chai which was one of the first settlements in the north in the 20s or 30s. We learned about how they lived and about Josef Trumpledor. He was an officer in the Red Army during WW1 where he lost an arm. He was also the most decorated jewish soldier of any army of all time. He immigrated to israel and helped to found the kibbutz. He was killed when a neighbouring group of Arabs came to tak econtrol of the kibbutz. His dying words were טוב למות ליד ארצנו - It's good to die for our land (Israel).

Perfectly timed after the end of the tour (just as we were were walking out of the building) my stomach decided it wanted to throw up. After feeling a lot better after the puke a few hours later it happened again. It seemed as though I had either eaten something bad in the morning or I got a bit dehydrated. They took me to go see a medic where I puked a 3rd time and they let me get a good night sleep of 14 hours!!! After that I felt fantastic and it was well worth not feeling great for a few hours. On top of that I didn't miss anything fun OR important.

Once I rejoined the group we went on a short hike through one of the streams that flow into the Jordan River. Afterwards we went rafting down the Jordan where it was more of us pushing each other of the rafts. It's more like rafting down a lazy river than anything else.

Day 3 they took us to Kfar Giladi -the first Jewish settlement in the region. The founders of the kibbutz were new immigrants who wanted to live on the values of Jweish work of the land and Jews guarding their land. until then Jews hired arabs to work in the fields and guard them at night. This group of Jews travelled the land to try and convince the communities to hire them for work instead of the Arabs. Without any experience or knowlege of how to work the land or guard it they were not given any opportunities to work. After Finally getting their chance and proving their worth this group started to take on all the work for all the communities in Israel. Anyone who wanted to become a part of the group had to go through a years worth of grueling training before they were accepted. At the end of training they had a ceremony where they were handed a pistol and a bible - similar to the ceremony I went through. This elite group was the best of the best as only 120 people were tasked with guarding and working the land of all the Jewish settlements in the entire land. This organization then turned into the Haganah and later after the establishment of Israel in 1948- the IDF.



Yom Kef

Our fun eneded there and we went back to base to get back to work. Thursday I was told that on the upcoming Monday there was a yom kef (fun day) for lone soldiers and I was going to get to go. SWEEEEEEET!!!! But..... there is always a but. My officer didn't want to tell me what to do or convince me in any way but in short if I 'decided' to go to the yom kef someone else would have to come back to base a day early etc. etc. In short, someone else was getting screwed big time. Fine, I won't go I said and from then on I didn't think a bout it. On Sunday morning out of the blue I was told that I am going. They said 'those are the orders' and I wasn't about to argue or start asking questions.

So how long does a fun day last? Believe it or not the answer is a day and a half! I had to get to a dfiferent base on Sunday because thats where the meeting spot was. I got off duty in the afternoon and on top of that they told me not to take my gun - this is going to be more fun than I thought! I got to the other base, caught up with some friends who are now in other companies and hadn't seen in a while and finally went to bed and slept like a human being. Having gone 4 days without sleeping more than 2 hours at a time I was in need of a normal sleep. I then woke up for the start of the actual fun day. I managed to take another nap on the 3 hour drive to the beach!!! They had a whole lot of fun things to keep us occupied - the water, food, games, music, etc. They also had free massages. I thought maybe I could use one of those after 'sleeping' uncomfortably in a tank for so long. The second I layed down on the table I went from awake to 90% asleep instantly. The table was by far without a doubt the most comfortable thing I have layed down on in over a month. The first 4 seconds of the experience was great - I almost fell asleep, then the massage started. I was tempted to tell the guy just to leave me a lone and take 15 minute break and just let me sleep. The best way I can describe the massage is that someone was trying to wake me up for guard duty and I wasn't cooperating so they start pulling on my limbs and jabbing me in the back. All in all the fun day was a lot of fun. A nice day at the beach with friends I haven't seen in a while and good food - which I also haven't seen in a while.



The cook: friend or foe?

Smoothly moving onto the next topic - food. For those of you who know me you already know that I like to eat. To be more specific, I like to eat tasty things. So about a month ago we got a new 'cook'. I use the quotes because I would say that someone needs to prepare food in order to be called a cook. What he does manage to prepare I have a hard time placing it in the food category. Fone one shabbat we were out in the field and we always get our meals delivered to us. The problem is that the food is enver enough. We tell them we are 50% more people than we actually are and we are still left hungry. These are complaints by everyone - not just me. It also doesn't help that the meals come 2-3 hours after the ideal meal time. This is a regular occurrance every meal.

I think the following story describes best the situation I am in with the food. So one day after not receiving breakfast at all (already not off to a good start) I was on guard duty while everyone else was eating lunch. When someone came to switch with me so I could go eat he told me that when I see what lunch is I'm going to start to swear. He was right in one respect - that I would start swearing, it just didn't wait until I got to see the food. The next person I saw told me that when I see the food I would laugh. I asked 'laugh or cry', to which he responded you will cry. The 3rd and last person I saw on my journey to the lunchroom was one of my commanders who flat out told me 'don't eat.' Well I can't say they didn't warn me. So what was for lunch? - disgusting army kebobs with leftover salad from a few days earlier. So there are a few things wrong with the meal and surpringly the disgusting army kebobs wasn't the problem (disgusting army kebobs are always disgusting). The first problem was that ther ewas no potato/rice/pasta dish next to it whcih ALWAYS accompaniesthe meat. Problem #2 - leftover salad. Not that I have a problem with leftovers, in fact leftovers can often be better than the food made fresh. The thing is there is no such thing as leftovers in the army, everything is tossed after the meal.These 2 things point out the lazyness of the 'cook'. So as I was eating the disgusting 'meal' I put a lemon slice (part of the salad) in my mouth and it caused me to make the all-too-familiar sour lemon face. One of my friends started to laugh and to which I responded 'and that's the best part of the meal!'

My first solo mission

I was taken to another base to meet wtih teh batallion commander where myself and the 3 other lone soldiers in the battallion were given presents for rosh hashana (the jewish new year). When I got to the base they told me to be back here at 1220. I looked at my watch and saw it was 12 - Lunch time! I very quickly made my way to the lunch room to eat a dsecent and normal (army standards) meal. We walked into the battalion commanders office where he gave his speech - 'Thank you bla bla bla we appreciate etc. etc. etc. difficulties of being a lone soldier yadda yadda yadda happy new years, here's your present.' This entire time I was preparing myself for my mission at hand:

Mission: Consume as much baked goods as possible before I have to leave the office. Secondary mission - if possible do this in a casual manner.

Setting: 8 people in the air conditioned room standing around a table FILLED with chocolate croissants, ruggelah, cinnamon rolls, apples + honey, watermelon, drinks, chips, candies and other snacks.

Enemies and their capabilities:

• Battallion commander trying to engage me in small talk and catching me with a mouthful of food.
• The clock and unexpectedly running out of time.
• My digestive system causing me to choke.

Allies and their capabilities:

• The head nod - always a substitute for speech.
• Watermellon and drinks to lubricate my digestive system and prevent me from choking.
• Pockets for placing wrapped candies.
  

Debriefing: Given the amount of time provided (and not knowing this amount of time in advance of the mission) I was able to consume a fair amount of food. All I can say is that I tried my best. The watermellon performed above and beyond its call of duty as it did a fantastic job of both satisfying my tastebuds and lubricating my digestive system allowing for easier consumption of the baked goods. The opportunity to make use of the pockets were not that frequent and I was only able to save a few candies for later. The small talk was kept to a minimum however the questions required answers and a head nod was not an applicable response. Eating baked goods at a constant and fairly fast paced rate I feel as though I could have continued for a lot longer had more time been provided. The fact that I had consumed a meal less than half an hour before did not affect my performance in any way.


Surprises:
On top of the surprise fun day and presents I received I also got a few other surprises. 2 days before going home and a few hours before the start of the mission while everyone was standing around the tanks, my officer came up to me and said take my phone and put it inside. Waiting with a somewhat puzzled look on my face not knowing what to do afterwards, he said 'thats it. I'm taking your spot'. What does that mean? He's taking my spot in the tank for the day and I have a 16 hour break where NOBODY is in charge of me and can tell me what to do! How awesome is that??!?!?!!? (non rhetorical question. The answer is very awesome). Everyone was in shock and started asking 'why not me?' The second commander insisted that the officer switch out his loader and give him a break because 'alex is going home in 2 days' and also he is more senior than I am. Fantastic, now I'm going to get screwed I thought. Immediately after making that suggestion the commander went back on his word and said on second thought my loader doesn't have a good handle on the roads in the area so switch with Alex. Phew. Not giving them any more time to argue about it I head inside. Within 5 minutes my gunner comes inside and says get back out there. SHIT! In the end he got switched out because he had just returned from his brothers wedding and hadn't slept a wink.
The next day it was the same deal, the officer was going to switch someone out again. It was decided to switch out the other loader this time. Then at the last minute the officer decided to switch me out with his response to everyone else who then started to complain 'just beacuse'. Sweeeeeeet. So I had some time to relax, pack my bags get a good nights sleep (which didn't happen) and go for my 7km run before heading home. I now get a regila, which means a 1 week vacation from the army (instead of 4 days).

The second surprise I got, which was more of a releif is that I was FINALLY given confirmation that I will be getting a vacation to come home and visit my friends and family for 2 weeks in the middle of october! More details to come in an upcoming blog post within the week.

Major General Israel Tal (RIP) passed away over the weekend. He was named one of the top 5 armored commanders in history, and he was in charge of designing and producing the Israeli Merkeva tank. Here is a quick article about him.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=187548

I know its a bit late, but I want to wish everyone a shana tova and a successful new year.

Who says the border with Lebanon is quiet

So as I was mentioning in my last blog post about how boring and regular everything is here, well not much has changed except for almost a war breaking out!!!! So what happened? What caused this battle? First I will summarize to the best of my ability but don't expect any insiders info (mainly because I don't have any - its all published in the news) I will just summarize and explain what happened. So one of the regular activities that the IDF is doing is clearing obstacles that obstruct Israel's line of sight into Lebanon. The obstacles they are clearing are within enclaves. An enclave is defined as the area between the Blue Line and the border fence. The fence is a metal barrier (maybe 2 meters high) which is the physical barrier separating Israel and Lebanon. The blue Line is the internationally recognized border between the two countries. The fence is located on the Israeli side of the Blue Line and is independent from the Blue Line. There is no law saying that the two must lie one on top of the other. Thus in more locations than not there are these pockets (enclaves) created where one can cross the fence (from the Israeli side) and still be on Israeli territory. On the other hand - from the Lebanese side, before one gets to the fence they may have already crossed the international border - the Blue Line. On a side note, even though the Blue Line is not defined physically on the ground Israel and Lebanon know exactly where it is. Typically it is Joe the Lebanese farmer and his herd of whatever that probably unknowingly crosses the international border line trying to control his herd as they get closer to the fence.

So on August 3rd Lebanon decided it was going to make some news. It seems that someone called up a bunch of news stations (because there was an unusual amount of journalists in the area just by coincidence). They might have said to the journalists something like 'hey, theres going to be some news happening today, maybe you should come check it out.' So while they are waiting for the news to happen, the IDF was uprooting a tree on the western side of the fence (the side closest to Lebanon) yet still Israeli territory because it was in one of these enclaves. It is important to note that the IDF told UNIFIL (united nations interim forces in lebanon) prior to the uprooting of the tree about this ROUTINE work. As this is happening, a LAF (lebanese armed forces) sniper opens fire on Lt. Col. Dov Harari, RIP and kills him instantly with a bullet to the cheek right below the eye. Another officer was also wounded by gunfire. The fact that these high ranking officers were shot at and not the soldiers that were actually removing the tree shows that it was even more so a preplanned attack. With this being the spark, what followed was artillery from both sides and tank fire from Israel in what turned out to be nothing more than a one day battle.

So what was my heroic role in all this? Having returned to base from my 5 day weekend the day before, we joined our platoon out in the field. We did not yet switch with the crew that was on its way home for their weekend so I was not on call and therefore did not have a tank to jump to when the emergency occurred. I helped to prepare the tanks for the other 2 crews and then sat out in the hot sun with my vest and helmet on for 6 hours waiting... waiting... waiting... until suddenly we heard a vehicle come speeding around the corner towards our direction. It turned into our camp area and came screeching to a sudden halt. A soldier hopped out of the jeep opened the trunk, left a large crate for us, jumped back in the jeep and sped away. So what was this surprise mystery crate? First I will recap the last few sentences as I might have over-exaggerated a tad. (words inside the brackets to replace the previous word) So after sitting in the sun for 6 hours (not an exaggeration) waiting... waiting... waiting... until suddenly (finally) we heard a vehicle come speeding (driving at a normal speed) around the corner towards our direction. It turned into our camp area and came screeching (-) to a sudden (-) halt. A soldier hopped out of the jeep opened the trunk, left (handed) a large crate (cooler) for us, jumped (got) back in the jeep and sped (drove) away. At that moment it was 630PM and what we FINALLY got was lunch! After 'lunch' we got picked up and taken out of the field because it was realized that without a tank we were completely useless and there was nothing for us to do. They took us to where the pluga is stationed and over there we continued to do nothing until we went back to the field the next day. By the time everything had 'calmed' down it was back to our regular work and I had missed all the action (not that had I been in the tank I would have seen any, but nonetheless).

One day the following week we went to the shooting range to sharpen our skills (have fun) with the M16 and MAG. In addition to this practice we also practiced putting out fires. This wasn't part of the original plan, but I suppose it makes for more interesting day and blog post. So when someone fires an automatic machine gun aiming at the same spot on a hot and dry day it is likely that a bush or shrub might catch on fire. Well, we weren't fast enough at putting out that small fire before another shrub caugt fire and the wind caused it to spread. We debated if the wind would change and the fire would die down on its own or if we could put it out ourselves or if the fire department would shortly arrive to put it out themselves, etc. There were times we thought the fire was small enough that we could get close enough to put it out but then it got bigger. When we thought the fire would put itself out the wind changed direction causing the fire to spread. After about an hour we got our act together and finally put the fire out. Conveniently that was the exact moment that the fire department showed up. We told them thanks for nothing and they turned around without even getting out of their truck.

So I'm sure the question on everyone's mind is when do you get to see me? Well the easy and simple answer is the come to Israel. Or you can wait until I finally get some time off to come home for a visit. So I am supposed to get 30 days off from the army every year to come home for a visit. So how much time has passed? As of Friday August 20th, I am one year in the army!!! How exciting!!! Additionally, i don't know if you have noticed or not but I have yet to come home for a visit! So the army has a funny way of managing to screw you over in any and every situation. So without getting into that too much, I have finally been granted time off - not quite sure on the dates yet, so I don't want to get everyone's hopes up. So during my weekend off, Saturday night to be specific I got a call from my commander saying that I need to go first thing Sunday morning to take care of some paperwork related to being able to fly home. This news was very frustrating to hear, but it didn't stop me from meeting up with some fans of http://kaldorskorner.blogspot.com for some beers in Jerusalem. The night was K4Z and the fans were excited to meet the man behind the blog. I managed to take a quick hour and 45 minute nap before waking up to catch a 645 bus. I had called the bus company Saturday night to see what time I needed to catch the bus to be at my destination by 10AM. They told me that if I take the 645 bus I will get there at 1015. I then clarified that I needed to be there by 10, and the lady on the line said I was taking the first bus. This was definitely my first hint that Sunday was not going to be a day that was going to go my way. I also found out that it was likely that what I needed to do could most likely be done over the phone or avoid it altogether. So I finally get where I need to go and take care of the business I need to take care of, which takes exactly 5 minutes as expected. Fast forward to 3PM where I get off one bus and I am waiting for another one of several buses that I needed to take throughout the day. I wait almost an hour for the bus and then I suddenly get a call from my company commander saying that he wants to confirm the document that I was given to make sure that I had done everything I needed to do and that I was to wait for him at a close by location in 20 minutes. Super, just what I wanted - another thing delaying me getting home and resuming my day off that is slowly going to waste. The second that I get off the phone with him, the bus that I was waiting for for almost an hour conveniently arrives. So I get delayed by almost another hour and manage to catch the 445 bus. My weekend finally resumes when I got back to my kibbutz at 630 - 12 hours after I had started my day. Instead of spending the day by the pool/beach in Tel Aviv I rode buses halfway across the damn country... and back! Hopefully this is the end of all the bullshit that I have to go through in order to get my time off to come home, but I'm only expecting to be shit on more (not in the good luck way).

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.