Observation

The last two weeks we have been in an observation course.  Which basically involves learning about different observation gear (mostly thermal night vision).  There are a lot of different types, and we actually got to use some that just came into use.  There were two that we were the actually the first people to use in all of the army.  I would go into more detail, but I don't know if I can in this forum.

The basics of what we learned involve being able to instruct other units, airplanes, or helicopters how to get to locations based on what we see.  Also, this past week we learned how to command artillery to hit certain locations from miles away.

There was also something of a bitter sweet moment this past Wednesday.  Out of nowhere me and 5 other soldiers were taken aside and told we would be going to sniper school in two weeks.  On the one hand this was great news, but at the same time it just so happened that the dates of the course correspond exactly with the days I had been planning to come home.  

An unplanned stop

My last entry was something of a cliffhanger, and I had actually planned on writing the next entry immediately after finishing the first, but time kind of slipped away.

Anyway, after our last night of navigation in the south my partner and I had finished around 4 in the morning. We immediately proceeded to catch up on whatever sleep we could while we waited on the bus for everyone else to finish. As it turns out, the last group finished around a quarter to 6. Everything was loaded onto the bus and we began the journey back to the base. After about five minutes the bus came to an abrupt stop and we were all ordered to get off!
We all put our vests back on and opened up two stretchers. Two of the members of my team who had some injuries were placed on the stretcher and we began the run/hike. No one really knew how long we would be going or what our eventual destination was (and it was probably best we didn't know).
We ended up carrying the stretchers for about two hours (there were about 11 of us, plus two on the stretchers, which meant that there were not many people to change out for breaks). The end of the hike was a mountain top that was so steep we essentially had to crawl up it while dragging the stretchers around our ankles. I am going to try and put up some pictures later, but they don't really do it justice because I didn't get any pictures that show how steep of a climb we had.

Navigations In the North and South

The past two weeks we have been navigating in the North and the South, in order to familiarize ourselves with the varying landscapes.  

Personally, I found navigating in the North to be more interesting.  In the North you are just as likely to find yourself on the outskirts of any number of Bedouin villages as you are to come across wildlife, traverse various fences, or devise some way to cross a running river.  It is not that the south is harder, in fact, in most cases just the opposite is true.  However, due to the desert terrain found in the south, hour long navigations at night (where every hill or mountain begins to look the same) can become rather boring.

In my first navigation my worries were realized early on.  My partner was in charge of bringing us to our first two points.  We found the first point relatively quickly and problem free.  From there, however, things began to quickly deteriorate.  For some reason nothing that we saw in front of us seemed to be in the right place according to my partner's recollection.  I wanted desperately to be of some help, but we had been under strict orders not to learn our partner's section of the navigation.  As the minutes quickly turned to hours we realized that we would not be able to find his next point.  It is at this point that the snow ball effect begins to take place.  The problem with our navigations is that we are not using maps.  Therefore, everyone must remember every aspect of where they are going to be.  If, for instance, someone does not find there second point they will not be able to reach the third, and from there the fourth, and so on and so forth.  

In our case our situation was somewhat exacerbated by the fact that our radio was not working.  After walking around rather aimlessly for about two hours we concluded that it would be justified to skip ahead to our next point.  Unfortunately, since we had not made it to my partner's last point I could not help us get to any of my points, seeing as my navigation started at his last point.  Accordingly, we decided to make our way straight to the ending point.  

What we hadn't counted on was the giant quarry that happened to be blocking our way to the end point.  So we started what proved to be a rather adventurous circumnavigation of the quarry.  We started out by walking through what I can only assume is a place where the quarry workers live.  When we got within maybe 50 yards of the houses we started to hear what sounded like a pack of dogs going crazy.  Fortunately for us, the dogs were chained, but my partner thought it best that we walk with rocks "in hand" just in case there were a few that weren't chained.  It actually had a very "junkyard" feel to it.  After making our way through the houses we came upon a road.  We knew that our boundary was the roads that we might encounter in each direction.  The road we had stumbled upon did not actually appear to be a major road, but we figured crossing it would be a bad idea.  We decided that we would just walk along the road in the right direction (because inevitably the end point would be on a road where the buses would be meeting us).  Maybe ten minutes into our walk down the road, we saw a truck coming down the road.  At this point it was about 2 AM, so I am sure it was a little weird to see to soldiers walking along the side of a road - in full gear.

The truck continued down the road, and then stopped a few feet in front of us and let someone out.  It seemed a little strange at the time, but we were pretty desperate...we decided we'd ask for some directions.  My friend called out to the guy who had exited the truck and he stopped and walked over to us.  I happened to remember the names of nearby villages, as well as the name of the point we were trying to get to, so we started with that.  I don't know what we were expecting, but I can tell you that the next words out of his mouth was not it.  He turns to us, scratches his head and says, "Give me a second to think...we've been smoking a bong!"  At this point I preemptively dismiss whatever directions he decides to give us.  After he rambled on for about ten minutes we decided to carry on with our previous plan of walking along the road.  Looking back on it now, it kind of reminds me of Alice in Wonderland stumbling upon the caterpillar smoking the hookah pipe! 

We ended up walking for about another 30 minutes when we saw a flash light in the distance.  When we reached the point it was coming from we ran into two of the other guys from our team.  Not surprisingly, they had been trying to reach us on the radio for several hours.  When the commanders heard that the second group had stumbled upon us they told us to stay with them (a safety measure because we didn't have a radio).

Last weeks navigation in the South was also fairly eventful (including a run in with a giant porcupine), but almost more so for what took place after the navigations...

(On our last navigation in the South my partner and I ran into two other groups on one of the mountain tops, so we decided it would be a good photo-op)

End of Advanced Training Video

They put a video on YouTube of some of our training, so I thought I would share the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfNMRdrOaPE

The Start of Navigation

Two weeks ago we started our navigation training in earnest.  Previously, we had been learning how to navigate with instructors and open maps.  Now we have begun navigating in pairs without maps.  It is a long process that takes almost the entire day.

We spend the morning and afternoon plotting our course.  Each pair receives three to four coordinates that they must reach on their way from the beginning to the end of the navigation.  After the route has been drawn out on the map we spend the afternoon memorizing various azimuths (an angle measured in degrees between a reference plane and a point) that we will have to recall during the navigation.  Additionally, we scan the topographical map for anything that might be of use during the actual navigation.  For instance, some people find it useful to count how many hills they will see on their way to a certain point.  Aside from the difficulty of remembering these details for a 6 or 7 mile navigation, you would not believe how much more difficult it becomes to navigate at night.  While it is clear where one hill starts and ends during the day, at night it infinitely more difficult.  

As a result, a lot of people tend to get lost during navigations.  Our first night of navigations we left around 5:30 and we finished around 10 or 10:30.  However there were about two or three groups that got really lost and finished around 3:30 in the morning.  At this phase in the training it was actually somewhat amusing, but as we progress the navigations will get longer and we will be carrying more weight (right now we have one person who carries a 20 pound radio, but we will eventually work up to around 60 pounds).  

So far I have been doing pretty well.  On our last navigation I finished first, and learned the benefit of being good at navigating.  We finished around 1:30 in the morning and went to sleep on the bus while waiting for the other groups to finish.  As it turns out, the last group finished at 5:45 in the morning.  That meant that I got to sleep for 4 hours, while the last group to finish did not get to sleep at all.  

This week coming up will be our first week of navigation in the north.  It is also going to be a new style of navigation.  We will still be navigating as a pair, except this week we will not be allowed to learn our partners section of the navigation.  One person will navigate the first half, and the second person will navigate the second half.  I just hope my partner can get me to the right spot, if not it will make for a long night...

The Big One

I know it has been a little while since my last post, but my parents were in town this past week visiting and I got a little distracted.

A little more than a week ago everyone who enlisted in the Paratroopers in my draft class, about 500 people (there is one draft class every 4 months), partook in a 78 km hike to Jerusalem.  

**For those a little more familiar with Israel we started in Tel Shahar (even I don't really know where that is, somewhere between Jerusalem and Ashdod), walked through Bet Shemesh, Tzur Hadassah, around Jerusalem, and finally ended at Ammunition Hill.**

The hike is supposed to be a culmination of our training until this point, at the end of which there is a ceremony and everyone is presented with their red beret (signifying the paratroopers division).  For the regular battalions this is the end of their training, and at this point they will begin their actual army service.  For our unit it is simply the last phase of our training before we begin the Special Forces Training.  

We have actually been building up to this hike since the beginning of our training.  Our previous hike was 50 km.  However, I found that our 50 km hike was pretty poor preparation for what lay ahead.  Perhaps the sole exception to that would be that our previous hike was 11 hours long, so I at least knew going into this hike that it was going to be loooong and boooring.  We started the hike at 4 PM on Wednesday and finished it at 8 AM on Thursday.  While the sheer length of time begins to wear on you, perhaps the hardest part of the hike was that it was at least 70% up hill.  You would think that for every uphill there would be a downhill, but you (much like myself) would be mistaken.

A portion of the 15 hour hike was taken up by short 10 minute breaks that we took every hour.  Except for the random breaks that our commander decided to skip in order to gain ground on the other units (we actually started the hike behind the 3 regular infantry battalions, and ended the hike first).  I have to admit that I missed those breaks that we skipped, but harder than not taking the breaks is the mental anguish when you realize that you aren't going to stop.  You see the minutes begin to tick by and you start to think that maybe we are going to walk a few extra minutes because our pace had slowed down, but then a half hour goes by, and then forty minutes, and you start hoping that you aren't going to skip the next break as well.  

There was one part of the hike that I particularly remember cursing our company commander under my breath.  There were two stops during the hike to eat.  The first was after 24 km and the second was after 54 km.  So as those marks begin to approach you begin to look forward to the rest.  After about 48 km we had walked what seemed to me close to another 6 km and everyone was beginning to look around for the site where all of the food would be (all though to be honest I think we mostly wanted to just sit down, or at least I did).  We stopped for about 5 minutes and the commander told us that we had gone about 52 km, in another 2 km we would reach the 54 km mark (for those of you, like me, who are less familiar with kilometers, 2 kilometers is equal to 1.2 miles).  At this point everyone thinks to themselves, "Okay, 20 more minutes and we will be there!"  After about 2 and half more hours of walking we finally arrived, and were given about 5 or 10 minutes to rest before continuing (about 25 or 30 minutes less than I had hoped for).

We entered Jerusalem around 7 or 7:30 in the morning and walked the last 2 or 3 kilometers inside the city of Jerusalem.  It was actually pretty amazing to see hundreds of soldiers walking down the streets of Jerusalem (somewhat symbolic of what took place during the 6 Day War), but to tell you the truth at the time I really couldn't appreciate that or much of anything other than how dead my legs were.  The last 300 meters everyone opened up their stretchers and we sprinted to Ammunition Hill carrying the stretchers.  Finally, after 15 hours of walking with all of our gear we finished the hike...and then we had to get ready for the ceremony.

At 4 PM on Thursday we had our ceremony in which we got our Berets.  My mom and dad flew in from the U.S. to come and see it.  It was mercifully quick, since I don't think anyone was in much shape to stand on their feet for too long.  During the ceremony my Team Commander actually gave me his beret, which is quite an honor.  

At the top are two pictures from the hike (one from the beginning and one somewhere in the middle) and two from the ceremony.

 

The Holidays

This month is considered to be the Jewish Holiday Season. Last week was "Rosh Hashanah," the Jewish New Year, this week is "Yom Kippur," the day of Atonement, and next week is "Sukkot," the holiday remembering the Jews 40 years of wandering in the desert.

Last week we were given off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for the holiday. I spent the first night with one of my friends from my team that lives relatively close by, and the second night with my family from the kibbutz.

This is actually my second Rosh Hashanah in Israel, and I have noticed that there are some customs that people keep here that I have never seen before in the U.S. For instance, I am familiar with eating apples and honey to signify a "sweet New Year," but in Israel there are several foods that are significant to Rosh Hashanah for different reasons:


-The Pomegranate is eaten because it is said to have 613 seeds, the same number of Mitzvahs that are described in the Torah.

-The head (or meat from the head) of usually a sheep is eaten in the hopes that we will be leaders and not followers in the upcoming year. (I can definitely say that I had never eaten "head meat" before, but it tastes kind of like brisket)

-Dates symbolize our wish to remove evil (apparently something to do with the word Date in Hebrew - Tamar, which is connected to the word Tam - meaning cease to exist. Sounds like kind of a stretch to me)

-Squash relates to our hopes in the High Holy Days that G-d will read our good deeds and tear up any list of bad deeds (again realting to the Aramaic word for squash)

-The word for leek is connected to "cutting," and symbolizes our wish that our evil deeds be cut down, or our enemies decimated.

-Black-eyed peas represent the wish that our merits will increase in the New Year


Those are some of the blessings that I encountered (I actually had to look most of those up because even most Israelis don't remember why they eat each thing). It is a meal before the meal, which makes for a pretty long dinner.


When we went back on Thursday we spent the day learning how to read topography maps for our upcoming navigation training. This Sunday we started the navigation training by going out in the field and seeing how the map translates to actual hills, rivers, valleys, etc. Monday we drove to a popular navigation training ground and practiced getting from point to point in small groups with commanders. Tuesday we were supposed to travel to the same place and get a little bit more advanced (navigating with out the map), but there were some logistical problems and our bus didn't come. So we spent the day navigating in the area around our base (still pretty big, but the main difference is that the various landmarks are less pronounced, thus making it more difficult for novice navigators).
Truthfully, no one seemed to have a problem navigating during the day. The problem is that none of our real navigations (the ones we will do in pairs, or alone, with significant weight) will be during the day. You would be surprised how hard it is to tell distances, or try and make out how many hill tops there are in the dark.
We were supposed to stay on the base and guard during Yom Kippur, but yesterday (the day before Yom Kippur) our commanders told us we would all be going home. I am not one to complain about time off, but as a result we had to go to sleep early and we actually did very little navigation at night. In my case I didn't do any at all. I was in a group of three and the first navigator got significantly lost, and by the time we figured out where we were it was time to get back to the base. However, I'm not too concerned we have another 8-10 weeks of navigation training in the future, so I'm sure I'll get a chance.

Today is what is known as Erev Yom Kippur, or Yom Kippur Eve in Christian terms. It means that the fast starts tonight at sundown and lasts until sundown tomorrow. Because last Saturday we turned our clocks back sundown starts at 5:30.
What is really interesting about my first Yom Kippur here in Israel is that it really illustrates the divide between the religious and the secular. In the U.S. most Jews I knew fell somewhere in the middle, but here it is very black-or-white. There are religious Jews, who pray three times a day and wrap Tefillin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%27fillin

And there are secular Jews, who may have never seen the insided of a Temple or know a single prayer. I learned that to fast on Yom Kippur also means not to turn on any lights, including turning on a television or starting a car (technically I think that means I have already broken my fast by using the computer). When I got home from the army to the kibbutz I thought I would eat my last meal around 5, before the sun went down. When I walked in to my adopted family's house I was informed that dinner would be served around 8. They said they had not even thought to ask whether or not I fasted for Yom Kippur.
I feel like in the U.S. most people try and make an effort to fast. Here either you fast or you don't even think about it. I heard one of the soldiers this morning turn to his friend and ask if he was planning to fast, his response, "Yeah - for an hour or two!"
Here I am in the "Jewish State" and if it weren't for the fact there is absolutely no transportation until tomorrow night at 8, you wouldn't even know it is the most solemn and important day of the year. Not that it bothers me, I just find it a little strange.

The Preparation Hike

Last week was supposed to be the start of our Navigation training, however, due to some unforseen problems our navigation training was pushed back. Instead, we spent the first half of the week at the shooting range. We are going to be moving to a new base in a few weeks, where the Special Forces are stationed, and we needed to calibrate all of the new guns and sights that we got from our new base.

Wednesday and Thursday we had a 50 km hike that is supposed to be a hike to prepare us for an even longer hike we will be doing on Ocotber the 15th/16th. We have done several hikes in the past, each one gradually increasing the distance (our previous hike was 38 km). In the beginning the hikes were fairly difficult. In addition to the quick pace, everyone walks with their vests, ammo, and guns. There are also two people who carry a stretcher, two people carry 8 liters of water, two people carry a 20lb. radio, and myself and one other guy carry the light machine gun and all of the ammo. The end of each hike there is also a period in which we carry someone (or two someones) on a stretcher. The last two hikes the pace has been less of a factor and the real difficulty has been the boredom. It takes us about an hour to walk 6km (close to 4 miles), and every hour we take a short break. This means that our 50km hike that we did last Wednesday took us almost 11 hours.

We left at 6 PM on Wednesday, and we finished at 4:45 AM on Thursday. You would be amazed at the things that go through your mind during that time. For instance, in the time it took me to walk 50 km I could have watched all three Lord of the Rings Movies (extended addition), or I thought about maybe trying to sneak my iPod with me (but I realized even if I got away with it the battery would probably die before the hike was over). Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, by the end of the hike my vest was rubbing me so bad that it took my mind off of the boredom.

Our next hike in 2 weeks is going to be about 80 km...if anybody has any suggestions as to how to kill 20 hours of walking I am all ears!

A "Resting" Week

At the start of the week our commander told us that it would be a good chance to rest after what was a considerably difficult prior week - I still don't know why I believed him. Going into the week we knew that we were going to be getting ready to give back all of our gear in preparation to change bases. What we didn't know was how they would fill all of the downtime.....

Sunday our entire company went to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem for a cultural day. When we got back to the base for dinner we were warned against eating too much food. This I assumed was a sign that we would be going for a run in the near future. In fact this was to be the first of many Krav Maga lessons we would have during the week.

***For those of you unfamiliar with Krav Maga, according to Wikipedia "Krav Maga is a military hand-to-hand combat systemm developed in Israel, which assumes no quarter will be given, and emphasizes maximum threat neutralization in a "real life" context. (Here is a quick video I found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0CjWX9-Z14&feature=related, it is pretty realistic in terms of what we do).***

Until this point in our training, all of our Krav Maga training had essentially been conditioning. We did a lot of suicides, sprints, and crawling, but no actual drills. This was the first week we actually put on gloves and gear. Each lesson has a "warm-up" in the beginning of about 30 minutes of sprints, after which the Krav Maga begins.
Our first lesson we were taught different punch and kick techniques, which we practiced on a partner who stood against a wall with his hands in the air. Monday we graduated to actual "fights." It started out as one-on-one, but quickly moved on to two- and three-on-one. The idea being that the person who is getting double and triple teamed is given no chance to catch his breath before two new people enter and mount a new assault.

The truth is that I actually enjoy the Krav Maga itself, the one downside is that after more than one day of Krav Maga in a row your entire body becomes tight and sore. Not to mention that after the second day it hurt to walk because of the bruise on my right quad from all of the kicks I had taken.

By the third day, there was a hault put on Krav Maga because of the number of injuries people had sustained (oddly enough no one had been injured in an actual "fight," rather people were coincidentally hurt during the lessons). There was one member of my team who had to get a staple in his arm after he cut himself on a screw sticking out of a door, in a mad dash to change the two left gloves he had selected. Two more people got hurt when they ran into each other during sprints.

War Week!

This past week was called "War Week". The idea being that it is supposed to simulate a week of wartime conditions and simultaneously act as a final test combining all of our training up until this point. Needless to say, I did not expect it to be an easy week.

A couple quick captions: The top picture is my team before we headed out Sunday night (I'm in the back row, 4th from the right). The middle picture is just something my commander took on one of the few chances we got to sit down. The last picture is my team carrying somebody on the stretcher, little did we know at the start of the week that this would become a very familiar pose.

We spent the majority of the weekend leading up to the week getting all of our gear ready (when everyone wasn't trying to guess what we were going to be doing). Sunday the entire company was brought into an auditorium and the Company Commander explained our first mission. It was explained that there was information speculating several rocket launch points that we would be going to try and eliminate. As a company we would all walk 10 km to get into position, from that point each team had its own assignment. There are 4 teams in the company, two anti-tank teams, one reconnaissance team, and then my team which is supposed to be a sniper team.
We left around 11 PM on Sunday night and walked in two lines with the recon team leading the way. We walked for about 2 hours and then everyone began to break off into different directions. My team was in charge of climbing two tall hills/mountains and providing information/fire to the three other teams who would be storming the targets. When the entire scene had played out it was already 5 AM. At this point we no longer knew what to expect from the week, this was as much as we were told before hand...and this is when it really got fun.
From 5:30 Monday morning until around 8:30 me and the rest of my team had to carry someone on a stretcher in a simulated retreat. When we were finally finished with the stretcher we practiced storming a hill until around noon. After we stormed the hill we went back to carrying the stretcher, except this time we opened two stretchers (which cuts the number of people who can help switch out with you in half). We then preceded to carry the stretchers up and down hills in the dead heat for about 2 hours. At that point one of the smaller guys on the team named Chesterman got dehydrated. As awful as it sounds I think that sort of got our commanders' attention and they let us find a spot with some shade and sit down to rest for a while.
When it started to get dark we got up, put all of the gear back on (which in my case happens to be all of the gear for the light machine gun, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 pounds of ammunition that I had the pleasure of carrying around all week), and started walking. One of the less appealing sides of spending a week in the field is that there really is not much time scheduled for showering, and after hours of carrying people on a stretcher I tend to get a little sweaty. This has multiple downsides, however, the two most pertinent are that the nights quickly become much colder and secondly the wet clothes rubbing against your skin all day lead to sever chafing. By the time we had got to Monday night I was in some serious pain from where my vest had rubbed my sides raw.
As the night wore on we did a few more drills in which we practiced storming hills at night, and around midnight on Monday we recieved our first "meal." The contents of which were 1 and a half pieces of bread, 1/5 of a can of tuna for each person, 1/3 of a pickle, and a can of corn to be divided amongst all 17 of us. It sounds somewhat meager, but at that point I was actually not that hungry.
The rest of the week was more of the same. Tuesday morning around 5 AM we had another hike with the stretcher for about 2 and a half hours. We had another drill storming a hill until about 11 AM, however, at this point we ran into what I like to think was some luck. It became so hot that it was pretty unsafe for us to continue, so we found a tree and sat down until it cooled down. We were given our second meal Tuesday afternoon. It was more of the same, except at this point half of our bread had ants...it didn't seem to deter anyone. At which point we continued with the stretchers. Tuesday night we did a few drills with blanks in which we played the enemy for an opposing team and vice versa. Tuesday night/Wednesday morning was one of the harder "acts" (as our commanders referred to them) of the week. We carried two stretchers for 3 hours, one of which carrying our heavy machine gunnist, his machine gun (another almost 20 pounds), and our water.
Wednesday morning we had been without water from about 3 AM until around 9 AM. I was starting to get a headache and I mentioned it to our medic. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your take of it, Wednesday was the hottest day of the week. As a result, we spent most of the day light ours in the shade. When the water arrived I had some trouble drinking it. Every time I drank I threw it back up. The medic decided it best to give me an I.V. When you are hooked up to an I.V., much like in a hospital, there is a plastic cylinder that lets the medic see if the fluids are moving from the bag down into the tube. Apparently, my body drank the fluids so quickly that there were no drops in the tube, it was completely full for the duration of the I.V. The medic said he had never seen that happen before.
Wednesday afternoon we had our third and final meal. This time the bread had spots of mold on it. I don't know about everyone else but at least for me at this point I was so hungry my stomach was starting to throb. I laughed as I watched people after the meal scrounging in the dirt for pieces of corn or tuna that others had dropped.
When we were asked to start moving again we opened up the stretchers this time while wearing gas masks. We hiked another 2 hours at the end of which we scaled a hill that is 200 meters literally straight up. We arrived around 10 PM. We had another drill with blanks in which my team and another team practiced taking over a hill together. When we finished around 1 AM, everyone filled up their water and got ready for the 10 km hike back to the base...this time carrying stretchers.
We carried one stretcher back for about 5 km and then stopped. After the first 5 km they told us to open another stretcher and put on our gas masks. We had to go the last 5 km with gas masks while carrying two stretchers. We finally got back to the base around 4 or 4:30 AM.


All I can say is that I am glad the week is over. It was our last week of Advanced Training and after the upcoming week, in which we give back all of our gear, we will be starting Navigation training as the first phase of Special Forces Training.


One of my friends gave his camera to our commander, who took a lot of pictures throughout the week. I am going to try and get him to give me some copies and I'll try and put some pictures up next week.

Teams Week

The last three weeks were my last weeks of Advanced Training, and apparently the commanders thought it best that the whole company spend the three weeks together on the base.


The first week was called "Team Week" (for some reason the translations never really sound right in English). This was the first week that we started learning how to fight as a team (usually around 20 - 25 people in the Special Forces and around 30 - 35 in the regular batallions). Until this week we had learned pairs, groups of four, and then "class" of roughly 10 people.
After talking to some of the commanders it sounds like we got off pretty easy. Supposedly, this was supposed to be one of the hardest weeks of training, but because it was soooo hot it was more educational than physical. We spent the mornings and nights storming hills, about one drill a day. Then in the afternoons we would sit in the shade and study for an upcoming test we have.
As it turns out, there are different levels of training depending on intensity and at the end of each level there is a test. For instance, soldiers who work in an office reach level 02 (which happens to be the training I did when I was at the Army Hebrew course). The next level is almost the exact same training, except that it includes throwing a hand grenade. The level that we are now at is considered 07. In addition to having to know how to use all of the different weapons, such as the grenade launcher, heavy and light machine gun, and the sharpshooter scope, there are questions on Israeli Military History, First Aid, Anti-Chemical Warfare, and how to use different radios. After 07 the next levels are mostly reserved for commanders, officers, and special forces.
After each drill we would have a short session carrying "wounded" soldiers on stretchers and on our shoulders. This is usually one of the hardest parts of being the field, but because is really was so hot we didn't have to carry them very far at all. According to my commander, when they had the same week it was in the rain and mud all day and there was very little sleep. I guess we lucked out a bit.
At the end of the week there was a long hike back to the base. We are slowly working our way up to 70 km, which will be the hike we do to earn our red beret. This hike was 34 km and then an additional 3 or 4 km carrying two people on stretchers. It was pretty tough and lasted somewhere around 6 hours. I can definitely say that I am not looking forward to the next one. Aside from the fact that I have to carry additional weight because of the machine gun, it starts to become pretty boring because we have to walk in two lines the whole time and we aren't supposed to talk. I am realizing as I write this that the word "hike" might be a little misleading because we are going at a pretty fast pace. The norm is supposed to be 6 km an hour, which, if your commander has long legs like mine does, means you are spending most of the hike in a slow jog.


On a somewhat unrelated note, there was a pretty funny/weird story that happened that same week. Each week when we arrive from home the army chooses a place to meet so that it can charter buses to the base from one location. Some of these meeting points are bigger than others, and as it turns out we met at one of the bigger meeting points this week. Why do I bring this up? Because there are so many soldiers meeting at one place at one time it is the perfect place for the Military Police to set up shop (unbeknownst to me, although logical had I took the time to think about it). What is the job of the Military Police you ask? As far as my interaction goes they are a mix between Internal Affairs and the Fashion Police. They are fellow soldiers who were chosen to the Military Police after enlistment. They are in charge of making sure the soldiers that are walking the street are dressed properly, shine their shoes, don't jaywalk, and of course the occasional random drug test (that of course is done on the base and not on the streets).
As far as I know the Israeli Army is the only army in the world that lets its soldiers grow a beard. Originally, this started for religious reasons, but now pretty much anyone in the army can have a beard if they really want one. The thing about the beard is that it is one way or the other, either you have a beard or you don't. There is no option of having a beard one week then the next week not having one. Anyway, out of a combination of various reasons such as laziness, hearing that there was very limited time to shave in the mornings during basic training, and not wanting to irritate my skin by using the razor blade every day...but mostly laziness I decided to take the beard path.
I had gotten into a pattern of trimming my beard on weekends that I got off, except that for some reason I always ended up using someone elses trimmer with different settings, and it just so happened that this weekend I accidentally trimmed my beard particularly short and when I arrived to the entrance of the meeting point on Sunday morning I was stopped at the gate by the Military Police. Some 18 year old girl came up to me and asked me if I had a certificate of approval for my beard. I didn't think much about it, I had the certificate and assumed she was just doing a random check to make sure I had the proper documents. Then came the questions of did I trim my beard (which she said was against the rules, but almost everyone does), so on and so forth. After a few minutes I was given a ticket, which means I would have to go to a "trial" and receive my punishment. I can't help but think that if my Hebrew vocabulary was better I might have been able to put up a better argument, or if I had really been thinking on my feet I should have acted as if I didn't speak Hebrew (I'll habve to save that for if there is a next time).
Later one of my friends explained to me that it was written on the certificate of approval that you are allowed to trim you beard, so long as it does not look as if you shaved yesterday. At that point it was too late, but I figured I'd save that as something to bring up at the trial. When I got to the base I wasn't too worried about the trial because usually the punishments involved having to stay on the base for a certain amount of time and I was already going to be there for three weeks, and I doubted the punishment would be any longer than that.
In the end, getting the ticket turned out to be kind of lucky. I was waiting and waiting the first day for the trial and it never came. Finally, on Thursday (our last day in the field) one of the commanders came up to me around 1:00 PM and told me to get in the Hummer and go back to base for my trial. Turns out that my trial was at 6, so in the mean time I got to take a shower, eat a real meal (in the field we eat field rations all week, not that it is terrible, but after a week of canned tuna, corn, and white bread it gets a little monotonous). The trial itself was something of a joke. I explained what happened, what my friend told me, and that from what I understood it was acceptable to have a beard somewhat short because that was the way it was when I had requested the certificate. The commander in charge of my trial looked at my beard (at this point it had almost a week to grow out) asked if that was how it looked on the day I received the ticket, I said it was, he said he didn't really understand why I was given the ticket and pronounced me innocent. I then got to eat dinner in the dining hall and wait until 10 o'clock to join my team in the field for the hike back to the base. In the end the ticket was a nice excuse to get cleaned up and rested.

Advanced Training

Sorry I haven't been able to add much to the blog lately, but since the start of my advanced training I haven't gotten too close to a computer (and after tomorrow I won't be around for another 3 weeks).



I'm a little bit more than a month into the advanced training and there really isn't too much to report. Our first week we were doing guard duty on the base, which is usually a week when there isn't much time to sleep. We guard at 9 different stations around the base in two hour shifts. Fortunately, now that there was a new draft class in August, that will be our last week of guard duty on the base. Other than that we have been learning how to storm hills in bigger and bigger groups, with more and more firepower. The week coming up we will be learning how to storm a hill as a team of 20.

Last week was fairly tough. We were out in the field all week and spent most of our time carrying people on stretchers and on our backs. It was so hot that we actually had to stop in the middle of the afternoon several times. We also started practicing with gas masks, in the event that there is some sort of gas grenade. Unfortunately, for one of the guys on my team he lost his mask and had to choke his way through the training for 20 minutes.

At the end of the week we had a 27 kilometer hike back to the base, the last five kilometers carrying someone on a stretcher. It actually would not have been sooo difficult if it had been at the beginning of the week. However, because it came after such an intense week everyone was already dead before it started.

The three weeks coming up are going to be pretty tough, and the last one is the culmination of our training until this point. It translates roughly to "War Week". It is supposed to simulate what it would be like in war time conditions...a lot of walking with heavy gear, not a lot of food, not a lot of sleep...

Next time I get back I'm sure I'll have some stories to fill you in a little better.

Flashback: Special Forces Tryouts

I actually got a little time off this week so I figured I might catch up on a few things that I skipped over before.

The Israeli Army draft system works on a top-down structure. Meaning, from your first day in the army you start out in the highest unit to which you are deemed suitable, and if you do not make the cut you start to "fall" to lower units. For instance, in the I.D.F. the highest point to start out in is the Pilot Training course. Potential pilots are pegged early on in highschool based on various test scores, and are asked to participate in a long interview and testing period before they are selected. If someone is not living up to the standards of the pilot course they are kicked out and can then be selected to many of the various special forces, and if that does not work out they join a regular batallion.

All Israeli citizens receive a manila folder before their enlistment, inside of the folder is a list of various positions the army has decided that they would be suitable for based on physical and psychological evaluations. As someone who did not grow up in Israel my experience in joining the army was actually the opposite. I had to work my way up from the bottom.

First, there was a tryout to get into the paratroopers. The tryout itself was nothing particularly difficult, however, the beuracracy that surrounded it made it extremely difficult to pass. Aside from the fact that there were somewhere around 120 people trying out, and they would be accepting around 25*, I was not supposed to be allowed to try out in the first place. That is a long story in and of itself (maybe for another time), but in the end after disobeying a few orders, getting on the bus to the tryouts without permission, and pulling a few strings I was allowed to tryout.

After being accepted to the paratroopers there was another tryout 5 days after the enlistment. This was for anyone who wanted to be considered for the Special Forces Batallion. Of the 500 something people who enlisted into the paratroopers, around 450 started the special forces tryout (the percentage who started is high compared to other batallions because the paratroopers are generally more motivated seeing as it is the only batallion in which it is obligatory to pass a tryout). By the end of the 3 day tryout there were about 150 people who finished.

I found an email I had written before I started the blog which explained in detail what the tryout was like, so I pasted it below:

The try-outs began around 3:30 in the morning on Tuesday and we were not told what time it would end. After everyone was given their gear and seperated into one of 16 teams we began the actual process. My group was one of the smallest, we started with 15 compared to most groups who had around 25. The first thing we did was hike with all of our gear across a several large hills. When we arrived at our destination we immediately began doing sprints. We did several short sprints of about 25 yards and back, followed by longer sprints of about 75 yards and back. After we finished sprinting we were told to crawl across the same path we had just been sprinting. This whole process took somewhere around an hour and a half or two hours. By the time we had finished there were already 3 people who had quit, and another quit after about an hour. As it became hotter we transitioned from physical tests to dialogues in which they wanted to see how we interact with others. They gave us various topics (i.e. - you are stranded on the moon and have the following list of 15 items, rank them in order of importance and then come to a consensus). Later in the afternoon we began sprints up and down a hill carrying a stretcher filled with sand bags and jerry cans full of water. After that, we were taken to another location where we carried the stretcher up and down a hill on a designated path until the people in charge told us to stop, probably around 10 times. After this we did sprints in which the first 4 people to finish took the stretcher for another short sprint. We did this for about a half an hour, the idea during all of this is that you want to be carrying the stretcher as much as possible. As the day continued it was pretty much more of the same, sprints and running with the stretcher. We went to sleep outside in tents around 9, we were woken around 10:30 and told to get dressed because we were going for a hike (at this point I was told by people in other teams that a lot of people quit). After about 15 minutes the people in charge told us to go back to bed, I think they just wanted to see how everyone responded under those circumstances.

We woke up the next morning and did a lot of the same stuff, more sprints and carrying the stretcher. They also added a lot more crawling. The crawling seemed to be quite difficult for most people, but for some reason I was pretty good at it. I finished first everytime, but it was almost a disadvantage. For instance, at one point they told us to crawl across a field (about 100 yards) and then up a steep hill (probably another 60 yards). I think at first most people in the group thought they were kidding. I finished first, and everyone else was told to get up and run to the top of the hill (there were some who were only half way across the field). We then crawled up the hill, back down, and back across the field. When the second person arrived at the other end of the field they asked him if he thought he could beat me, he said he wasn't sure. They asked him, "Yes, or No?" He said yes. So only he and I were asked to crawl back across the field and up the mountain again.

One of the more challenging things we did was a competition to see who could run up and down a hill carrying a sandbag as many times as possible. They plotted out a course and told us to run up and down a hill as many times as we could. After about 30 minutes we were told to stop. After they wrote down how many laps we had done they told us they wanted us to do it again, except this time they wanted us to improve on our first attempt. When we finished (we were only given about half the time), they told us to do a one lap race. Then they asked us to do it again, but if you didn't think you would be in the first 5 to finish to sit on the side. Then we did it again, except they wanted the first 3, and so on until only people who thought they would finish 1st.

Aside from all of the physical stuff there were some team building exercises (build the tallest tower you can with 7 barrels...), and more discussions. The hardest part was the end, in which we hiked back to the camp. I watched every other team pack there things and hike back. We put on all of our gear, which mostly consisted of backpacks with 30 pound sandbags but also two stretchers and two jerry cans of water, and we ran the whole way back to camp. The run was probably only a mile, but after everything else it was really tough. If I hadn't known in the back of my head that we were going back it would have been hard to continue. When we made it back we did a few more sprints (I think they wanted a few more people to quit before it was over) and then filled out some paperwork about who we thought deserved it the most from our group. We went to sleep again in the tents and the next day we were all interviewed. By the end we finished with 9 people. I felt pretty good about how I had done. I was first in almost everything the first day, except for a few sprints. The next day I pulled my hip flexor muscle but continued to come in the top in most of the running and all of the crawling, and I had definitely logged the most time carrying the stretcher. I felt pretty confident.

When I got back to the room and started to see the other people who tried out I realized I had made out pretty well. Most people were missing a lot of skin on their knees and elbows from all of the crawling, and a lot of people had really bad feet from doing all of this in brand new boots.

(I posted at the top a picture of two guys whose elbows got pretty messed up from the crawling, and a picture of my roommate's foot. Fortunately, for your sake, I didn't take a picture of the chaffing he had between his legs. I have never seen anything like it, he had chaffing so bad that his legs were bleeding.)

*There are several tryouts for the paratroopers spread out through out the year and also among the three draft dates in March, August, and November. The try out in which I participated was specific to immigrants and people who are already in the army and are trying to switch out of their current position.

Urban Warfare

Two weeks ago our company was given the special opportunity to learn some of the basics of urban warfare in one of the world's largest Urban Warfare Training Centers (according to our commanders, it is basically unheard of to start learning about urban war during basic training). The article below might help to give you a better idea:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1167467790418

I think due to some scheduling issues the "city" was available and our Company Commander didn't want to pass on the opportunity.
I will definitely say that is was the most interesting week I have had in the army. The city has various sections that help to demonstrate various Arab cities. For instance, some cities have buildings that are more spread out while others may be more crowded.
We started out learning how to enter a room individually. The process basically entails placing the neck of the gun on the doorframe and slowly rotating so that you can see 90 degrees of the room (without exposing your body in the doorframe). We then moved on to pairs and eventually groups of four. As the week progressed we also learned: how to move through the city as a team (i.e. - one person keeping an eye on roofs, someone navigating, someone always looking behind, etc.), various formations for crossing open sections of the street that leave you vulnerable, how to get your team over 15 foot walls (both with and without a ladder), and how to set various types of ambushes.
Towards the end of the week we were given two opportunities to practice what we had learned. On Wednesday we were broken into small groups and given paintball guns, which were almost identical to our normal M-16s. After breaking into teams we practiced how to enter a room in pairs, while the rest of the group acted as the enemy. I don't know how realistic the paintball exercise actually was, but it was definitely fun!
Thursday night was the culmination of everything we had learned. There are four teams in the company and each team was given a mission that they had to complete. My team was told that they had received information about a terrorist who was smuggling in weapons. Our commanders sat us down and showed us aerial photos of the city. They broke us into three small groups of four, explained which house we would be going to, how we would get there, and what each group's job would be. There was one group who would be setting up in a house across the street and keeping look-out/cutting off an escape route. The second group was going to set up in an alleyway across from the house and cut off a second possible route. The third group, which happened to be my group, was responsible for entering the house and making the arrest.
It was considered a small test to see what we had learned, and it was taken pretty seriously. We were given blanks, painted our faces, pretty much the whole nine-yards. When we got to the house the "terrorist" opened fire on us right before we entered the house. We ran in and returned fire and simulated throwing a few grenades for good measure. After we killed the terrorist we were informed that one of the members of the team had been wounded (apparently something that had been planned in order to check whether or not we knew what to do if someone was wounded). We opened the stretcher and proceeded to make our way out of the city.
When we finished the mission we were told that the team had done really well and apparently the terrorist, who knew that we were coming, hadn't seen us and was genuinely surprised when we got to the door. After the drill I got the opportunity to be a terrorist for one of the other teams, which was also a lot of fun.

Jump Course (Part 3)

After the first jump the next 4 jumps became increasingly less fun. There were two more daytime jumps that we did with our gear and another two nighttime jumps with gear. What exactly is the gear we jump with you ask? There is a sack in which we place our gun and vest (which contains 6 magazines and two canteens), which we then close and tie to our leg and clip to our parachute. All-in-all the sack weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 pounds, not too crazy until you think about trying to jump with a 30 pound weight on your leg. Fortunately, we don't have to land with the sack attached to our leg. After jumping we release the bag which remains attached to us, but is connected to a 12 foot rope under us.
After the two day jumps with the gear I realized that there was only one big difference between jumping with the gear and jumping without the gear. After each jump we have to hike to the meeting point and then after everyone arrives we hike to the exit of the landing zone. When you add an extra thirty pounds to the hike, in addition to the parachute which itself weighs somewhere around 20 or 25 pounds, the hikes tend to get a little grueling. The especially fun part is if you are the last one out of the plane, meaning that you are the farthest from the meeting point. In the circumstance where you are the last one out the hike on the beach with gear can easily take 30 minutes.
Surprisingly, I found the night jumps easier than the day jumps. I don't actually think that the jumping or landing was actually easier, but I think that because each landing place is unique (and completely a product of luck, meaning you could land on a hill, a bush, or a road (as one of my friends had the displeasure of discovering)) I just seemed to get luckier at night.
By the end of the week my group of 8 had shrunk to 6. There was one person in my group who was too scared to jump the first time and did not continue with the course. The second person completed the first two jumps, but got injured in some exercises we did one afternoon after jumping in the morning.
When the course ended I was glad to be leaving. I enjoyed all of the jumps, but the drills and hikes were a pain in the butt. When all is said and done I am glad I did the course, but if I had it to do again I think I would have preferred to come later in my service like most of the soldiers there. The benefit of that being that you don't have to deal with your commanders bossing you around in your free time (which there is relatively large amount of free time).

Jump Course (Part 2)

The second week of the jump course consists of 5 jumps. One jump during the day without any gear, three more day jumps with gear, and two jumps at night with gear.

Sunday was a review day. We spent the day doing a lot of rolling, which I tried to skip out of as much as possible. The week before, when practicing our landings from the swing, I fell about 5 feet and landed on one of the metal clips from the harness when doing my roll. It left a pretty big bruise and made all subsequent rolls extremely unpleasant (It is actually a little bit funny, because the jump course is the one place that people try to hide their injuries. Any other week there are people complaining about injuries left and right in order to get out of things that we are doing. However, at the jump course being injured means that you don't get to jump). Anyway, I made it through Sunday and our first jump was Monday morning.

We were the first group to jump on Monday, so we woke up extremely early, around 3:30, and got all of our gear together (the first jump was without our vest or weapon, so it wasn't too much gear). We got to the runway, put on our parachutes and reserve 'chutes, sat down and waited for the plane. We ended up waiting for about an hour and then the plane pulled up. We jump out of a Hercules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-130_Hercules), and when it pulled up you get a sense of where the name comes from.

My group was assigned to the right door and we all lined up and entered the plane. They broke us into three groups of 8 people. I was told I would be the first person to jump in the 3rd group. They closed the ramp at the back of the plane where we had walked up and within a few minutes we were in the air...

A quick side note on my state of mind at this point. There was a time when I had a pretty significant fear of heights. There was the time at Lake Martin when I spent 15 minutes getting up the courage to jump off Chimney Rock, or the multiple times I backed out of various other height-related activities (i.e. - when my mom and sister did the bungee swing or on spring break when everybody went bungee jumping, etc.). Anyway, there was a time when I think this would have been a problem, but in actuality I think the week of drills made it a lot easier. Having jumped so many times from the different machines made it seem somewhat routine. By the time I was on the plane I really wasn't scared at all.

...We jumped from 1,200 feet, which is relatively low. To give you an idea the normal sky dive is done around 13,000 feet. When we reached the right altitude the first group of eight stood up and moved to the door. I watched as they all made their way out the door. When it came time for the second group to jump things did not go as smoothly. There were two people who decided that they couldn't jump, they were too scared. Instead of what I assumed would happen, the instructors would push them out, their parachute lines were removed from the cable and the first two people from the 3rd group were asked to join the second group. I stood and took my place as the 6th person in line. When it came time to jump things moved very quickly. The red light comes on, the first person moves into the doorway and after the green light it is like lemmings. There is maybe 2 seconds inbetween each person. All you hear is, "Jump!...Jump!...Jump!"

As I approached the door I put my hands outside and bent my knees I felt a hand on my shoulder (the signal to jump) and started to make my way out the door, when the hand suddenly pulled me back in. At first I had no idea what was going on, then the instructors pointed to the light which had changed to red. Apparently, the people in front of me had taken too long to jump and we had left the jump zone. The plane circled back around and this time I was first to jump. Being first you have a long time to stand in the doorway as the plane gets back in position. We flew over a small town and it gave me a chance to really appreciate how low we were. To give you a better idea they said that if your parachute doesn't open you would have 12 seconds before you hit the ground (not very comforting when you're think about that in terms of how much time you would have to open a reserve 'chute).

When it was finally time to jump everything went according to plan. I jumped out and the parachute opened after about two seconds. After that I floated to the ground and landed after about another 45 seconds. The landing was actually a little scary because you hear a lot of stories about people breaking their legs, and as you get close to the ground it starts to come up at you pretty quick (I later learned that a lot of the rolling upon impact is not necessary, the only thing that is really important is keeping your legs together).

I actually have to go get ready to go back to the army tomorrow (I broke my watch when I was practicing the rolling and I have to go to the mall and get a new one), so I'll have to finish the rest of the story in two weeks when I get home again. I hope it doesn't spoil the next post, but I finished the course and there is a picture of me with the pin you get at the end of the course, a picture of me, my instructor, and the other five guys who finished the course with me, and two pictures I took from the air (if you look closely at the parachuter in the picture you can see the gear that we jump with in the later jumps hanging down).

Jump Course (Part 1)

Two weeks ago I started the army's two week jump course. The course entails a week of training and week of parachuting, at the end of which you receive your "wings."

I was expecting it to be something of a break and a nice chance to get out from under our commanders for a while, unfortunately, I was mistaken. We were broken into groups of 8 and given an instructor who we would work with for the two weeks.

*Interesting side note: We were given a female commander, but they broke the groups up according to those who are more strictly religious and those that are not, because the soldiers who are religious can not be touched by girls and therefore were given male instructors.*

Not being particularly religious my group had one of the few female instructors, which turned out to be something of a problem because we had trouble taking her seriously and as a result we were often punished (which was also something of a joke because we are so used to be punished by our commanders that her punishments were laughable).

Our schedule was not as laid back as I had hoped it would be. We started every day around 5:30, but our commanders had us wake up earlier to meet with them before meeting our instructors, and we finished every day around 6 at night. For some reason we did the jump course extremely early in our training. At the same time that we were there there were two other groups who were also particpating in the course - the Anti-Guerilla Warfare unit and the Elite Combat Engineering unit (both of which have been in training now for at least a year). For the other units, who have finished most of their training, the jump course must have been a welcomed break. Whenever they were not with the instructors they were given free time to do as they pleased. My team, on the other hand, was at the will of our commanders, which usually meant a lot of running in gear or various punishments that they deemed necessary.

The course itself can essentially be broken down into various machines or drills that they use to simulate various parts of parachuting. The first thing we learned, and my least favorite, was how to land. We spent hours in a giant sandbox practicing how to roll in every possible direction. When we finally reached a level where everyone could roll to our instructors satisfaction we graduated to platforms of different heights that we would jump off and then roll. Just so we are clear on this, aside from the monotony, this was multiple hours of sweating in the sun and then rolling in sand...not what the grand mental image I had when I heard the words "jump course."

Some of the machines we used were somewhat fun, but the emphasis is on "somewhat" because after doing it once or twice the novelty begins to wear off rather quickly. I took a few pictures of some of the machines because I am sure my descriptions won't really do them justice. Here is a quick rundown of some of the drills we did:

The Little and Big Swing (pictured): The little and big swings are used to simulate all of the different steps from jumping out of the plane until the landing. There is a harness that connects to you and after jumping you feel the straps become taut after two seconds (because there is no actual "skydiving" the parachute is deployed as you exit the plane). On the little swing we practiced jumping with gear and how to deploy the reserve shoot. The big swing has a function that enables the instructors to release the straps so that you will fall to the ground from about 5 or 6 feet up, which is how they simulate the landing.

The Omega (pictured): The Omega is essentially a zip line that they use to simulate landing while drifting to a side or backwards. While on the zip line they tell you to drop and practice your roll in different directions.

The Fan (pictured): The fan is a tower, about 45 feet tall, that serves two purposes. The first is that it can be used to practice landings if there is no wind. However, because there is almost no situation in which there will not be wind the instructors mainly use the machine as a test of courage to see who might have a problem jumping from the plane. (It is called "The Fan" because the fan at the top is connected to the wire that lowers you and the fan helps to slow your descent)

The "Little" and Big Jump Towers: I didn't have the opportunity to take a picture of the jump towers, but the purpose of the towers is to simulate jumping from the plane and to practice releasing your gear and your reserve shoot. The two towers are constructed the same. They look like the section of the plane where the soldiers jump out and have zip lines about 50 yards long. The little tower is about 30 feet high and the big tower is about 50 feet high. After jumping out you zip down the line on a harness and release your gear.

The Negev

Three weeks ago was a week called "Professions" week. The idea being that there are different positions, or professions, in each team and the commanders assigned those positions to the soldiers they felt best suited each one. Of the possible positions there are 4 sharp shooters, 2 people with a grenade launcher attachment to their gun, 2 people who are given a light machine gun called the Negev, and one person is given a general purpose machine gun.

So I will cut to the chase, I was given the Negev, and I will tell you now that there really is nothing light about the "light" machine gun. If you are interested I found this article when I was trying to explain to my dad what it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMI_Negev

We spent the week in the shooting range learning about the gun and also being put through some pretty rigorous training. The first day was pretty standard, we were in the classroom learning about the weapon specifications, how to deal with malfunctions, and how to assemble and disassemble the gun. Then the tone of the week took a turn...

As I would come to learn through out the week it is expected of the "Negevists" (as they refer to those who carry the Negev) to be the most aggressive. When the team is storming the enemy, the Negevist is expected to be the first one so that he can spray the enemy with automatic fire and give the rest of the team time to move forward. I soon learned that the commanders' idea of instilling aggression is directly connected to crawling.

When we were at the shooting range we crawled to check our target, when we weren't at the shooting range we crawled up hills, and then for good measure they made us do relay races which were a mix of crawling and running. By the end of the week I was pretty beat up and I threw in a nice picture of the bruise I had on my elbow.

Commander's Course

This past week soldiers were chosen to go to a course to learn how to command a hooliya, small group (4 people). From my team there were 6 people that were chosen, and for some reason I was chosen. Not that I don't think it is something I could do, but I was surprised that they felt my Hebrew was good enough. Harrison was also chosen to go, but in the end he couldn't go because of his concussion.

We spent two days in the field learning how to storm a hill with a small group. It is almost exactly what we had done before, except we also learned about all of the different jobs that people have within the team. For example, there is a sharp shooter, someone with a machine gun, someone with a grenade launcher, and so on. In addition to learning how to control the movements, we also learned how each person works sith their particular job. The sharp shooter, for instance, is used to judge the distances so that the commander can decide whether to shoot a grenade, throw a grenade, charge, and so on.

We were supposed to stay in the field an extra day, but the soldiers who did not go to the course were on the base doing guard duty and they were short on replacements. After we got back to the base I got the chance to practice what we learned in the simulator. We had three simulations on hills and different outdoor locations and our fourth simulation was in a neighborhood in which we were placed on the roof of a nearby building. This I think was by far one of the coolest things I have done since I have been in the army. It felt somewhat like a video game, but we were shouting out orders and there was someone with a headset speaking with someone else in the control room that simulated what it is like to talk with other groups in the field.

Pairs Week

Two weeks ago we had a week in the field called "Pairs Week." As I am sure you can guess, we spent the week working with a partner. We were in the field learning how to storm a hill. Usually this is done with an entire company, or several, but their thinking is that you start at the base and work your way up. So...we start with pairs, then there is something called a hooliya (about 4 people) which loosely translates to "small group" or "band," then a class (10-12 people), a platoon (or in my case in the special forces we have teams, which is roughly 20 or 25 people as opposed to 30 or 35 in a platoon), and finally a company (in our case 90).

In the beginning it is a lot to learn, but it starts to make sense as you catch on. When one person is advancing the other is covering him and they both make their way up the hill until they are close enough to "charge."

During the week Harrison had to leave the field and see the doctor because he got a concussion. Between the different training exercises there are a lot of different things that the commanders have us do. For instance, during the week we ran 2 km with our vests and guns and one day we ran a kilometer while carrying someone on a stretcher. During the week Harrison's group did a relay race with another team. The first part of the relay race was carrying wounded soldiers. Harrison's partner sprinted down a hill and tripped. Harrison fell head first on a rock. He had a week at home to rest and he is doing better but he still gets a little dizzy from time to time.

Memorial Day (Yom Ha'zikaron) and Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) (May 7th and 8th 2008)

      Since it was Israel's 60th Birthday I figured I should probably write something about it.  There is an interesting thing in Israel that the day before Independence Day is their Memorial Day.  I think they like the transition from something depressing to something uplifting.

     Because it was Memorial Day my company was given early leave in order to represent the paratroopers at various military graves across the country (and as a nice bonus we were given the rest of the week off).  Harrison and I went to the military cemetery in Haifa on Wednesday morning May the 7th.  We were assigned to stand at different graves and act as representatives of the paratroopers for the families whose grave we were at.  Where I was stationed there was a soldier who was killed in 1973 during a training exercise.  

     He was using a newly developed "mini-grenade", however, there was a problem with the 

     design that did not enable soldiers to hear whether or not the grenade had been activated.  

     From what I understood the soldier had released the grenade and activated it without

     knowing.  It detonated close to him and a piece of shrapnel cut his neck.

In addition to the soldier's sister and her family, friends of his from his unit were also there.  I was told that they have been coming every year for 35 years.

     Next to where I was standing was a soldier whose family had all passed away.  As it turns out 4 years ago there was a girl soldier who was sent as a representative to his grave and she was so saddened by the fact that no one was there to visit him on Memorial Day that has come back every year to visit even though she is no longer in the army.  Two years ago the girl's boyfriend died in the Second Lebanon War, and now she continues to visit the grave every year before going to her boyfriend's grave.

     We waited with the families through the moment of silence and then through the following ceremony.

     That evening I attended a ceremony on the kibbutz marking the end of Memorial Day and the start of Independence Day.  After the ceremony there was a big barbecue at the kibbutz and dozens of free concerts through out the country.  We talked about going to one of the concerts, but in the end we decided to go to a party at a nearby kibbutz.  It was a good time, but I think I was expecting more for the country's 60th anniversary (maybe I needed to be in a big city). 

First Half of Basic Training

     Ok...so the title of this post is a little misleading.  The way that my training breaks down is that there is basic training for the first 4 months, then 2 months of advanced training, and 10 months of special forces training.  All-in-all it is a year and 4 months of training, and at this point I have finished the first half of the basic training portion.

     It has been pretty interesting.  I didn't know what to expect going into it and I would definitely say that there are parts that have been harder than I expected and other parts less challenging than I expected.  

     The first real week of training was called M-16 week.  We spent the whole week at the shooting range learning to shoot correctly and how to fix the sights to our eyes.  The first thing we did was actually pretty incredible.  There was a shooting range simulator that looked like three movie screens put together.  They have the technology to put up any image that they want.  When we used the simulator it was the image of a shooting range (wow!).  Even more impressive was the technology connected to the guns.  We all shot with M-16s that had been connected to wires and shot lasers.  From the control room they could tell if we moved the neck of the gun a centimeter before, after, or while shooting, how hard we squeezed or released the trigger, and exactly which bullet hit where.  It was pretty unbelievable.  The rest of the week we were at the real shooting range (we even slept out on the range one night).  At the end of the week I was one of three soldiers chosen to participate in a fun "prize" activity.  We got to shoot with the commander's guns (they were essentially the same as ours, except they had a special sight which doesn't have to be lined up, simply put the dot on the target).  First we shot at metal ammunition containers filled with water and then at a balloon placed on the head of a target.

     The week after that was a week in the field.  We left on Saturday night and came back to the base on Wednesday morning.  So far that was the hardest week of training.  We spent all day hiking from place to place with all of our gear: stretcher, radio, a bag with 10 full liter bottles of water, and for every two people a large bag with personal gear (i.e. - shovel, gas mask, blanket, change of clothes (which went unused)).  During the week we learned how to walk as a group in the field, how to cross open areas, how to carry wounded soldiers both on the stretcher and on our shoulders (this was particularly difficult do to all of the gear and steep inclines of the hills), and lots and lots of crawling.  At the end of the week there was a test on everything we learned, which we later learned that our team had received the highest marks of the entire company.  Wednesday morning there was a 6 km hike back to the base plus one more kilometer carrying someone on the stretcher.  When we got back we cleaned all of our gear and got prepared to go to Jerusalem for our swearing in ceremony on Thursday at the Western Wall, which my Mom, sister, and Grandparents flew in for.

     Since then we have had another week in the field, in what was called "Pair" or "Duo" week.  Essentially, we spent the week learning how to storm hill tops in pairs.  The way it was explained to us is that it is the basis for what we will be doing later on.  In the beginning we learn how to work in pairs, in another two weeks we will learn how to do the same thing in groups of 4 or 5, then groups of about 10, followed by our team of 20, and by the end the whole company of 90.  We did several dry runs and then live fire in day and night.

     One week was spent learning first aid and chemical/biological/atomic warfare.  Part of the chemical warfare training involved going into a tent full of gas and taking off the gas mask.  Apparently, this is something of a joke to all of the commanders.  They tell everyone something ridiculous to do when they come out of the tent gagging and crying.  Also, while in the tent they make everyone sing a song (for instance there was a group that sang "Happy Birthday," so that they know when you take your mask off that you breath in the gas).  Our commander told us, "I am completely serious, when you come out of the tent the best way to get the gas off of you is to grab both of your ears, flap your elbows, and jump on one leg!"  Of course this is at the same time that you are drooling on yourself and you can't see because your eyes are watering so hard.  To top it all off there are girls who come to videotape you make a fool of yourself so that when you finish basic training you can laugh at what an idiot you were.

     Other than that nothing too special.  We have done some guard duty on the base and worked in the kitchen a little bit.  We had our first two lessons of Krav Maga (the Israeli self defense/hand-to-hand combat system), except at this phase of our training the lessons only consist of 45 minutes to an hour straight of conditioning.  It is actually kind of funny, it is one of the things I was really looking forward to and now it is the time that everyone in the team hates the most.  I'm sure it will get interesting later on, but right now all we do is suicides, crawling, or push-ups.

     That's about it for now.  I am fairly certain that I am going to be on the base for the next three weeks, so I don't know if there will be any updates in the near future but if I get off I'll try my best to keep this somewhat up-to-date.

My Parents First Trip to Israel (February 29, 2008 - March 8, 2008)

     My parents came to visit (their first trip to Israel) my second to last week at Michve Alon, on February 29th.  I got off from the army that morning and went to Tel Aviv to go and meet them at the airport.  They landed around 5:15 PM and I met them at the gate, but it was downhill from there.  

     After the hugs and kisses the three of us went to go and pick up the car (or perhaps more aptly - passenger van) that they had rented.  The interior lights in the van didn't work, but we were in a hurry to get to Haifa in time for Shabbat dinner so we told them we would make do with the flashlight we had rather than switch cars...a mistake that would later come back to haunt us.  As we preceded out of the airport and towards Haifa my dad thought he heard a noise coming from the outside of the car, he got out to check the tire, but it seemed intact.  After 5 more minutes there was another loud noise and my dad informed us that he saw our tire rolling down the middle of the highway in his rearview mirror.  "Welcome to Israel."  

     We then proceeded to sit on the side of the highway, which had no shoulder, for about 2 and half hours (for those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Israel:  in that time we could have probably driven to Haifa and back) arguing with various people about getting a new car.  Eventually we switched our bags to the new car and continued to Haifa.  Needless to say we missed Shabbat dinner and instead ate in the first falafel restaurant that we came to in Haifa, where the power promptly went out.  Fortunately, the trip improved from that point on (granted it had no where to go but up).

     I took my parents to meet my adopted kibbutz family on Saturday, and the next day they took me back to the army.  Normally I would have been given time off to be with my family, except that it just so happened that my try-out for the paratroopers was that upcoming Monday and Tuesday.  

     After the try-out my parents came to pick me up and I was given the rest of the week off.  We traveled around Jerusalem for two days and I was able to show them some of the places where I had spent my first month in the Holy Land.  We drove back to Haifa on Friday so that my parents would be able to participate in at least one Shabbat dinner, and on the next day they flew back home.