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!