I got back to Israel a week ago and spent most of the first week getting all of my gear back. This week I met up with my team at our outpost in the West Bank. We spend most of our time guarding and patrolling the villages in our immediate area. Even though I'm half way around the world from the US I still find the culture permeates here in various forms. Yesterday I was in the mess hall listening to the radio. Because we are in the West Bank we actually pick up the radio from Jordan. The funny thing is this is what I hear, "Kiss 102.5 Jordan's Hit Radio Station" followed by Black Eyed Peas "Boom Boom Pow." When I was in Austin, Texas a month ago the song came on every 5 seconds, and now a month later I can't escape it. Even in the Arab country of Jordan!
Last weekend I went to my third IFL practice. It was my second practice with pads and the first practice in which we were hitting. It was actually kind of humorous. They have some large guys (I'm talking 6'4'' 260), but these guys grew up playing soccer. They try and tackle or block and they just stand straight up or will come up to make a hit and stop on contact. For those of you who haven't played football this pretty much neutralizes all of their size. The team has some potential but its gonna take a lot of work. Oh...and I forgot to mention that we don't exactly have a quarterback so the coach is planning to run pretty much every down. Which I guess is a good thing if I am going to be a running back. Although it does make me a little suspicious as to how he plans on keeping opposing defenses honest.
Not too much going on right now. We finish up our posting in the West Bank in another month and then we'll be starting a brigade wide exercise for two or three months.
