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.