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).