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.