A complicated trip home

So I was actually granted a furlough to come home for 3 weeks, but it was one of the most complicated processes I have been a part of.  However, it is a good example of the IDF's bureaucracy for anyone interested at an insider's peek.

For about two months I had been planning to come home for a 2 or 3 week trip at the end of December.  I had made all of the arrangements, and the only thing left was to buy a plane ticket.  Before I did that I decided it best to double check the dates  I was given with my Platoon Commander.  So, two weeks before my scheduled trip my commander informed me that I would have to make a choice.  On the same dates that I had scheduled my trip half of my team would be sent to Sniper School.  I thought about it for a while, but not too long, after all I had come all this way to serve in the army.  I told myself that I could go home in the summer after I had finished my training, and it would actually give me a little more time to be at home (possibly a month, compared to the two weeks I had currently planned). 

Then out of nowhere, three days before the start of Sniper School, my commander informed me that there was a small problem.  They had learned that the Sniper School had a policy that they do not accept soldiers who have less than 20 months of service left.  I only had 15 months.  I was given the option of signing an extra 5 months, or giving up on Sniper School.  This became a very difficult decision.  I am scheduled to finish my service March of 2010.  If I sign on for an extra 5 months I would be finishing up in August of 2010.  Which would mean I would miss the start of the 2010 school year by a week or two.  This would mean waiting an entire extra year to start school (after I finish the army).  Unfortunately, I did not have a lot of time to wrestle with my decision, if I was not going to go the commanders needed to know so that they could fill my spot.  At first, I was positive I wouldn't sign the extra time.  I weighed my options and thought it wasn't worth waiting an entire extra year before starting school.  However, after about 30 minutes I started to wonder if I would regret not going to Sniper School.  I checked the dates of when school might start and as it turned out there would be a 2 day window between the date I was released from the army and the day that Law School started.  In retrospect, it seems a little absurd to think I could make it back in time and be ready for school, but at the time I was able to justify it to myself.

I went to my commander and told him that I was willing to sign the extra 5 months.  As it turns out, the army was not willing to give me the 5 months.  It is a little bit complicated, but I'll just say that in order for me to sign on the extra time the army would have had to pay me an officer's salary for those 5 months, but I would have just been a regular soldier.  In their eyes it wasn't really worth it (plus they had a number of other guys on my team with which they could fill my sport).  As a result, I discovered that I could actually receive my furlough (two days before my scheduled trip) and I came home on the 23rd of December.