An unplanned stop

My last entry was something of a cliffhanger, and I had actually planned on writing the next entry immediately after finishing the first, but time kind of slipped away.

Anyway, after our last night of navigation in the south my partner and I had finished around 4 in the morning. We immediately proceeded to catch up on whatever sleep we could while we waited on the bus for everyone else to finish. As it turns out, the last group finished around a quarter to 6. Everything was loaded onto the bus and we began the journey back to the base. After about five minutes the bus came to an abrupt stop and we were all ordered to get off!
We all put our vests back on and opened up two stretchers. Two of the members of my team who had some injuries were placed on the stretcher and we began the run/hike. No one really knew how long we would be going or what our eventual destination was (and it was probably best we didn't know).
We ended up carrying the stretchers for about two hours (there were about 11 of us, plus two on the stretchers, which meant that there were not many people to change out for breaks). The end of the hike was a mountain top that was so steep we essentially had to crawl up it while dragging the stretchers around our ankles. I am going to try and put up some pictures later, but they don't really do it justice because I didn't get any pictures that show how steep of a climb we had.

Navigations In the North and South

The past two weeks we have been navigating in the North and the South, in order to familiarize ourselves with the varying landscapes.  

Personally, I found navigating in the North to be more interesting.  In the North you are just as likely to find yourself on the outskirts of any number of Bedouin villages as you are to come across wildlife, traverse various fences, or devise some way to cross a running river.  It is not that the south is harder, in fact, in most cases just the opposite is true.  However, due to the desert terrain found in the south, hour long navigations at night (where every hill or mountain begins to look the same) can become rather boring.

In my first navigation my worries were realized early on.  My partner was in charge of bringing us to our first two points.  We found the first point relatively quickly and problem free.  From there, however, things began to quickly deteriorate.  For some reason nothing that we saw in front of us seemed to be in the right place according to my partner's recollection.  I wanted desperately to be of some help, but we had been under strict orders not to learn our partner's section of the navigation.  As the minutes quickly turned to hours we realized that we would not be able to find his next point.  It is at this point that the snow ball effect begins to take place.  The problem with our navigations is that we are not using maps.  Therefore, everyone must remember every aspect of where they are going to be.  If, for instance, someone does not find there second point they will not be able to reach the third, and from there the fourth, and so on and so forth.  

In our case our situation was somewhat exacerbated by the fact that our radio was not working.  After walking around rather aimlessly for about two hours we concluded that it would be justified to skip ahead to our next point.  Unfortunately, since we had not made it to my partner's last point I could not help us get to any of my points, seeing as my navigation started at his last point.  Accordingly, we decided to make our way straight to the ending point.  

What we hadn't counted on was the giant quarry that happened to be blocking our way to the end point.  So we started what proved to be a rather adventurous circumnavigation of the quarry.  We started out by walking through what I can only assume is a place where the quarry workers live.  When we got within maybe 50 yards of the houses we started to hear what sounded like a pack of dogs going crazy.  Fortunately for us, the dogs were chained, but my partner thought it best that we walk with rocks "in hand" just in case there were a few that weren't chained.  It actually had a very "junkyard" feel to it.  After making our way through the houses we came upon a road.  We knew that our boundary was the roads that we might encounter in each direction.  The road we had stumbled upon did not actually appear to be a major road, but we figured crossing it would be a bad idea.  We decided that we would just walk along the road in the right direction (because inevitably the end point would be on a road where the buses would be meeting us).  Maybe ten minutes into our walk down the road, we saw a truck coming down the road.  At this point it was about 2 AM, so I am sure it was a little weird to see to soldiers walking along the side of a road - in full gear.

The truck continued down the road, and then stopped a few feet in front of us and let someone out.  It seemed a little strange at the time, but we were pretty desperate...we decided we'd ask for some directions.  My friend called out to the guy who had exited the truck and he stopped and walked over to us.  I happened to remember the names of nearby villages, as well as the name of the point we were trying to get to, so we started with that.  I don't know what we were expecting, but I can tell you that the next words out of his mouth was not it.  He turns to us, scratches his head and says, "Give me a second to think...we've been smoking a bong!"  At this point I preemptively dismiss whatever directions he decides to give us.  After he rambled on for about ten minutes we decided to carry on with our previous plan of walking along the road.  Looking back on it now, it kind of reminds me of Alice in Wonderland stumbling upon the caterpillar smoking the hookah pipe! 

We ended up walking for about another 30 minutes when we saw a flash light in the distance.  When we reached the point it was coming from we ran into two of the other guys from our team.  Not surprisingly, they had been trying to reach us on the radio for several hours.  When the commanders heard that the second group had stumbled upon us they told us to stay with them (a safety measure because we didn't have a radio).

Last weeks navigation in the South was also fairly eventful (including a run in with a giant porcupine), but almost more so for what took place after the navigations...

(On our last navigation in the South my partner and I ran into two other groups on one of the mountain tops, so we decided it would be a good photo-op)

End of Advanced Training Video

They put a video on YouTube of some of our training, so I thought I would share the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfNMRdrOaPE

The Start of Navigation

Two weeks ago we started our navigation training in earnest.  Previously, we had been learning how to navigate with instructors and open maps.  Now we have begun navigating in pairs without maps.  It is a long process that takes almost the entire day.

We spend the morning and afternoon plotting our course.  Each pair receives three to four coordinates that they must reach on their way from the beginning to the end of the navigation.  After the route has been drawn out on the map we spend the afternoon memorizing various azimuths (an angle measured in degrees between a reference plane and a point) that we will have to recall during the navigation.  Additionally, we scan the topographical map for anything that might be of use during the actual navigation.  For instance, some people find it useful to count how many hills they will see on their way to a certain point.  Aside from the difficulty of remembering these details for a 6 or 7 mile navigation, you would not believe how much more difficult it becomes to navigate at night.  While it is clear where one hill starts and ends during the day, at night it infinitely more difficult.  

As a result, a lot of people tend to get lost during navigations.  Our first night of navigations we left around 5:30 and we finished around 10 or 10:30.  However there were about two or three groups that got really lost and finished around 3:30 in the morning.  At this phase in the training it was actually somewhat amusing, but as we progress the navigations will get longer and we will be carrying more weight (right now we have one person who carries a 20 pound radio, but we will eventually work up to around 60 pounds).  

So far I have been doing pretty well.  On our last navigation I finished first, and learned the benefit of being good at navigating.  We finished around 1:30 in the morning and went to sleep on the bus while waiting for the other groups to finish.  As it turns out, the last group finished at 5:45 in the morning.  That meant that I got to sleep for 4 hours, while the last group to finish did not get to sleep at all.  

This week coming up will be our first week of navigation in the north.  It is also going to be a new style of navigation.  We will still be navigating as a pair, except this week we will not be allowed to learn our partners section of the navigation.  One person will navigate the first half, and the second person will navigate the second half.  I just hope my partner can get me to the right spot, if not it will make for a long night...

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.

 

The Holidays

This month is considered to be the Jewish Holiday Season. Last week was "Rosh Hashanah," the Jewish New Year, this week is "Yom Kippur," the day of Atonement, and next week is "Sukkot," the holiday remembering the Jews 40 years of wandering in the desert.

Last week we were given off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for the holiday. I spent the first night with one of my friends from my team that lives relatively close by, and the second night with my family from the kibbutz.

This is actually my second Rosh Hashanah in Israel, and I have noticed that there are some customs that people keep here that I have never seen before in the U.S. For instance, I am familiar with eating apples and honey to signify a "sweet New Year," but in Israel there are several foods that are significant to Rosh Hashanah for different reasons:


-The Pomegranate is eaten because it is said to have 613 seeds, the same number of Mitzvahs that are described in the Torah.

-The head (or meat from the head) of usually a sheep is eaten in the hopes that we will be leaders and not followers in the upcoming year. (I can definitely say that I had never eaten "head meat" before, but it tastes kind of like brisket)

-Dates symbolize our wish to remove evil (apparently something to do with the word Date in Hebrew - Tamar, which is connected to the word Tam - meaning cease to exist. Sounds like kind of a stretch to me)

-Squash relates to our hopes in the High Holy Days that G-d will read our good deeds and tear up any list of bad deeds (again realting to the Aramaic word for squash)

-The word for leek is connected to "cutting," and symbolizes our wish that our evil deeds be cut down, or our enemies decimated.

-Black-eyed peas represent the wish that our merits will increase in the New Year


Those are some of the blessings that I encountered (I actually had to look most of those up because even most Israelis don't remember why they eat each thing). It is a meal before the meal, which makes for a pretty long dinner.


When we went back on Thursday we spent the day learning how to read topography maps for our upcoming navigation training. This Sunday we started the navigation training by going out in the field and seeing how the map translates to actual hills, rivers, valleys, etc. Monday we drove to a popular navigation training ground and practiced getting from point to point in small groups with commanders. Tuesday we were supposed to travel to the same place and get a little bit more advanced (navigating with out the map), but there were some logistical problems and our bus didn't come. So we spent the day navigating in the area around our base (still pretty big, but the main difference is that the various landmarks are less pronounced, thus making it more difficult for novice navigators).
Truthfully, no one seemed to have a problem navigating during the day. The problem is that none of our real navigations (the ones we will do in pairs, or alone, with significant weight) will be during the day. You would be surprised how hard it is to tell distances, or try and make out how many hill tops there are in the dark.
We were supposed to stay on the base and guard during Yom Kippur, but yesterday (the day before Yom Kippur) our commanders told us we would all be going home. I am not one to complain about time off, but as a result we had to go to sleep early and we actually did very little navigation at night. In my case I didn't do any at all. I was in a group of three and the first navigator got significantly lost, and by the time we figured out where we were it was time to get back to the base. However, I'm not too concerned we have another 8-10 weeks of navigation training in the future, so I'm sure I'll get a chance.

Today is what is known as Erev Yom Kippur, or Yom Kippur Eve in Christian terms. It means that the fast starts tonight at sundown and lasts until sundown tomorrow. Because last Saturday we turned our clocks back sundown starts at 5:30.
What is really interesting about my first Yom Kippur here in Israel is that it really illustrates the divide between the religious and the secular. In the U.S. most Jews I knew fell somewhere in the middle, but here it is very black-or-white. There are religious Jews, who pray three times a day and wrap Tefillin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%27fillin

And there are secular Jews, who may have never seen the insided of a Temple or know a single prayer. I learned that to fast on Yom Kippur also means not to turn on any lights, including turning on a television or starting a car (technically I think that means I have already broken my fast by using the computer). When I got home from the army to the kibbutz I thought I would eat my last meal around 5, before the sun went down. When I walked in to my adopted family's house I was informed that dinner would be served around 8. They said they had not even thought to ask whether or not I fasted for Yom Kippur.
I feel like in the U.S. most people try and make an effort to fast. Here either you fast or you don't even think about it. I heard one of the soldiers this morning turn to his friend and ask if he was planning to fast, his response, "Yeah - for an hour or two!"
Here I am in the "Jewish State" and if it weren't for the fact there is absolutely no transportation until tomorrow night at 8, you wouldn't even know it is the most solemn and important day of the year. Not that it bothers me, I just find it a little strange.

The Preparation Hike

Last week was supposed to be the start of our Navigation training, however, due to some unforseen problems our navigation training was pushed back. Instead, we spent the first half of the week at the shooting range. We are going to be moving to a new base in a few weeks, where the Special Forces are stationed, and we needed to calibrate all of the new guns and sights that we got from our new base.

Wednesday and Thursday we had a 50 km hike that is supposed to be a hike to prepare us for an even longer hike we will be doing on Ocotber the 15th/16th. We have done several hikes in the past, each one gradually increasing the distance (our previous hike was 38 km). In the beginning the hikes were fairly difficult. In addition to the quick pace, everyone walks with their vests, ammo, and guns. There are also two people who carry a stretcher, two people carry 8 liters of water, two people carry a 20lb. radio, and myself and one other guy carry the light machine gun and all of the ammo. The end of each hike there is also a period in which we carry someone (or two someones) on a stretcher. The last two hikes the pace has been less of a factor and the real difficulty has been the boredom. It takes us about an hour to walk 6km (close to 4 miles), and every hour we take a short break. This means that our 50km hike that we did last Wednesday took us almost 11 hours.

We left at 6 PM on Wednesday, and we finished at 4:45 AM on Thursday. You would be amazed at the things that go through your mind during that time. For instance, in the time it took me to walk 50 km I could have watched all three Lord of the Rings Movies (extended addition), or I thought about maybe trying to sneak my iPod with me (but I realized even if I got away with it the battery would probably die before the hike was over). Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, by the end of the hike my vest was rubbing me so bad that it took my mind off of the boredom.

Our next hike in 2 weeks is going to be about 80 km...if anybody has any suggestions as to how to kill 20 hours of walking I am all ears!