Urban Warfare

Two weeks ago my company spent a week in an old abandoned British Military fortress learning the finer points of urban warfare.

We started out working individually, learning how to approach a room and make sure that you aren't exposed while simultaneously being able to see every angle in the room.  In the beginning it feels a little unnatural, but after spending a few hours making sure that your leg, or shoulder aren't exposed you start to get the feel for it.  In the future we are going to practice with paintball guns.  It is a safe way to learn not to expose yourself.  After a few paintballs to the leg from close range you learn quickly to make sure your body is concealed.

After that we moved on to pairs and groups of three.  We learned how to approach narrow door frames, wide door frames, open stairwells (in which someone on the second floor could see you), and closed stairwells.  As well as various techniques for entering these places.  By the end of the week we had worked our way up to various groups of six searching a house for terrorists.  In addition to the techniques we learned for entering, we also learned various tactics for entering a room when you are being attacked.  For example, how to throw a grenade in, what to do if your gun jams, and how back someone up.  

During the week we also advanced significantly in our close-combat training.  We had two lessons a day all week.  In which we learned how to defend ourselves against an attacker armed with a knife. 

Lull

I know I haven't written anything for a while, but there has been a pretty big lull in things the last three weeks.  We have been spending our time checking all of our gear.  To see what was lost in the war, and making sure that everyone has the gear they need in case we have to go back in.  

Also, we got a week off because everyone who was in Gaza had not been home in over a week.  Which was weird for me because I had just got back, and then was given another break.

I won't be back for two weeks, but the next two weeks will most likely be very eventful.  We are going to have an intense urban combat week coming up this week, and then a long navigation week in the south.

On-Call

I came back to Israel last Thursday, and reported to the army that Sunday.  It just so happened that on that very same day Israel decided to enact a unilateral cease-fire.  Therefore, everyone who had been in Gaza was called back to Israel.  Contrary to what I had previously thought, my company was in fact called upon to participate in the war.  I had been fairly certain that we would simply continue with our training, but apparently the army felt that we were ready.  Accordingly, the 4 teams that make up my company spent about two weeks in Gaza, and it was these soldiers that I was going to meet on Sunday.

Due to the nature of the cease-fire it was unclear what Hamas's intentions were/are and it was necessary for Israel's army to maintain a state of readiness should the need to return to Gaza arise.  Thus, the entire paratroopers brigade spent the week at a nearby military base...on-call.

It was an interesting week to say the least.  It was the farthest thing from a normal week in the army that I have had.  As far as my army experience goes I have been in training for the last 10 months, so I was a little taken aback when we were basically on our own for an entire week.  Because we were on-call, there was really nothing that we could do.  Our entire company slept in what was essentially I giant hangar.  

I got to hear everyone's stories about what they had been doing for the last two weeks, I honed my backgammon skills, and I think everyone gained about 5 pounds.  It was simply unbelievable the outpour of support from both Israelis and people throughout the world.  There were mountains of packages filled with candy, socks, thermal undershirts, chips, cookies, and more candy.  And these were just the packages that weren't sent into Gaza.  I later heard that one of the grocery stores in Israel put together close to 90,000 packages for soldiers, and I believe it.  In addition to all of this, there was a Nestea van that came around and handed out free drinks, there were stand-up comedians who came and put on a show, parents came and cooked out almost every night, and someone came to give everyone haircuts (From what I understand he is supposed to be the Israeli equivalent of "Paul Mitchell."  I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of a famous hairdresser, but everyone insisted that he is the most famous hairdresser in all of Israel.  His name was Shuki Zikri, in case that means something to someone.  I also put a picture of it up, he is the third haircutter from the left, although I think it you would have to be pretty bad to mess up an "army" haircut).  

From what I understand the war was considered a great success.  Israeli intelligence predicted that the IDF would incur 40 wounded soldiers a day, which in reality was far from the truth.  Throughout the entirety of the war only five soldiers were wounded in my entire batallion, and as it turns out they were all from my company.  I have spoken with all of them and they seem to be doing fine. 

Apparently, there is a slight disconnect between what I had been reading in the news and what the soldiers were hearing.  According to the news, Israel's goal was to end Hamas's rocket fire into Israel.  According to what my friends were told, they were going in to show to Hamas that there are consequences for their actions, and to significantly limit their capability to launch future rockets.  While the understood goals of Hamas, to the best of my understanding, was to open its borders and be allowed to police themselves.  Everything that I have heard since returning was that Hamas's main goal was to kidnap Israeli soldiers in order to use them as bargaining pieces. 

  

Strange Timing

I wanted to start off by thanking everyone for their concern.  Since I have been home this last week my parents have received numerous calls inquiring about my well-being.

In a strange turn of events, I was able to come home last week and entirely missed the start of the airstrikes in Gaza.  Since several people have asked me what I thought I figured I would share a few words here (both on the situation and my potential involvement).

Like most people my knowledge of the current events in Gaza is mostly limited to what I read.  Accordingly, it appears that Israel is in a rather precarious position.  All media slants and angles aside, Israel is now trying to eliminate Hamas's potential to launch Qassam rockets.  The problem they face is that they do not actually want to uproot the Hamas organization.  This means that rather than actually going into Gaza and trying to extricate Hamas, they are gathering information and trying to locate both launch points and weapon caches.  In terms of military objectives it would seem to me that the latter is more difficult.  If they simply wanted to oust Hamas they could commit their full military strength to the effort, but as it stands the IDF will be forced to infiltrate hostile territory in order to reach their objectives.

In terms of my team, our training is supposed to last until mid-May.  Therefore, to the best of my knowledge I do not think we will be participating in the current incursion, but I assume that will depend on how long it lasts.

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.

Observation

The last two weeks we have been in an observation course.  Which basically involves learning about different observation gear (mostly thermal night vision).  There are a lot of different types, and we actually got to use some that just came into use.  There were two that we were the actually the first people to use in all of the army.  I would go into more detail, but I don't know if I can in this forum.

The basics of what we learned involve being able to instruct other units, airplanes, or helicopters how to get to locations based on what we see.  Also, this past week we learned how to command artillery to hit certain locations from miles away.

There was also something of a bitter sweet moment this past Wednesday.  Out of nowhere me and 5 other soldiers were taken aside and told we would be going to sniper school in two weeks.  On the one hand this was great news, but at the same time it just so happened that the dates of the course correspond exactly with the days I had been planning to come home.  

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.