Sidelined

After not being able to participate in my first actual week, I was forced to sit out of the next week as well while my ankle continued to heal. This time however I was actually a little pleased that I didn't have to participate.

The past two months all of the paratroopers have been in a three month training period. This particular week was what is known as a "battalion exercise." The name is pretty self explanatory. The entire Airborne Special Forces Battalion spends the entire week simulating war time conditions. This particular drill we have been preparing for a war with Lebanon or Syria, meaning that the drills take place in the North.

For those unfamiliar with the country's layout, Israel is not a complete desert which I know is what a few people have in mind, especially when thinking about a Middle Eastern country. The Northern portion of the country, the Golan Heights and the Galilee, is actually rather mountainous and actually quite woodland. Therefore, during the winter it tends to get both cold and wet.

My commander and I decided that because of the weight that everyone would need to carry during the week if it would probably be best if I stayed behind for the week. At all times there has to be at least three people at our base making sure that no other soldiers come in who do not have permission. So that is where I spent my week. Mostly relaxing and watching television (we have a TV room with the equivalent of Israeli HBO, one of the few perks of the Special Forces).

When the week was over and I talked to the rest of my team I was pretty glad I didn't try and tough it out. They told me that it was probably one of the hardest weeks that they have had since enlisting. Everyone carried a bag that weighed at least 100 pounds (even two guys who probably weigh about 120 or 130 themselves) and walked about 15 or 20 kilometers each day. However, what they said was the worst part was that it was so cold they couldn't really sleep. Not sure my ankle would have held up for the long hikes, but I'm definitely glad I didn't have to find out.

Sitting out

In the first week that I couldn't really participate in the army (because of my ankle), I'm missing some stuff I was looking forward to. This past Sunday our battalion had a jump with the American Green Berets. Although everyone who participated told me that they never want to jump again and that I didn't miss anything. Apparently, the jump was with a lot of gear. Everyone jumped with vests, guns, ammo, and a giant bag that probably weighed between 40 and 60 pounds.

The day after the jump I went to see the doctor about my ankle (it is already starting to feel a lot better so I'm not too worried) and I ran into one of my buddies. He was there because he hurt his ankle in the jump. He began to explain to me that the winds were pretty intense and that he was getting pulled back and forth as soon as he got out of the plane. He ended up directly on top of another chute. He said that by the time that they got separated he barely had time to release his gear, which is connected by a rope, before he hit the ground. On a normal jump there is about a minute before you hit the ground, on this jump there was about 30 seconds because of all of the gear. His was not the only story I heard, one of the guys on my team told me he landed next to an American who landed on his back and immediately began cursing. In the end it may have been good I didn't jump.

The rest of the week is going to be more urban warfare, with paintball and more intricate buildings than we worked on last week. I'm kind of bummed that I won't get to work with them, but at the same time I think that being able to take a little time off will really help my ankle.

Friday the 13th!!!

As a general rule I tend to believe the Friday the 13th is an unlucky day (at least for me). This goes back to a particular Friday the 13th when I was about 8 years old and was at a beach with all of my Dad's family in Destin. I was building a sand castle and on a trip to collect water from the ocean I didn't notice a broken glass in the sand. You can fill in the rest of the story but without going into the details of the crying and the trip to the hospital I will say that the story concludes with me getting stitches on the toe of my right foot.

So that being said, I didn't even realize that this past Friday was Friday the 13th until my sister pointed it out to me (I don't think Israeli's know about it). So this particular Friday I got out of the army and went straight to my first football game of the season. It poured rain the whole game, literally poured. Blayke tried to come and watch my game, but she got turned around with some of the bus routes and didn't end up showing up until the end of the third quarter (about 4 and half hours after she set out from her apartment on what should have been an hour and half trip). But I'm getting ahead of myself. The game was actually going pretty well. I played running back and outside linebacker. We went up 3 touchdowns, but then after a few fumbled snaps somehow the other team got back into the game. On the first drive of the second half, someone tackled me from behind and my ankle got caught underneath us. I had to be helped off the field didn't get to play the rest of the game (a little while after Blayke finally got to the game). Fortunately, we held onto the lead and won 30 - 22. I guess winning should count for something, but I still think Friday the 13th is an unlucky day.

There was a small write up about the game in which they mentioned me, so I thought I'd put the link up:

http://www.ifl.co.il/52/section.aspx/153 (if that doesn't work you can just go to "ifl.co.il")

Anyway, we have a game this Thursday, but I'll probably be sitting this one out.

War Time Urban Warfare

Last week we practiced urban warfare in a war time setting. In the past all of our urban warfare training had been focused on missions in the West Bank, which is a different style of urban warfare.

In the West Bank we are usually going into someone's house in the middle of the night to arrest them. They don't know you are coming and they usually aren't ready for it. During war time that is not the case. You are going into a home that you have made it clear that there should not be anyone inside. If there is someone inside they probably mean you harm.

For that reason every room that you enter, you enter shooting. Any room that you come to that you are fired at you throw a grenade in. So this is what we practiced this week. It was pretty interesting, except that once again the army finds a way to take the fun out of the things that sound like they might be fun.

I heard throwing grenades into a room...sounds kinda fun. The truth...not so much. For safety reasons the rooms that we throw the grenades into are covered with sand on the floor (so that someone doesn't throw a grenade and have it bounce back out, which apparently happened during a previous training drill pre-sand). What I didn't consider was that entering a room with a dirt floor after a grenade has gone off makes it kinda hard to see, and even harder to breath.

I have a video of it, but I am having trouble loading it. I might try later to see if I can get it to work.

Ok, it took a little while but I got it to upload. You don't get a real feeling for what it is like when the grenade goes off (I stood in the corner and rocks from the roof flew off on to me), but it is still kinda fun to see).

Open Field Warfare Practice

The past two weeks we have been working on our open field warfare. Last week our company practiced its war time assignment. Which for the most part consists of anti-tank missiles, with the exception of my team, which is a sniper reconnaissance team.

What that means is the two other teams were given "targets" that they had to eliminate, and we had to direct them to their targets with our reconnaissance capabilities. Therefore, in each drill (there was one each night of the week) my team would go out a few hours before the other two teams and set up on top of a mountain. From there we communicated via radio to the other teams and told them where they needed to fire.

I simplified it a little bit, but that is more or less what we did for the entire week. We would navigate a few kilometers, set up a reconnaissance stand, pack up and walk until we met up with the other teams, and then usually carry two stretchers for about 5 kilometers until we got back to a bus. From there we went back to a nearby base and started the process all over again the next day.

The week after, we practiced storming hills. The first few days we practiced as a team, and the next two days we practiced as an entire company. The content of the week was pretty regular, other than navigating, I think we spent the most time training on how to storm hills. However the week itself was pretty tough.

Winter is only just started here, but that means rain. And the first few days it sure did rain. I don't know if anyone reading this has slept outside in the rain, but I can tell you that there are few things more depressing than waking up early in the morning, sticking your head out of your sleeping bag and being rained on. I don't exactly know why we didn't have tents, I'll chalk it up to logistical problems, but needless to say I was happy when the rain stopped after Tuesday (keeping in mind our weeks start on Sunday).

We had a few drills that were extremely long, for example storming 4 or 5 mountains in succession. Additionally, we had quite a few drills each day. For a frame of reference, each drill tends to take about 45 minutes to an hour and we have to do each one twice (once without live rounds and then with real ammunition) for safety reasons. In one 24 hour period we did 8 such drills. As a result, the week seemed to inch along.

Nothing to special happened, although there was one time when I kinda felt like Tiger Woods. I remember when I worked at IMG someone had talked about how Tiger Woods time was divided. One of the things that you might not know is that Tiger often has to go play a few rounds of golf with his sponsors. For example, he is sponsored by Cadillac, so he might have to go one weekend to play with the CEO and some of his friends, or put on a show at the range for some their clients (I don't know if you have seen the commercial where he juggles a ball around and then hits it out of the air, but that kinda stuff). So what's the connection? I'm getting to that.

One morning before one of our drills the commander of out entire brigade showed up and told us that there is a company here in Israel, I think a construction company, that sponsors the Airborne Special Forces. Every year the donate tens of thousands of dollars to our company. On this morning there was a group of from this company who had come to watch our drill. Before we started the drill I asked my commander how much ammo to bring (normally I shoot about 200 or 300 bullets in a drill) and he told me to bring as much as I could shoot. So I brought 600. Then before we started our company commander came up to me and said he wanted me to be "deadly" with the machine gun. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant, but I assume he meant shoot a lot, and I did.

Haifa Underdogs

So about two or three months ago I joined an Israeli football team here. I think I mentioned it in a previous post. I don't really understand how it works but for some reason they have a ridiculously long season. I joined, not in the beginning, sometime in June and our first real game is November 13th. Football season usually starts in September and ends in December. Here it starts in November and ends in March. Who knew?

Anyway, I had a scrimmage a few weeks ago in Tel Aviv and a preseason game a week ago in Jerusalem. The scrimmage was pretty fun, we had fifteen plays of offense and fifteen plays of defense against the team from Tel Aviv and the team from Modi'in. The picture above is from the scrimmage. In the scrimmage I played running back, linebacker, and safety. I had some good runs, but didn't score any touchdowns (I'm saving that for the real games). On defense I think I played about 11 plays altogether and probably had 8 tackles (why I didn't play defense in high school I'll never know). It was pretty fun and Blayke was able to come out and see me, so that was nice.

Last Thursday was a preseason game against Be'er Sheva. I didn't think I was going to be able to play because it was on Thursday, but somehow we ended up getting out of the army on Thursday evening and one of the guys was able to swing by and pick me up on the way to the game.

I wasn't sure what to expect in the game because the scrimmage was tough to tell because we tried to let everybody play. Plus we run the wishbone and don't exactly have a quarterback who can throw. To give you an idea of how little we throw the ball at one point the announcer said over the microphone, "Here comes Haifa, and what are they gonna do this time...run the ball!". This works well for me since I play running back, but it doesn't take a defensive genius to realize how to slow us down (or at least I thought). Turns out we are a little better than I thought. By the third quarter when they took me out (I played pretty much every play except for special teams as either running back or safety) we were winning 40 to 0. I ran for probably 150 yards, 1 touchdown, and 3 two point conversions.

Our first game is on the 13th of November, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it or not.

Navigating...again

This week was our first week of the upcoming three month training session. Each week has a different "theme," this past week everyone trained on their specific profession within the team. Some people went to learn about various reconnaissance equipment, some camouflage, others rockets, and I went to practice my navigation skills.

As it turns out this was almost a punishment of sorts. Why do I say that, while everyone else had lessons during the day and the rest of the night off to do whatever they want (poker has really picked up in popularity here lately), the navigators, there was about 2 from each of the three units, had lessons during the day and then navigated all night.

I had navigated several times before, I would estimate that at least a third of our training was navigation, but this time was a little different. First of all, these navigations were alone instead of in pairs. Second, they added a few twists. The first and second night in addition to the normal navigations in which they ask you to find a specific location and describe what is written there (something they spray painted) we were also asked to point out specific houses. What does this mean? We would navigate to a point on the border of an Arab village and then someone would be waiting with night vision goggles and we would be asked to take a laser pointer (that can only be seen with thermal night vision) and point out our house to them.

The third night we were given 4 houses that were inside of an Arab village and asked to make drawings of them, which they would later check against pictures they had.

The truth is that it did make the navigations a little more interesting to have a new element thrown in, but I still couldn't help myself from thinking how everyone else was watching movies and basically doing whatever they want while I was walking from 9 PM until 3 or 4 in the morning.

On a side note, on my last navigation I wasted an hour looking for a code that apparently wasn't even in the right place. I new I was in the right place based on the aerial photographs I had seen, but the code wasn't there. I called my friend who was in charge of the navigations (as a general rule phones are not allowed, but since this was a week for self improvement I don't think they minded) and described to him the place where I was located only to have him tell me that someone had had the same point two weeks ago and told him that it was 20 meters south of the place it was supposed to be. Needless to say that after wasting close to an hour looking for that spot I was pretty frustrated.