My life in the IDF

When I made aliyah I was in a rush to join the army. As a young idealist, I thought it was the most important step in my absorption into Israeli society. My Ulpan (intensive Hebrew course) was ending in December and since I was seriously short of money, I wanted to get into the army as soon as possible. I was 23 at the time and according to law I was obligated to serve three months in Shlav Bet and then do reserve duty. As far as I was concerned, this wasn't the real army. I wanted to be in a fighting unit. A friend escorted me to the recruitment center, acted as a translator and helped me arrange to receive a call up notice. I was informed that since I am "old" and I would have to request to extend my service. With an army secretary's help I filled out the request and she told me to come back next week for the answer. The next week came and I was told that my request to extend my service to a year was accepted and I should await a letter in the mail to come do my physical and mental examination. I showed up and got poked, prodded and questioned by a doctor. "Have you ever done drugs?" he asked me. "No, of course not," I replied. "Come on, you went to University in the States. Lots of parties there, no?" he said. With a smirk on my face I replied. "I think I might have been at a party where someone was smoking a marijuana cigarette." He glared at me for a couple of seconds and quickly jotted something down.

A couple of months later I was on a bus on the way to an Army ulpan (guess I didn't do so well on the Hebrew test) on an educational base outside of Carmiel. There were 100 soldiers there. 97 of them were Russian immigrants and their aspirations in the IDF were to be drivers. That left me and the only other American guy (we both wanted to go to Tanks), a guy named Boris who wanted to go to the Border Police, and an absolutely insane French Canadian dude named Yossi who also wanted to go to the Border Police. Needless to say, the entire experience sucked. It might have been the loneliest time of my life. Thankfully, the time went fairly quickly, my Hebrew improved and I was on my way to Bakum, the army induction center.

If Israel has it's own hellmouth (Buffy reference, thank you), Bakum is it. It is so incredibly demoralizing. Since Bakum is the first real army experience for Israeli boys and girls they need to make it quite clear that it ain�t no joke. Lots of yelling, cleaning, kitchen duty goes on. But most of all, you just sit. And sit. And sit some more until finally your name is called for the most important meeting of your entire army service. The meeting with the officer who decides exactly what unit you are going to. It was a long week and a half until I finally had my meeting. I had grown quite close to the guys I was assigned with. They advised me on how to speak to the officer and what to say. It was finally my turn and as soon as I entered his office and saluted I noticed his black beret of the Armored Corps and the numerous amounts of photographs of tanks on the wall and knew I was golden. He asked me about my age and I told him in a heavy American accent that I have a lot of "motivatzia" and would like nothing more than to go to Tanks. He asked me why and I went into a well-rehearsed monologue about the influence of Avigdor Kahalani's book "Oz 77" about the well known tank battle on the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War had on me. I saw him crack a smile as he said "don't worry." I saluted and I left.

I ran over to my gang and told them what I said and that the officer told me not to worry.

Nadav, a young man who wanted more than anything to go to Golani like his five brothers did said to me, "Harry, if he told you don't worry, then don't worry. You are going to tanks."

The next morning my name was called and I jump on the bus headed down to the Armored Corp training base. I was excited, nervous and feeling pretty damn psyched.

Let's fast forward to the next morning.

I recently found a couple of tiny notebooks where I jotted down feelings, words of wisdom, general thoughts and new Hebrew words. This was an entry my first night of basic training.

As I lay on the ground, my arms shaking as I feebly attempted to keep my body suspended above the ground I realized fairly quickly I was in over my head. I was being yelled at in a language where I understood every sixth word, I felt like I was going to physically collapse in the desert heat and I began cursing myself for not getting into better physical shape, not paying better attention in my Hebrew classes. What the fuck did I get myself into?

No worries though. It got better. I realized after a couple of days that although my Hebrew wasn't the best, majority of my unit's physical condition were no better than my own. Also, everything is done as a group so I just paid really close attention to what everyone was doing and did the same thing. After a few weeks with the help of fellow soldiers and just being submerged in that intense environment, my Hebrew improved dramatically. Oh and I dropped from 175 pounds to 150 pounds in a two month period.

This is a pretty big blog entry so I am going to cut it short. I think I might do a "army memories" entry once every two weeks or so. Next entry: Tank School or "I thought all new immigrants become drivers?"