First days in the army

It seems like only yesterday that I landed in the country of Israel.

This week was my first week in the army. It started out on Wednesday. The first stop on anyone who joins the army is the Backum in Tel Aviv. The Backum is the place where you get to pick up your Uniform A, a bag with goodies (including gun oil, zip ties, a sewing kit and many other things). You also get green shirts, shorts, underwear and a jacket. This all is put into a big green bag.

In the backum, we also got a new round of shots for the flu and hepatitis A. The whole process took over 5 hours.

From the Backum, I went to my new home. A base in the south called Basis Nahal (since I am in the Nahal brigade.) There we met our Mifaced (commander). He led us to our sleeping quarters (which are huge tents outside in the field.) There, in a big open area between all the tents, we were given the rules, such as we always had to be in uniform, what to do when and how to call our commanders. We were also broken into smaller groups of Tzevet. My tzevet is tzevet 15. We were then given time to find a spot for ourselves and our bags, a cot to sleep on and a sleeping bag. In the Nahal Brigade, there are 1 other Garin Tzabar kids so we all wanted to stay together. For that reason, most of my tent is full with people from Garin Tzabar and my Tzevet. We were then given one hour to do what we like and then we went to bed.

On Day 2, we woke up at 7, which is amazing because we were actually given 7 hours to sleep and usually in basic training, people are only allowed 6. When we woke up, we had to change back into our madim A and we were sent to breakfast which consisted of chocolate milk, and egg and Israeli salad. From there we were taken to a storage area and given our new Uniforms, madim B. The difference between A and B is that B is meant to be worn during all basic training when we are physically active and uniform A is meant to be worn only on official parades or when we get off the base. We were also given a new jacket, bag, long pants, a shovel and robber clothing meant to be worn when it rains and snows (yes, apparently it snows at our base.)

From there we were led to lunch and spent most of the day sitting around, having private interview with the mifaced, social works for the army and the doctor. We were also led into a big auditorium and shown a video about the unit we are now in.

On day 3, (today) we woke up at 4 in the morning and had to do another bar-or or physical fitness test. The test includes running 2k, 76 push-ups and 86sit-ups. The whole purpose of this is to see how fit we are before we go into the army. I did pretty well and only time will tell if I improve or not.

We were then allowed to leave the base at around 11 in the morning. It was really frustrating because we were told that we would be allowed to leave earlier at 8. We were also constantly lead onto a bus and right before we got on, we were told to stand in a Chet (Hebrew letter that looks like a square without one of the sides) and we had to listen to some important official talk to us. At the end of everything, we were allowed to go on buses and sent to the main bus station in Be'er Sheva (the nearest major city to us) and sent on our way to where we were going.

Next week schedule looks like this:

1) Arrive at base no later the 10 am (this is hard for the people up north, but don’t worry, there is a bus that leaves at 5 in the morning to Be'er Sheva)

2) Sunday is another sitting around day doing nothing

3) Monday night starts the gibush to get into elite units in Nahal and it goes for 3 days. It is compiled of sprints, crawling and other things)

4) Gibush for 3 days

5) Get off next Friday and given an extra day off since we had gibush (this means we need to be back on base on Monday, instead of Sunday.

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving and enjoyed all the turkey.