1st real week

Wow. This week was the first real week in the army.

One Sunday we had a day off, as a gift for doing the gibbush last week.

Sunday:

I went to Jerusalem to meet with the great Yossi Jameel, the writer of the Muqata blog. (You can read his work at http://muqata.blogspot.com/) I really recommend this site for people who want to stay updated on whats happening in Israel.

I also met with two of my best friends from high school.

After a long and relaxing day off it was time to go back to the army.

Monday:

I woke up early at 6, and went straight to Be'er Sheva to go back to base. There, we finally found out if we passed the gibbush or not. Lucky I passed and was placed in one of the elite units. After a sad goodbye to my friends who didn't pass, we went to our new area for sleeping. There we met our new Mifaced (this time, he will be our commander till the end of my army service) and my group (also going to be the same till the end of my army service).

The group is made up of 15 kids and together we make up a kita. There are two kita to a machlaca (bigger group) and there are 4 kitot to a pluga (all of Special Forces)

There we also met our new MM (head of our machlaca) and MP (the head of the pluga). The all seem like great people who are going to look after us.

In total, 7 Garin Tzabar people made Special Forces and two others are in my group.

Tuesday:

We did some clerical work and received our weapons. We were all excited. It is an M-16 short.

Wednesday:

More clerical work. Met with the base doctor, psychologist and head of the army base. We also earned the strap for our gun that goes around our head. We had to run a lot in order to get it but now life is easier (especially eating lunch since we don’t need to hold the gun on our laps and have a hand on the handle at all times)

We also got a bag that held 6 magazines, a brush for the gun and some other things. We learned how to take the gun apart, clean it and then put it back together. Then we learned how to conduct a check to show that we don’t have any bullets in our gun. Basically, you have to point the gun in the air, cock the gun 3 times and the last time hold the cock back so the Mifaced can see into the gun and check that you don’t have any bullets.

Thursday:

Finished the clerical work. Then at night we went on a masa or journey. First, we had to load the magazines for the guns, with real bullets and then we had to put on our army vests. I was put as the radioman and had to run from the front of the line to the back of the line giving out messages to everyone from the commander. In total, I was wearing around 25k of weight. I was also the commander’s right hand man and if there was a problem on the march, I would be the first to know and have to relay the message to the Mifaced. When we finished the masa, we all got these white bands on our shoulders. This means that we are now in the special forces of the group and now the training can really begin.

Throughout the whole week, the weather has been cold, wet and raining. Hopefully next week, the weather will be better and we can finally get a chance to shoot.