These past two weeks have been one of the hardest weeks in all of my army service so far. (in fact most soldiers say that war week (or field week) is the hardest week in all of basic training.)
On Sunday (January 10)
WE spent the day cleaning up the base and getting ready for field week. Basically, we spent the day making shifsoriem (or ties) that connected all of our gear to us. for example, we had to make a special shifsor to connect our water bottles to our vests. WE also made a shifsor for our shovels and our tents to us.
On Monday - Thursday
We left the base early in the morning and went on a 6k march to our "camp site". Once there, we set up camp and quickly got down to business. The whole purpose of field week is to learn new maneuvers (such as marching placements (where to be in a march based on our weapons, how far out we should be from one another, new hand sighs), how to live in a field and what we should expect if we are called out to war.) Most of the days were spent practicing marching in formations and reviewing sights.
Some of the interesting things that happened to me on my "outing":
At night, we would either dig holes to sleep in or set up our tent. Of course there is no such thing as a great nights sleep in the army and this was more then true for me during this week because every night we would have a hakpasa or attack. Since the commanders took away our watches before we left, we never knew how long we slept for. One night, the commanders put fake bullets that make a sound when shot and started shooting up in the air screaming in Arabic. The immediate response was all of us getting out of bed and running to our coverage position. By this i mean we were assigned areas to cover if we were attack. Mine was the south side, along with some other people. Immediately after, the commanders said that our position has been taken over and we need to pack everything up and move to a new area. Of course, no attack goes without injury, so we pretended that some of us were injured. We always carry around a stretcher and quickly put the injured people on the stretcher and moved to our new camp site a few kilometers away.
Crawling up the side of a mountain. from the very bottom to the very top. This took us a little over 2 hours since everyone had to do it.
Eating meals also took on a new meaning. Since we were in the field, no one could eat a meal without protection over the site. This meant that only 10 people were able to eat at a time (out of 21) because 10 people needed to guard the site in a full 360 degree circle. Also, there is no just walking up to get a meal. Our commanders would always have us lined up and crawl 30 meters to our food and then make us guard. Also we were only given 20 min to do all this. Basically it came down to us reaching the food with 10 min left. By the time we opened up all the cans there was only 8 min left to eat and then switching between guarding and eating left us all with only 2 min to eat.
On the last day we had a test where every kita (or small group of soldiers) had to show what they learned throughout the week. Basically the test included building tents, running with the stretcher, injured people on our back, camouflage and of course crawling.
Then to finish everything up, we had a march called masa samal or sergeants march. this means that instead of our commanders leading us, the samal or our third in command leads the march. Basically it means walking at a faster pace, running up and down mountains and more of an intensive march. The march lasted 8k (or close to two hours with a break in the middle). When it ended, we found ourselves back at base, near the shooting range.
Wednesday - Thursday:
WE spent the rest of the night pitching our tents for one more night and then spent the next day shooting.
Friday - Saturday:
Shabbat - we spent most of the day sleeping and relaxing and getting ready for a great weekend.
Sunday - Monday:
Sunday and Monday were relaxing days so to speak. we spent the days shooting again in the range at different positions, from standing to sitting to kneeling.
Tuesday:
On Tuesday, i spent the day out of the base. On the sergeants march, i badly twisted my ankle. As a result, i had spent the past few days (Thursday - Monday) on Betiem or on the injured list. This means that i never had to run anywhere and had to walk from place to place. On Monday i was sent to the doctor to make sure that my ankle want broken. She had decided that i should go to a real hospital and get my ankle x-rayed to make sure.
For this reason i got to go to Harrap or the army hospital located in Be'er Sheva. Most of the day was spent finding the x-ray room and the pharmacy. The hospital is so big and covers so many needs that it take forever to find the rooms i needed. Since i was also out of the base, i got a chance to eat some real food. its was finally a really great break from the army that i needed. The sad part was that I want able to join my group for the 11k march that we do to earn our Nahal tags. It just means that I will have to do it some time in the future with all the other soldiers on Beitiem.
Wednesday:
Wednesday we spent the day practicing for our swearing in ceremony. We learned how to stand, how to move to our spots. how to receive our guns from our MM (2nd in command) and what to say.
Thursday:
We got up very early and dressed in our A uniforms. We then quickly cleaned up the base and went to Jerusalem. Once we reached the old city, we spent the day touring around. Our first stop was a mountain that you can see and look out into all of Jerusalem. It was a great view and a great way to start off the day. The next stop was Har Hertzle or the military cemetery. There we walked around and go to hear of some of the brave soldiers who lost their lives. One of the graves that we passed by was that of Michael Levine's. The soldier who came from Philly and died in the second Lebanon war. From there we went to the Kotel, or the wall, where we practiced the ceremony a few more times. An hour before the ceremony, all the Chayaliem Bodediem were called for a special ceremony where we got gifts and heard a great speech from different high officials and Tzvika levi (the father of all Lone soldiers in Israel)
From there we had the teckes. It was a very nice ceremony and it means a lot to a lot of people.
from there i went to Mamila street to have a great diner with family and then i went home.
While the week was hard, it was a lot of fun and there is such a great feeling among us that we've done something imposable and passed and now we can take on anything.
Next week, according to our schedule, is going to be grenade and chemical weapons week. Cant wait.
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