The closing of another chapter

Bomb school has finally come to an end. While the course was a lot of fun and challenging, it is defiantly one of my greatest accomplishments. I have learned a lot over the past two months and I know I will continue to lean more in the future.

Some of the things I learned in the course were how to enter a house using “alternative methods”, how to place a mine field and how to pick one back up without getting hurt.

We also learned about various mines and various booby traps. Some of my favorite tools were the Hilti (a nail gun that I got to shoot with during a training excursive on Wednesday), a metal detector (I can now can confidently say that I can find a quarter in a beach) and other items.

I hope that I will never have to actually use this information, however if the times does come, I am confident that I am well enough trained to accomplish the job safely and quickly.

What is my next step? Kav. Kav is when we go to the boarder and patrol the area. While I am not sure where we are going yet, I know I will have fun because I will be with my friends. I am also counting down the days until my parents come to visit. The count is: 13 days. Hope the time flies by fast.

Starting excersizes with mines

This week we started going to the field and putting into practice what we learned in the class. We learned how to lay down a mine field and pick it up quickly and easily. We also got a chance to see how mines really work. Up until now, we have been using test dummies (that don’t actually explode) and we have talked about them in class. This week however, we went to the vadi netek. The netek is a huge open area where we got to put into practice the things we have been learning. We were each given a fairly large amount of plastic explosives and we were allowed to blow up whatever we wanted (within reason of course.)

I put my share of explosives into a bottle of water and compared it to the effects of explosives outside water. It was so cool to see the difference as well as see the other explosives in real life.

Another cool thing I did was get a new pakal (specialty.) My new pakal is magmak hod or metal detector for the whole group. This means that I am the first person into a minefield with the metal detector. It is my job to find the safest pass through the minefield. It also means that any mines I find, I have to defuse. While the job is extremely dangerous, it is also a lot of fun and a lot of responsibility.

I can’t wait to see what next week brings and what we get to do

Starting bomb school

First off, sorry for the late post. I wanted to write sooner, but never could find the time.

It has defiantly been an intensive and interesting pass few weeks. To start off, we had our masa Alyiah to Beitled (June 13-19). Beitled is an army base used by Gadsar Nahal and Tzanchaniem. This new base of ours is a definite improvement from our regular bases for a few reasons.

1: instead of tents there are rooms with AC

2: this base is only meant for Gadsar or the Special Forces of Nahal and so there are no regular soldiers there.

3: there is more food and better tasting food.

4: there are actually a lot of girls on the base (usually there were no girls at all.)

5: the base is also home for different units (Tzanchaniem and others)

6: The base is big and is therefore called the land of Madas (physical running or working out.)

7: We stated lochami training. Basically it is Krav Maga, stance shooting and short range shooting all in one. The reason for this training is to teach us how to shoot in close quarter areas, such as a house or other small places

8: the base is near Tel Aviv so it is closer to the kibbutz and the center of civilization (means that parents can actually come and visit us when we close base and that there is always good food on the weekends.)

The following week (June 20-25), we left the base and went to Balatz (the base used by handasa Cravi or combat engineers. The base is located in the south, 40 km north of Eilat so the weather there is always hot and dry.

The reason why we went to Balatz was to start learning our specialty course, bomb defuse and setting.

We spent the first week learning about all different types of bombs, cables and detonators. The first thing you learn is the bomb sequence of events. Basically it starts from the igniters, then runes through the wire and goes to the exploding material. The course is a lot of fun. We also spent one of the days in the bomb range (a shooting range but longer and designed to blow up mines.) It was cool to finally put into practice what we have learned. We also spent the week learning about hot entrees. Hot entrees are when we enter a building in the middle of the village. The difference between a hot entree and a regular bomb is that hot entrees are meant to be placed quickly and have a lessen amount of explosives, causing less casualties and causing less structural damage then a regular bomb.

This past week (June27- July 2nd) we spent learning on mines. We learned the difference between anti-tank mine and anti personnel mines. We also had a targil one night, where we pretended to enter a village and we had to enter it using one of the hot entrees and blow up some items we found inside the house. My job was to help blow up the items we found in the house and then get out. It was a lot of fun and I finally can say that I have a better understanding of what it is Palchan Nahal does.

On a sadder note, my MM is leaving me. He has decided that he doesn’t want to be a MM of soldiers in training and would rather be a MM for fighters. It was very sad to see him leave, but we all know that he is doing what he wants and we wish him the best of luck in the future.

starting cav

Once you have finished training, the regular soldier goes to cav. Cav is usually guarding the border with Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan or any other boarder that exists.

However, since I am not a regular soldier, instead of going straight to the boarder, we go to courses.

The courses are varied and included many things such as navigation, bomb explosive training, counter terrorists and Jump school.

This week, we started navigation. It started with us learning how to read a map, in a classroom, and then going into the field as a large group and navigating from point to point.
At the end of the week, we were navigating without a map and also with only one other person. We would spend each morning and most of the day learning the path we needed to take and then at night, we would walk it. Along our path, there were points we needed to reach. Once we reached a point, we had to write down the code words we found and bring them back. While we didn’t sleep much during the week, it did feel like a big scavenger hunt and a lot of fun.

Another high light of the week was that we became a tzevet. Up until now, we have been a group, known as group 3. Now that we are done with training, we are considered a tzevet or a group. While there is no difference really, we now wear these hats that have our tzevet name (the name of the tzevet is the name of your mm, 2nd in command. our name is tzevet kimchi.) and are now looked at as a group not to be messed with, and not just some trainees.

Other highlights:

1: We broke distance with everyone and now we are only left with a Samal and the mm. We no longer have a commander above us, so while we now have more responsibility, we also have more freedom

2: we got a pakal coffee (this is considered a big reward in the army)

3: next week we are leaving the training base and are going to the gadsar or the sf base in the north for a week and getting new stuff.

4: we are going to bomb school in two weeks, in Eilat. I cannot wait to start blowing stuff up :)

Returning our things and saying good-bye

As in most stages of life, when things come to an end, you often need to return things and say good-bye. In our situation, we had to return all our gear and say good-bye to some of our commanders and friends.

Since most of our gear belongs to the base, and since we are leaving the base and going somewhere else, we had to return some items, such as snow pants (in case it ever really snowed in Israel), our small tents, our rain gear and a variety of other things. In return however, we got a go army sweater, bungee rope, a flash light and a shakpas or knife proof vest.

The other part of the week is saying good-bye to our commanders. In the next stage of our training, we are only left with a samal and a mm (third and second in command.) The reason for this is because we are no longer considered trainees and we are now thought of as a tzevet or group. For this reason we don't need 24 hour supervision and thus not so many commanders.

In the army, the way you say good-bye to people is play fight them and then we have a heart to heart. In the heart to heart, the commander usually jokes around with us, tells us where he lives, what he thought of us and we all share some funny stories.

Some other highlights of the week were:

1) we also broke distance with the MM and our new Samal. however, since they are still considered to be our commanders, we don't play fight them and there is no heart to heart. Their is just the usual history facts about them.

2) we took part in the nation wide missile drill. We pretended that a missile has hit our base and that we had to guard it. It was a lot of fun because it was actually a real life situation and we finally got to put what we learned into action.

The ending of another chapter in the army

Well it’s been a hard three weeks but one of the most fun and interesting ones I’ve had.

When I first got back to the army, we continued where we left off, by having shavua machlika. a machlika is a level up from kita and contains two kitot (around 21 guys.)

During the week, I was the radio man for the samal or sergeant of the group. It was a lot of hard work, but fun at the same time. We basically continued doing what we did during shavua kita, where we learned how to conquer a mountain. The difference this time was that we actually learned how one group provides cover fire, while the other group continues on. This is a lot of hard work because if you’re not firing, you’re running forward.

My job however, was to be towards the back of the group to provide cover and report our position, ammunition and wounded to the commanders higher up. This means that I didn’t shoot as much as the others, and got to talk a lot of Hebrew. Some other highlights of the week:

1) we broke distance with MM (the second in command.)

2) Since we didn’t need to bring tents, to sleep in, we needed to dig holes and got to sleep in them at night

3) One night, we had a long march and reached a new camp site in the morning. It felt like we walked 30K but it was only 8.

The next week was war week.

War week is basically a week of simulated warfare. We basically act as if we were invaded by a country and we had to fight to recapture Israel. Every soldier hates war week because it is the hardest week in all of training.

Highlights:

1) During war week, you need to carry all your essentials with you on your back. This means that we were carrying food for the week, ammo and other goods. This also means that we were carrying around 40 - 60 kilos a person. Since I am trained to use the maclar (a grenade launcher) I had to carry it on my back. I carried around 60 kilos during the week.

2) I shot the grenade launcher and had a jam and fixed it

3) We had an omes home every day. (Omes home is when the temperature outside is so hot, that we need to stop training and get under a shaded area because if we continue training, we could get heart stroke.) The advantage of this was that we got to sleep a little during the week

4) We did another all night march and got to sleep in the morning.

5) War week is really a continuation of shavua machlica. What we were doing with 21 guys, we were now doing with 150 guys.

6) All our training exercises were watched by the magad or head of the base and the head of training.

The whole week was a lot of fun, but hard as hell and is defiantly a good simulation of what war would be like if we were ever in one.

The finally week that I had was shavua cumta.

It is during this week, that we have our masa cumta and our tekes cumta.

The masa cumta is a long walk (we did 54K, from our base to Masada) that is held at the end of training as a sort of final test that must be completed to finish.

Our masa lasted 13 hours in total and covered a lot of different terrain, from dirt roads, to streets.

Even though the masa was hard at times, it was also fun because we got to talk during the masa, listen to music and eat food (things that are usually considered forbidden during our marches.)

At the end of the march we had a ceremony at the top of Masada. It was really funny because a lot of American tourists were on the mountain. Within a few minutes of us reaching the top, cameras were already taken out and photos were being taken of us. Asher (another American soldier, in my machlaca) and I quickly went over to the American groups and introduced ourselves. It was a very meaningful experience for them to see Americans, leaving their homes and coming to serve in the army over here.

Once we were done with our march, we went back to base to sleep and we were given the rest of the week off (except for Thursday, when we had our tekes.)

Thursday was our tekes. The tekes took place at the nahal museum in pardes Hannah. The tekes was very nice and only took an hour. It is during the tekes that we turn in our training cumtot and get our neon green, nahal brigade, cumtot. It is a very important step for us because now we are part of a bigger group and no longer considered just trainees.

Kicking it up a notch

Lately, training has been slow. We have spent most of advanced training either learning about the country, guard duty or learning about new weapons. The last two weeks however have really kicked it up a notch...or 10.

When I first got back to the army, (April 19-24) it was still going slowly. The reason was because it was Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Remembrance Day for the soldiers) and Yom Haatzmaut (Israel’s birthday.) On Yom Hazikaron, we spent the day talking about fallen soldiers. We watched two video clips on Roi Clien and another soldier who sacrificed their lives for the country they loved.

On Yom HaAtzmaut, we spent the day celebrating, by having a bbq and having a talent show. While everyone said they would have rather been at home for the holiday, they said the army did a pretty good job of entertaining us.

Then the knob got turned and things become harder and more fun. The next few days were spent out in the field learning Lasha"v or house clearing. We learned how to enter a house and clear it of bad guys. The highlight of the week was defiantly playing paint-ball against the commanders. At the end of the week, the commanders go into the house and pretend to be terrorist. We (as the soldiers) work in teams to clear them out. It’s a lot of fun, as well as a great learning exercise.

Then we went back to the base for a little R&R before the next week.

Week two was spent back in the field learning to work as a kita (11 man team.) We learned how to work together to conquer a mountain or move in an open field. It was hard work, but a very important week in the army. It is during this week that our commanders get tested to see if they can lead their group into war and how effective they are. The week went by fast and there were a bunch of highlights that I will probably never forget for the rest of my life:

Highlight list:

1) We are no longer allowed to call our commander "commander". Instead we must now call them by their first name. My commanders’ name is Yani and from now on I have to call him Yani or I get punished (funny how things change so fast.)

2) I was placed on the radio for the week and as such I got to work right next to Yani and had to repeat all his orders over the mic and to the group. Because I was so well and “a siren" during the drills, I received Chayal Mitzdayen again and got off on Thursday. Also, the MP (1st in command) said that while I need to improve on my Hebrew, I was a great radio man and that my commander should be happy to have me.

3) When we were waiting to get tested at the end of the week by the MP, as a helicopter flew over head and hit a bird. As a result, the helicopter had to land and our kita was tasked with guarding the helicopter. As we did a 360 defensive circle, the pilots called us up one at a time to look into the helicopter and see inside.

4) We won the right to bring a pakal musica (speakers and iPods) and food on our masa cumta. The masa cumta is a 54k march, where at the end we receive our green berets. It is the culmination of our training and will take place in two weeks (can't wait.) The reason why this is a highlight is because up to now we have never been allowed to eat or talk on the masas that we did and soon well be able to.

5) We had to do a training exercise in front of the Ma'am (Commander for the entire advanced training base.) He said we did so well that we should be really happy with ourselves.

6) We did a training exercise, where we pretended to go into Syria and blow up a car. After we planted the explosives, we all got to yell: "Al a Palchan" (why to go Palchan, my unit.) Up till now, we were never allowed to say Palchan or anything relating to our unit so it was nice to finally say something.

There are still many more highlights, but the most important one is:

7) My cousin: http://curiousjew.blogspot.com/ has gotten engaged. Congrats.

Warning to my loyal fans (the fame has gone to my head.) I have a 21 coming up next week. This means that I will be closing the base for 21 days and will not be near a computer for the next three weeks. I am sure that I will have a long blog to write when I get back. In the off chance that I do get a computer before then, expect a quick blog to be written about what I did. In the meantime I wish everyone a happy Log Ba'Omer and happy Shavuot.