Week 22 – קליעה מתקדם

This week was surprisingly easy relative to the previous two weeks. Actually, scratch that. This was one of the easiest weeks of training. It was a week of advanced shooting training; hundreds of rounds of ammo shot by each person, all types of skills trained and tested, and full days at the range.

Unlike the first קליעה week we had in basic training, this was a week of evaluations. We would spend a few hours learning a drill and practicing it before being given two opportunities to test that skill, keeping the higher of our scores. The scores of the pluga dictate the plugas readiness for combat and missions. So, understandably, our מ”פ wanted us to get the highest scores we could. There were no wakeups in the middle of the night, we ate meals on base instead of at the range, and we were given long lunch and dinner breaks to relax.

The קלעים (sharpshooters) were separated to do our own program for the week. The majority of the first full day we spent zeroing our sights. In a week of training and testing accuracy, it’s important to have a weapon that doesn’t work against you. For some reason, maybe because of the difficult previous two weeks, or because we knew we’d be going home after the week again, the entire pluga gave off the energy of unmotivated laziness. So much so that the מ”פ at the end of the first day called everyone together and chastised us, reemphasizing how important it is to give 100% and to get good scores throughout the week. 

Tuesday was another full day of shooting. The days work like this. We’ll start the day with some drills that are tangentially associated with the test itself. Then we’ll work on a slow, untimed version of the test itself, to make sure we can easily identify the targets and know exactly what the drill is. After that we’re given two opportunities for the test itself. After the dinner break, we do the same dry test run and two test opportunities in the darkness with our night scopes.

Wednesday was the last day of the shooting week and the day of the בוחן לוחם. The בוחן לוחם is the capstone test of the week. You run 200 meters, hit a target in lying down position twice, move behind a wall and hit a 100 meter target twice standing from the left side, a 200 meter target twice from crouch position and then do the same shots from the right side, and move to third station – shooting a 200 meter target three times from behind a ledges wall obstruction. The run itself takes around 40 seconds so getting a sub 2 minute score is pretty difficult. Plus, any missed shot adds seconds to the score as a penalty. During the day, my first attempt was 2:48 and the second one was 2:07. Someone did it in 1:53.

Our overall motivation and energy had improved over the week and the mefakdim wanted to give us a fun time during the week in addition to all the shooting we were doing, so we played a game of shooting “Horse”. Everyone stood in a line. The first person chose a target and a position: 200 meters in a crouch position, 300 meters lying down, etc. If he hit the target, the next person had to do the same. If they missed, they were out. I ended up winning the game.

My first attempt at the nighttime בוחן לוחם was 2:08. I knew we had one more test after that, the last evaluation of the whole week, and I clicked into a different mode. I did the test in 1:40, not missing a single target. I shouted out of pure joy and relief and the מ”מ did as well. I ended with the fastest time of all the קלעים. Truthfully. I still don’t really know how I did it that fast. 

Thursday felt like a day of killing time since we’d finished the week of shooting. We spent the entire day on busywork. Probably 5 hours total of שפצורים on our ציוד,  gun cleaning twice, a שיחת כיתה, a workout, שיחת מחלקה, a 5k run, and a mini erev tzevet where they ordered pizza for us. Such a strange, light day to cap off a very relaxed week. 

Friday felt rushed. Earlier in the week, I had scheduled a date for Friday morning for 9 AM in Tel Aviv. I boarded the 4:30 AM chayal boded shuttle, got home at 6:30, threw my stuff in the wash for 15 minutes and the dryer before catching a 7:30 train, finished the date around noon, hung out with my friend Dani in Tel Aviv catching up for a bit and caught a 2 pm train to modiin for Shabbat.

My sister Ariella landed in Israel that morning to spend her winter break here. It was a nice reunion after months apart and a great shabbat with family.

I tried joining my cousins for a motzei shabbat 5k but didn’t being running shoes and after feeling the craziest shin splints since high school a kilometer and a half in, I decided to turn around. Better to preserve the legs for the week in the shetach I have coming up.

A bunch of the family went to the movies motzei shabbat. I’d been looking forward to Marty Supreme for a while now and it exceeded my expectations. Always fun seeing a masterpiece in the theater. Especially one to keep thinking about during the week in the field.

At this point, at the start of next week, I’ll have 6 weeks left of training. It feels surreal to be so close to the end. So close to feeling a bit like a real person again in the gdud. Having a phone throughout the day, a connection to the outside world. Not being as incredibly jam packed with a schedule.

Weirdly enough, I still think it hasn’t hit me that I’m in the army. It just feels like a crazy experience I’m embarking on but one that feels like a game more than a real serious endeavor. I dont think I’ve written about this before, but I developed this mindset during my Asia trip with my best friend Avi after graduation. I’ll link the blog here.

The Asia trip was incredibly adventurous and unplanned; there were nights we didn’t know where we were sleeping until 9 PM and virtually every day was planned the night before as we drifted off to sleep. But we didn’t feel afraid at all. We knew it would work out.  It gave me the youthful, perhaps naive but unflinchingly optimistic perspective that no matter what, everything will turn out ok. The world can throw obstacles and mishaps and uncomfortable situations in your way, but it will all turn out fine in the end. Worst case, it will be a fun story for your friends and family. It sort of removes you from the craziness of it all and allows you to let the experiences just wash over you. I’ve definitely slipped into that mindset in the army. The מסע might be hard, the weather awful, the sleeping conditions non existent. But it will all turn out ok. It’ll be over eventually. Here’s to that mindset lasting not only through the crazy end of training but through my entire service.