Week 4

“תפתחו שעון”
The Mefaked kita turns the lights on and shouts that out to us every morning. “Open your watches”. We quickly wake up from our sleep, put our hands to our watches (always in stopwatch mode) and get listen to his command of 5 or 6 minutes to get fully dressed and outside. With a time limit and high-anxiety; that’s how we start every day in the morning.
Everything in the army is time.
“תפתחו שעון”
Run from here to the gate and back in 20 seconds. Organize the equipment in 3 minutes.

זמן הבא
We wait for the next command; anticipating the shortest amount of time for a seemingly large task. And we do it. Because here’s the other thing; if you dont do the tasks on time and you aren’t standing back in a ח at the end, you’ll be punished. Do it all again. Do the tasks in reverse. Sprint from here to there.

“תפתחו שעון”
The Hebrew phrase I have nightmares about.

I got back to base on Monday after a long weekend
I’m incredibly happy I was able to go to Jeremy’s wedding, but that taste of freedom on the outside makes it hard to go back.

As soon as I got back I was back on times and back on schedule. I joined the machlaka at the shooting range. Our mefakdim told us beforehand it would be a week at the shooting range.

During the shooting, I was pulled aside with the other olim chadashim to do a Hebrew class. We stayed at the range almost all day and after a quick dinner, our mefakdim had us spring to get ready for another masa – a 6 km one. We gathered with the other machlakot in the pluga and were treated to a preparatory speech by the mefaked pluga.

He asked for those born in Israel to raise their hands. Then those who had parents born in Israel. Grandparents next. Great grandparents; nearly nobody. Then he asked for those who had relatives go through the Holocaust to raise their hand. Nearly everyone did. He said they dreamed of walking in Israel. Blood was spilled and lives were lost so that we could have the privilege to walk in the land of Israel. A dream that unfortunately many of our ancestors weren’t able to fulfill. He told us that’s the mindset he has throughout all his masaot and the thought that pushes him to keep going. He imparted that mindset to us, urging us to do the same and to realize that every step we take is a privilege.

The masa was 6 kilometers with 3 steep inclines. Physical stress aside, it’s aim is to build teamwork, mental resilience, and simulate the long walks of war. It accomplished it’s goals; classmates were runbing back and forth to help those who were struggling and we (silently) cheered one another on until the end.

In addition to short time sprints, the army is incredibly strict with it’s schedule. No matter what we did the night before, we get 7 hours of sleep. No more, no less. (Later on in training, they’ll wake us up throughout the night so even that rule will go). The day after the masa, we were woken up at 5 and immediately got dressed in sports clothes to work out in the gym. We had a day of classes: parts of a grenade and how to throw one, ballistics classes, and the history of Hezbollah (I wish my Hebrew was a bit better for that last one because it seemed really interesting. Oh well, the 75% I did understand will have to suffice). At night we ran through the obstacle course twice with our equipment on. Needless to say, it was quite hard and I’ll definitely need practicing.

We also learned this week what it means to be punished for not standing on time. If we aren’t in a ח in the alloted time, irrespective of the task being completed or not, were forced to do sprints, hold plank position, or do pushups; all while being yelled at about how irresponsible we are for not respecting the mefakdim’s time. It’s a real treat.

On Wednesday we threw grenades for the first time. We walked to the grenade range, spent the morning setting up makeshift practice ranges and learned the process for throwing a grenade at a range. We did it a few times with a dummy and practiced different scenarios (if the grenade falls in the structure, right outside the structure, e.g.)

The army hates giving free time, so while we waited, we made improvements to our equipment (names on things, ropes on water bottles – arts and crafts more or less).
After hours of waiting I finally got to throw the grenade. We’d hear the boom of other grenades while we waited, but it doesn’t prepare you for feeling the shockwave even behind the concrete structure.

It was during all the waiting I realized I had been going through my days without music. I hadn’t thought about it before the army, but I don’t think there’d been a day in the past 10+ years that I didn’t have music on. In a weird way, it forces me to think about what songs are worth my time during shaat Tash. Which song is important enough, which song brings me calm, fills me with enough peace of mind and
satisfies my craving for music enough that its worth playing during my one hour. Its a hard question. For whatever reason, “The long and winding road” had been stuck in my head all day, so that night, I listened to a few Beatles songs. Safe place to start.

Thursday morning I had a 3 kilometer run test (I finished it in 12:29 so I’m in the middle group to start.) after that we went to the range and, after missing one of the times that was allotted to us to do something, we were made to sprint back and forth to different distances on the range, hold plank position, and again were treated to some clever admonishments from the mefaked Machlaka. (During the shouting, I usually just turn off the Hebrew part of my brain for a bit so that I understand less- works like a charm)

After our little scolding session we learned different shooting positions – standing and crouching – and after doing a few “dry” rounds actually shot on targets. We spent the entire day at the range. We got back in the evening and for whatever reason were treated to an evening BBQ. I sat next to Asher, the other 25 year old Chayal Boded. We’d been speaking and bonding throughout our time together so far, but during the bbq I learned he’s also a huge cinephile and avid reader. We had one of my classic “How about this movie? Have you heard of this director? What about this foreign film?” conversations and both were so happy to realize that beyond interesting conversations, a similar philosophy about the army and a shared more mature, older mindset, we also have similar interests. It made my night.

On Friday we had a first aid lesson, dry shooting practice, a talk with the Mefaked machlakah where people could share where we need to improve, and cleaned our guns for the first time.

I’m closing 21 days on base but honestly, with the tekes next week, and a day off to be with my parents who are flying in, it doesn’t bother me. I’m bonding with more people here and acclimating more and more to army life. All I can think of now is how happy I am to rest over shabbat and not be held to times.

For 25 hours I won’t hear once, “תפתחו שעון”  and that’s the greatest gift I could ask for.