Writing...

I am tired of writing, and I think you're tired of reading. Well, it's almost over. I am in America for two weeks, and the army paid the ticket, since I am a Lone Soldier. When I get back, I have two more weeks of army, and so many stories will remain untold. Furthermore, the people I am writing this for I am now seeing in person, and so that leaves only me, and progeny.

I plan on writing about the bad things which I haven't told you, how I have changed from my experience (rather than simply describing everything), tidbits and lists (books I've read while in the army, war movies I've seen, etc.), and to finally upload all the pictures and movies I have somewhere around here.

The Real "Neturei Karta" - that's us

An apolitical post...3 months late

We graduated advanced training, and had a wonderful ceremony which nobody I knew attended. sigh. I got my "wings," a shiny silver tank pin for my dress uniform, which somebody Upstair's took it as the cue to start a downpour. So it rained on me, and I hitched home most of the way, but the last leg took most of the time - the irony of hitchhiking. Welcome to Israel. (<-- that's something you can mutter underbreath every day for years). I got back to my apartment after around 6 hours of travel, whence I began enjoying a long weekend. I got posted to B Platoon, stationed in the Judean Hills, protecting a settlement named Tekoa around 5 miles South from Jerusalem, in the Eastern Gush Etzion bloc (the bloc with Efrat, Migdal Oz, Bat Ayin, Alon Shvut, and many other less famous settlements). It is a small base, so much so that it doesn't even merit the term "base."

There are exactly 10 religious people in the platoon, so there is never a minyan. The guard duty rotation makes it impossible that all 10 people will be off duty and/or awake at the same time, and so by the time the 2nd Shabbat had rolled around, I hadn't prayed in a minyan for around 16 days.

But this Shabbat was different. I pulled duty in nearby Noqedim - to guard their strategically located...bet knesset! What this meant, essentially, was that I was allowed to doven with a minyan, and oh, was it wonderful! For the first time in a long time, I appreciated the quorum. It is a very effective device, the minyan idea, and it is inspiring! People came in droves to invite me to dinner, or offer me food. I got some questions from Anglo olim that could only be described as Shiddukh Questions. (What I plan on doing after my service is a valid topic; asking if I'm single, though, lacks subtlety, no?)

In truth, we weren't really necessary, except to remind both Arab and Jew that the army was there, Guardians of the City; because in reality, so many of the citizens were packing iron, they could have made their own platoon. I'd bet us three soldiers were really assigned as decoys. Most of the civvies had better weapons than we did! Or rather, better techno-geeky gun sights. ACOG 4x telescopic sights (aka, the "trigicon"), Elbint parabolic sights, and things with even cooler names that would blow out your monitor just to display them. Neato gnarlations!

Anyway, the moral of the story is Oh How wonderful it is, this Jewish country, and the patriotic citizens that live the moral life in the name of their God, revive the ethical in the name of their brethren. Soldiers as symbols of independence rather than force; an army whose middle name is "Defense." It makes us fair targets for terrorists, and fair recepients for your home baked goods.

This is one reason why I am here, and one more reason why I plan to live here.

I'll tell you all the bad post- and revisionist-Zionist stuff in some later post; now, let's bask in the the glory of the dream...

The Price of Freedom

"The Price of Freedom," said Jefferson, "is Eternal vigilance." But what is meant by this vigil that had no beginning, and has no end?

* * *

Back when your visions of the army followed plot lines from Delta Force 3 or Under Seige, you may have been mystified at my acceptance to the Israeli armed forces. "But Amitai isn't a kung foo master!," you thought to yourself as you nodded politely at my martial artless conversation on my induction plans. "What," you continue to yourself, "do they do with the useless cruft of karate-deprived humanity that is supposed to protect my holy vacation spot of choice?"

Tada! - most of the regular duties of Today's Army's combat soldiers consist of, in one way or another, guard duty. There are many different things to watch, and many different things to watch out for, but the experience is almost always the same: a true experience of Endlessness; you cannot FastForward, you cannot skip the commercials, you cannot cut out the boring dialogue to see the camo-wearing, bridge-exploding, ninja-star-throwing action. The price of a free nation is [temporary] Eternity.

But guard duty doesn't have to be a boring topic to discuss, as I do here, since it bears ramifications regarding a person's soul, religious complications ("I'm sorry ma'am, but your son is not only suffering from senioritis, but is experiencing religious complications." ), and the power heirarchy in the army. This entry is just the beginning.

A short history of a soldier's experience with guard duty:
In boot camp, they ease you into the concept, starting you off immediately on 30 minute stints walking in a tight rectangle around the barracks, unarmed, in your dress uniform. You cannot eat, talk to anyone, sit, read the posters on the wall [the ones the army puts up for you to read], lean on a wall, or anything else, really, that doesn't consist of walking and staring ahead. A lesson is learned: if you don't want it stolen, keep an eye on it.

Once we guns on day #3, we had to guard with them. Once we got combat vests, we had to wear those as well. At least we didn't have to put the heavy flak helmets on. But this was all training for the long guard details. My first experience with real shmirah (guard duty -trans.) was a full two hour stint from 8 to 10pm outside the base armory. It was a cool, crisp Saturday night with a beautiful, clear desert sky, and I was well-rested from Shabbat (the one time during the week that this is true in basic training). I spent Eternity thinking. I paced and thought until Eternity ended. Wow! I am being trusted with real guard duty! In the Israeli army! A dream come true! Ok, these exclamation points are giving me a headache, so I'll cease, but please understand that that night, during the first two hours (4 times the "regular" guard duty!) the punctuation never stopped. When you have problems or complications in life, taking the time to dissect and analyze them can really get you back on track, allow you to recenter. Personally, I had some girl issues, and two hours wasn't enough!! (ouch, my head).

My 2nd taste of real guard duty came four hours later on the 2 to 4am shift. This was the opposite end of the spectrum of experience: I was zonked out of my gourd, and by myself. Staying awake took all my strength and ingenuity, and the seconds passed like hours. I realized at that time how much honest to goodness energy it takes to have a good Think. All those mishnayot I memorized, all the math problems, all the ethical dilemmas, etc., could not be gripped by my flacid mind drowning in exhaustion. It's the Chinese head-dropping fatigue torture, where the very end you seek, sleep, jerks you awake. The wait passed more slowly than a camper last on line for the BBQ after a fast day. It turns out that I had had the best and worst of times in less than 8 hours. It never got [legitimately] better than those first two productive hours, and never worse than the 2nd two, in my slanted Romantic memory.

Your tolerance grows with time, like a callous, thickening skin. When we did 30 minute stints, one hour seemed impossible; but the same perspective held for two hours when we did one, 3 when we did 2, and now we do four hours regularly. It still drags on or passes quickly based upon how much sleep you've had, and/or if you have a companion to guard with you. The best thing to do on shmirah is, like in life, to Be Happy. Guard duty gives you the time to appreciate the feeling, and I highly reccomend that to anyone. The catch-22 is that happiness consists of three things in the army: food, sleep, and shabbat [getting out], all of which are contradicted by being on guard duty. Stinks for us, eh? That's when the ideology (mentioned 7 months earlier in posts on this blog) actually comes into play, and lends support. That, and breaking shmirah...more on that later, but right now I need some sleep before I go guard for the army.