The Lone Soldier

I don’t know what to say… I haven’t written a post in over two months. A LOT has happened, and I feel a little bad about not writing about it. I still constantly update my Facebook page, so be sure to check that out – The Lone Soldier Facebook Page.

It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write the blog, it’s more that when I do come home from base (which is less frequently now) I’m so overly exhausted that all I want to do is lay in bed. If I somehow pull the energy out of myself to get up and out, I want to go out and do normal people things. Go to a bar, go to a movie, hang out at the beach etc. Since I have my iPhone it’s much easier for me to write quick updates and send in a few pictures here and there to Facebook. Writing takes thought and time – neither of which I want to use on weekends off.

Since we left last time, here’s a general run down of what’s happened so you can all catch up:

• We finished tironut (basic training) and have moved onto imun mitkadem (advanced training)
• my commander that I told you about? The batshit crazy one? yea, he got kicked out. I have many different feeling about it, some good, some bad. I think he was a great commander in that he knows his stuff and is insane in the way that you want someone that’s gotta protect you during a war. He also was WAY too hard on us, considering we were just in basic training. I personally think he would be an amazing commander in the gdud (battalion – referring to working on the line, not at a training base). He is someone I want to command me during war, someone that isn’t going to lose his cool and isn’t going to be scared – he was just a little too tough for training, that’s all.
• I got a new commander, great guy. After guarding with him at the front gate recently I found out that he speaks nearly perfect English. It’s not that I want to be speaking English with him all the time, but it’s a great relief from my previous commander who hardly understood English at all. I’ve been here 10-11 months, sorry but my Hebrew still isn’t fluent. Sometimes I just HAVE to say something in English, especially when I’m frustrated and can’t remember Hebrew for the life of me. He’s not as “balls to the wall” as my previous commander, but I think he’s a much better (more caring) commander for training. He legitimately cares if we learn our lessons, and what our problems are. He doesn’t mind having a laugh with us either, which helps reduce the constant stress I’ve been feeling.
• We guarded in STIFLING heat near Ein Gedi (around the Dead Sea). The army treated us and we got to go to the pool at Kibbutz Ein Gedi for an hour!
  
• We went to some other base for a week and had “team building” exercises and lots of interesting lessons. It was a nice break from our usual run till you drop schedule. I learned a lot, and think it was great for our machlakah (platoon) to learn more about each other.
• Our pluga (company) completed one of our first very long masaot (hike/journey). 25+5KM 30% (in layman’s terms: 25 KM, another 5KM with stretchers loaded with sandbags, all while carrying 30% of body weight). This was one of the hardest masaot for me yet. 3 people passed out on the way from any combination of dehydration/overheating/lack of energy. My boot over the past couple weeks has developed a whole in the lining near my heel.  I did my usual of putting on two pairs of socks, and didn’t think twice about it – bad idea. After the first 10KM or so I started getting a blister, another couple KM’s and I had a hole in my foot, and little after that I just kept telling myself my foot was on fire and everything was fine. Needless to say, for a week or so after I had to put gauze and tape on my foot until it healed up. I’ve now learned about a great product: Leukotape! It’s expensive stuff, but it really works to protect your feet in the spots you know you’re going to get blisters… It’s like a second skin.
• We took a ride on a Black Hawk helicopter!!! Out of all the infantry units, ours is the only one to get to do this, so it was an amazing experience. I can hardly explain to you the weightless feeling when you take off: it’s like when you’re at the very top of a roller-coaster…but not exactly? With swirling clouds of dust and pebbles flying around you, the chopper’s loud and powerful engines launch you off the ground in a matter of seconds. Half a minute later you don’t even recognize where you are, several hundred feet up and far enough away from where you took off that the surroundings are new and mysterious. We only flew for around 5 minutes, but they were some of the most memorable 5 minutes from the whole army so far…After the helicopter ride we did a 5+5KM 40% Masa – I didn’t think it was as hard as our previous Masa, but it still wasn’t easy.

•  This past week all we had been doing was guarding and working in the kitchen. It sounds like a break, but it’s really not. It was only our machlakah (platoon) on base, so we had to cover everything ourselves. We were guarding 2-4 (2 hours of guarding, 4 hours off in-between) and alternating working in the kitchen all day. Four hours off isn’t really four hours off… 2 of those hours you’re kita konenut (I’m not positive about this one, but it’s basically a squad of people who are always ready to respond to an emergency on base) which means you can’t take off your uniform (including knee pads and boots). In addition, if you hear the words to respond, you have to be ready with ALL your gear in 1 and a 1/2 minutes. Let me tell you, that’s tons of fun being woken up to for a drill… The other two hours you technically have off, but you’re always going to be sleeping so you never get undressed in the first place. I didn’t shower or take off my clothes for 4 days. I smelled TERRIBLE. You have to be back to guard 20 minutes before the hour and it takes 5 minutes to walk there, so basically it works out that you guard 2 hours, sleep/rest 3 hours – and that’s if there isn’t something planned for you to do in between.

In conclusion, the past two months have been very smelly, very tiring, I’ve learned a lot and experienced a lot of cool things. Since I don’t know when I’ll be updating next, stick to Facebook for the real up-to-date posts. The next 2 months is going to be even harder, so I don’t know what I’ll be able to post about – but just know I’ll be hiking further than most people think is possible, sleeping half as much as a normal person and jumping out of a perfectly good airplane numerous times…