Sudden changes are rarely a good thing

11th November, 2004

"We're moving to Jericho, Arafat died today at 4:30am."

...and so we were brought back to our home base to pack our things before departing to Jericho.

Before reaching my room, Yoav approached me and said: "If the rumours are correct, I congratulate you!". I wasn't sure if his smile indicated him being cynical.

"Huh? What rumours?"
"You're taking my rifle."
"What?!"

Most soldiers have regular short M16s, better known as M4 Carbines. They only weigh ~2Kgs(4.4 pounds).

Yoav has an M16-A3 rifle which is intended for platoon's marksman. A limited number of soldiers in the battery receives M16-A3s and M16 grenade launchers. While soldiers with these weapons are most likely to be chosen to commit arrests, go on night patrols and such, these weapons are considered to be clumsy and heavy. This is a big disadvantage, because you carry the weapon anywhere you go. You also sign for more equipment (A3 night vision scope, a regular scope, a few grenades etc..) and if you dare losing it, you'll end up paying a lot of money from your own pocket.

Very few soldiers prefer to own those weapons. That's also why they're usually given to juniors who've just joined the battery.

I don't care much about what kind of weapon I get to carry, as long as it's light and comfortable. But this weapon is far from being light OR comfortable!

But the rumours were true... Yoav's joining the battery's HQ team as a 2nd caretaker. He'll get a regular weapon... but why choose me as his replacement? There are a dozen of younger soldiers from November '03 and soon soldiers from March '04 are going to join the battery.

Matan promised me he'll do his best to make sure I'll get rid of this weapon. I really hope so.

For now, I'll have to get used to carrying it around. The battery will send me on a 2-day marksmen course next week, when we'll all be training at a training base in the center.

Before assuming control of a certain sector in the territories, the battalion has to train a few days/weeks at one of the training bases, where soldiers imrpove their various military skills and get in shape.

After the weekend in Jericho, we'll spend a few days at a training base. Then we'll move to Qalqiliya... When we get there, two teams will be released home. It's probably going to be my team and 2C, because by then it'd be 3 weeks since the last time that we were home. But nothing is certain, and our schedule is always dynamic.

12th November, 2004

Today's the ceremony of Arafat's burial. At 4pm we were taken to a roadblock located at the entrance to Jericho. For around 8 hours buses kept going in and out of the city, full of Palestinian citizens who were coming back from Ramallah.














































The guard tower was full of annoying mosquitos and the base was crawling with restless flies. Where do they all come from?

13th November, 2004

We had some good sleep this Friday night.

This morning we were told that the threat level is down again and that all our missions were cancelled. Great!

We were also told that we'll receive an "after" (Up to 24 hours of vacation), but apparently there was a misunderstanding between the bus company and the battery, so we ended up waiting until the evening when our Lieutenant gathered us all for an update: "the bus is stuck and it is unclear whether it'll arrive this evening or not. Due to the late hour, only those who live in the cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem can get on that bus (Public transportation doesn't operate at nights), IF it arrives."

We've already packed everything and loaded all the equipment on the trucks, ready to leave tomorrow morning to the training base.

A moment later there were more bad news to come - The officers have decided that my team's not gonna get home the following weekend, but only the next one. That means that I'll be stuck in the army for a total of... 25 days!!! No way! I HAVE to get home!

The bus did not arrive. Fortunately for us, the Lieutenant was nice enough to let us take the public bus to Jerusalem. I got home at 1am.

14th November, 2004

We had to get to Kiryat Gat by 2pm. I checked the departure time of trains... The train leaves Tel Aviv at 9:15, 10:15, 11:15, 12:15... 14:15. No 13:15!!

I was almost late to the train of 12:15, so I decided to take a minibus-cab to get there faster. When I wanted to pay the driver, I realized that I didn't have enough money on me. I had no other choice but ask the other passengers if they could give me a couple of NIS to pay the ride. I felt really uncomfortable, dressed as a soldier and asking for money...

* * * * *I joined the battery at the training base. I was supposed to start the marksmen course and train separately from my battery, but they there were no instructors available for the course and so I joined the battery for the regular training.

As usual, a week before new March '04 soldiers are supposed to join the battery, a few soldiers who finished the commanders course join the battery as new commanders. They are... Ido! The same guy who was in my team, patrolling with me in Adorra is now a commander in the battery. He's not my direct commander, lucky for me! He's the commander of 2C. I don't like his character much.

Another commander who's joined our battery is... a female soldier from Nov '03! Her name is Ravit.

When she was still a regular soldier, everybody's been talking about her in the battalion. I was like: "who the hell are you talking about all the time? what is she, a goddess or something?"

Then one day I had a day at the kitchen with her and I realized what they were talking about. Dark-blonde curly hair, green eyes, beautiful face... and well-behaved. She reminds me a bit of Jasmin Wagner.

I was told that her first commander in the army was a guy who asked her out in Eilat, back when she was still a regular citizen. She said "No".

There were also 3 new officers in the battery now. Idan was promoted to be 2nd in command (after the battery's commander). Yair, my platoon's officer, was replaced by Michael and Raleb was replaced by Oded.

* * * * *
We've been practicing for two days and I haven't missed a single target... But that's no wonder because with I have a x4 scope attached to the A3 and I shoot at a 25 meter shooting range like everyone else.

16th November, 2004

I haven't received any message from Angel lately. We talked a bit during the "after" 2 days ago. She explained that her cellphone's SMS messaging service doesn't work anymore, for some reason. She told me she's been depressed again... She and Sarah are no longer friends. Angel told Sarah of all her problems, Sarah tried to help her but then followed her mother's advice and decided to cut any contact with Angel.

"What problems are you having, honey? Can you share them with me?"

She told me she gets depressed very often, that she hates herself... and that before and after we'd met.. she used to cut herself!

Oh my... poor Angel. There seem to be so many things I don't know about her. Now I really worry about her... I wish I could help her, but how? Perhaps I should talk to her more often, I don't know.

"Don't worry. Friends always fight, but they eventually forgive one another and become friends again. It's just temporary."

I love her no matter what!!!

Tomorrow we're moving to Qalqiliya...

Rule #1 - Nothing is certain

29th October, 2004

I've finally managed to chat with Angel today. She's so great! :) My mom made a framed picture of me and Angel together. When I look at it, I see over and over again how great we look together. Undoubtedly, she's the one for me! I can't imagine how great will be our meeting in April!

1st November, 2004

It's been decided that most of our battery won't go home on the following weekend. Instead, we'll be assigned to various places around Hebron with the main objective of protecting Rachel's tomb during Jewish prayers.

I was in the kitchen the whole day today. It was the worst day at the kitchen that I've ever had! The whole battalion is here at the base with us (At the Golan Heights) and there is so much cleaning to do. I thought I wouldn't survive this day, but then came Shlomi and volunteered to help us. He worked so fast and cheered us all up the way he always does.

Shlomi is a great guy. He's funny and he always volunteers to help everyone. Sometimes commanders try to talk him out of it, telling him the juniors can manage it all by themselves, but he insists on helping everyone anyway.

This morning, the cook didn't let our whole battery enter the dining room, because our commanders didn't bring any junior soldiers from our battery to work in the kitchen. There's a lot of bureaucracy going on in the battalion and this is just a basic example.

2nd November, 2004

The same thing happened this morning, and even after our commanders selected a few soldiers and sent them in, the cook still didn't let us in because they were late!

This evening we had a trivia in one of the study rooms. Each team had to have 1 volunteer to participate in the trivia. I was chosen to represent my team.

The rules were simple: each round we were asked a few true/false questions, the one who made the most mistakes was kicked out of the game. If there's a draw, the audience votes who should be gone.

I'm always nervous when I have to face a large audience, when everyone's attention is directed straight at me. I was afraid to embarass myself by not knowing a simple question...

The first round was pretty easy one and I answered all the questions correctly.

On the 2nd round I was asked a really stupid, a trivial question which made everyone laugh, even the host of the game. I'd have laughed as well, had I understood the question correctly.

I heard something like that: "Using the military coded (radio) language does "Gibush K..." mean Gurei Klavim (Puppy Dogs)". As everyone laughed and the answer seemed obvious to everyone but me, people started shouting "yes! yes!" Were they being cynical or just stating the obvious, I couldn't tell.

Instead of asking the host to repeat the question, being too nervous to think straight I answered: "yes". Suddenly, everyone burst into a loud laughter. The commanders, the officers, all the soldiers - everybody laughed at my answer! I felt like it was just a terrible nightmare, hoping it would end soon.

Then everyone voted for kicking me out of the game. Matan asked me to come to him. He sat in front of the whole crowd along with all the other commanders. When I approached him, he gave me a slap in the back of my neck as a sign for stupidity. That was the peak of my embarassment. I felt like everybody kept looking at me and laughing.

I hoped it would be quickly forgotten and so I tried to keep my mood up, but after the game was over, whoever talked to me that day had asked me: "what's wrong with you?" "how could you answer that?" "Puppy dogs?! Hahaha!!". If that keeps up, tomorrow the whole battalion will hear about it or even worse.

Huh? Is it really that funny?! Nope. Luckily, everyone forgot about it within a few days.

One of the guys later told me what the real question was. Then I realized how awfully simple it was! Of course I knew the answer. I just didn't hear the question properly. Doesn't matter anymore.

I was told this morning that 2 teams including my team will go home this weekend, but Matan said that 2 soldiers from our team will have to stay and guard at a northern base, where our artillery pieces are being kept in case of emergency.

All but 3 soldiers on my team have already been there in the last few weeks. I was one of those 3. Ronen volunteered to stay so it was now either me or Nitzan. One of us will go home, the other will stay the weekend to guard the artillery equipment.

I want to use this weekend to finally visit my dad. I haven't seen him in months. I also want to see an old friend of mine from school, he's finally released home at the same time that I'm abotu to... But I'm not the only one who has plans. Nitzan wants to get home as badly as I do. He wants to attend his friend's birthday party. "You can see your dad the next time you get home, but I don't wanna miss my friend's birthday party". He has a point.

At first we wanted to flip a coin... but then I decided to give it up and let him go home. I didn't want to go home knowing that I've taken someone else's place and caused his disappointment and frustration.

If I stay, I'll be the last one on the list the next time someone will have to stay. Besides, new junior soldiers are about to finish their advanced training and join our battery. Juniors are always the first on the list.

So I'll stay the weekend and then next week's supposed to be an easy one for us - 3 days of educational trip, a day of organizing things and then home.

3rd November, 2004

I found out that whoever guards at the northern base, is supposed to stay there for the whole week, so I'll miss the trip... but it's okay, really - things here aren't so bad after all - we guard here for 3 hours and rest for 6. There are no commanders and we're free from any kind of tasks, including room cleaning or kitchen work. We're just 3 soldiers in the middle of a tiny base that belongs to Anti-Aircraft corps. Our artillery is temporarily stored here and all we have to do here is make sure nobody steals anything from our artillery equipment.

(Many soldiers from my battery who've been assigned here didn't even bother to go down to the garage and guard the equipment! That lack of responsibility resulted in theft of over 100,000 NIS worth of equipment. Our battery commander had conducted an investigation afterwards, but no one admitted anything. A collective punishment was planned but had never been given. How naive could these commanders be? They should've sent a commander to make sure we all do our job.)

A few engineers from our battalion came here to work on the artillery. They asked for our help. When we refused, they threatened to file a complaint against us. We eventually helped them. It was only a 1/2 hour work.

That's how things always work in IDF - combat soldiers do everything they're told. We work in the kitchen, in the gardens, we paint rooms, we clean toilets, we fix machinery, we carry heavy ammunition and all kinds of equipment from one place to another, etc etc. In other words, we're very useful and disciplined military tools. The rest just do their one, specific job: the cooks only cook food and give us orders in the kitchen, the engineers only work on machinery and give us orders so we could help them and so on...

Guys from AA corps asked us to come and help them work in the kitchen. "We know you barely do anything here, yet you eat in our kitchen. All we ask you is to help us just once for a little while." I convinced Assi to go with me and help, but after 5 minutes he disappeared and I ended up helping them by myself.

9th November, 2004

Arafat is 99% dead. He's been in critical condition for almost a week. I just hope he doesn't die exactly when I'm to be released home (11th).

Things are going quite well around here. I never get bored and time passes by real fast. We have newspapers, books and Sat TV (which is almost always occupied by local soldiers). I also started writing a game storyline and a novel. Writing is really the best way to spend time while guarding.

10th Novermber, 2004

This morning we had some work to do. It actually started yesterday. Some soldiers came from our home base to help. We've been unloading shells and explosives cylinders from all the artillery pieces, just so our Lieutenant could look at their captions and see if they belong to the right series, according to new "warfare regulations". It was so much work. We've managed to finish half of it in 2 days.

There were rumours going on that we won't be released home the following weekend, instead we'd go on a mission near Jericho, and that Arafat is already dead. Is it true or not? You always find out at the last minute!

Matan told us we'll be replaced tomorrow by other soldiers and that we'll go home from here in the morning. I've missed today's battalion evening party in Tiberias just like I've missed their 3-day trip in the beginning of the week, but what I really don't want to miss is my tomorrow's home vacation...

11th November, 2004

Yotam, a commander from the second platoon, woke us up at 9 a.m.
He said he'd come to take us to our home base, that we're replaced by 3 other soldiers.

"Why there? We aren't going home?!"

He replied: "We're moving to Jericho now, Arafat died today at 4.30 a.m."

Just like I said - at the last minute. You always find out at the last minute!