You're in the Army Now

Sorry for the delay of a new post, but I figured it would be easier to wait until I was in the army for a sufficient amount of time in order to adequately express my experience so far. Since I finished basic training this past Tuesday, I figured it was a good time to attempt to share my experience of my first month in the IDF.

I’ll start with the day I enlisted…or actually, the day before my enlistment date. As most of you already know, I tend to be quite the worrier. I worry about everything there is to worry about and everything there is NOT to worry about. For some reason, I had this idea in my head that something would go wrong with my enlistment date, my job, or being in the army in general. I had a feeling that something would go wrong at some point and because of that I was in full panic mode for the two weeks I was in the country before enlisting. The day before my enlistment date I went into the nearest city closest to the kibbutz in order to take care of some last minute things. I was feeling so accomplished and independent when I had finished all I had to do and was back on a bus by 11 am thinking I had the whole day to pack and relax before heading to the army. Of course that didn’t happen, cause ya know things always go wrong at some point. On my bus ride back I got a call from the enlistment office in Beer Sheva (the closest major city to my kibbutz) saying that instead of showing up at the base where I was supposed to be enlisting from tomorrow I had to show up to the office because they are missing something from me. When I asked the man what it was I was missing he answered with “uhh…I don’t know a form maybe? Just bring whatever you have.” These are the experiences that remind me that the army is being run by 18 year olds. Naturally after calming down from panic mode, I made some calls and figured out that I had to go into Beer Sheva (about 45 minutes away from my kibbutz) that day in order to go have an interview that they forgot to give me for the past 2 months I was doing absolutely nothing in the country. I ended up going, doing what I needed to, and getting back to the Kibbutz at around 6pm…so much for having the whole day. Of course it ended up being okay and I enlisted on December 17^th, just as planned.

The day you enlist is by far the most exhausting and boring day one might experience. It consists of standing in millions of lines to do things that take 2 seconds including picture taking for your id, x-rays, finger prints, and the worst and most painful—3 shots and a DNA test. After a whole day of standing in lines we finally got our uniforms and got put on a bus to our base, of course having no idea where that might be. After an exhausting day I was just excited to get on a bus and take a little nap before entering  the army world…guess again…I had already entered without even realizing it. The minute we got on the bus I felt like my whole world changed. The first thing I heard was “phones off! Put the food away! Sit correctly—back straight and hands on your knees…mouths closed!” The 1 hour was spent learning and practicing how to count down correctly for when our commanders give us a certain time to do something. For example if they give us 2 minutes to get into two straight lines we would have start counting down by 10 at the 1 minute mark and do that until we get to 10 seconds. The first person on the right most line would have to “take in” the commander which is pretty much introducing the commander in a formal way. We would have to do that for EVERY thing we did no matter how long the time was. If we were given a 30 minute break we would have to get into position 5 minutes before the time in order to properly greet the commanders.

We learned from the first week of basic training that the next month might not be the most interesting or fun but would help get us used to the army. We woke up every day at 5 am, had to be downstairs ready to check and clean our guns at 5:30, and then had what is called misdar boker at 5:45. Misdar Boker is when the commanders would give you 2 minutes to pack up all of your stuff including your sheets and blankets and organize them in a very specific way. For example, your army bag had to first be against the wall on the bed, then followed by your citizen bag and whatever small bags you had would go on top. No straps from the bag were allowed to be seen and your mattress had to cover the silver edge of the bed frame. The commanders would come in and check that everything was in the perfect order including the towels we had hanging dry on the windows—they had to be in color order so it would look good to the eye, as the commanders would say. After cleaning the rooms and bathrooms and ate breakfast our day would actually start. We would have classes and lectures during the day on guns and other equipment that the army uses that is necessary for all soldiers to be familiar with, such as the walkie talkie radio system that is used to communicate with people while on guard duty.

                As I explained in one of my first blogs on the process of enlisting in the army, I learned very early on that the IDF includes a lot of waiting…that doesn’t change once you enlist. Throughout basic training which is four weeks long I think it’s safe to say that the amount of time we spent waiting is probably equivalent to about a week if all the hours were added up. To go into the dining room we would wait maybe an hour for each meal, to start a lecture we would wait a half hour, shooting at the shooting range would include waiting, as well as getting or returning our guns. Basically, if you’re thinking about joining the army, make sure you don’t mind waiting a bit.

 Although basic training sometimes seemed annoying and unnecessary such as organizing our towels by color, I learned why it’s so important to experience this step before going on with the rest of your army service. You learn all the general information that a soldier in the IDF should know and also how to act as a soldier in the IDF even though it might seem unnecessarily strict. Basic training is meant to shape the discipline of the soldiers in order to prepare them to act the way they should and represent the country the best way they can. Although we killed a lot of time by waiting or doing things I didn’t think were too important , I haven’t stopped feeling proud to be representing Israel from the minute I moved here and even more so from when I enlisted in the army.

After basic training ended we had a bit of a break before starting our course. I know have switched bases to start my 3 and a half month course to become a combat fitness instructor for soldiers in the army. More to come on that in the next post!