Warrior

Eleven months ago I donned my uniform for the very first time. It was a clean olive drab uniform with a green beret. Since then, through sweat, blood, and tears, I've added some things to the uniform. A unit tag, a gun, a beret corps pin, wings, a red beret and now finally a warrior pin. Although training was over when I got my red beret, we continued in our "maslul" until yesterday. Maslul is a path or a route, and once you are finished you get put in another plugah in the battalion with the older guys. Last night the tekes for finishing maslul took place at Beit Lid, the administrative base of Tzanchanim, and we got our warrior pins. This is the final tekes and the final addition to my uniform. It's sort of sad that this is the last tekes, but for me it also means I am nearing the end of my service. My discharge date is June 1 so the end is near.

The view of the Hermon from our base

Like I mentioned, we are now stationed in the cold north and spending a lot of time in the shetach. So far we have spent 2 weeks there but it didn't quite go as planned. The first time we went out it started raining hard so we went into the tents. But predictably, the tents had holes in them and let water in. People started to get really wet and cold until the staff decided to pack everything up and go sleep on a nearby base to regroup and sleep. The next days we slept there and went into the shetach to do our stuff. Luckily some days the weather was decent and it didn't rain. These two weeks weren't particularly hard but next week definitely will be. The first two were more chilled and next week will be operational. Between them though we had a sof maslul trip, which was more like an education week and at the end a tekes. Normally the trip is a fun week. In the past they have gone kayaking. For some reason this year was different. We mostly visited religious sites of other religions. One of the more interesting places was a Druze village where we visited the memorial of a high ranking Druze general who was killed. Amazingly enough, but also sadly for us, Druze enlist a higher percentage of young men into the army than Jews do, 80% versus 70%. I won't start ranting about politics, but it is the Haredim and the leftist secular Jews we have to thank for that low number.

Next week is the Targad. It will likely be the hardest week any of us have experienced so far in the army. We've heard the first thing we are going to do is walk 22km with our heavy bags. That's really scary! Usually we do about 10. 22 is just crazy. Somehow though we'll make it through like we always do.

Some of the lone soldiers

My Mem-Pay 

During the trip