I (51) did four months (basic training & then the combat medics course) back in 1991 in the framework of the (now discontinued?) “Shlav Bet” track for older immigrants. I was home only on Shabbat/chagim during that time.
After finishing the medics course (with a final mark of 88) & being appointed a medic (rank of corporal), I was assigned to a reserve medical unit. We were an intermediate unit, more than a battalion aid station but less than a field hospital. We functioned as a unit only during exercises & emergencies. In order to complete our annual stints of reserve duty & get our annual quota of days in, we were assigned to a pool of medics. Every year, we’d get called up, meet all together at some base & then get sent out to various units, wherever they needed a medic. This way, I got to meet lots of different people & see many parts of the country.
I had to get used to dealing with the heartache of leaving my wife, and then leaving her and our eldest son, and then leaving her and both boychiks for 3-4 weeks a year, sometimes over various holydays. (And of course my wife had to get used to both seeing me disappear for 3-4 weeks and seeing an empty place at the table and sleeping in an empty bed and having to deal with the horrible fear that the knock at the door might be two soldiers from the IDF Adjutant’s Office.
The first time that I went off to reserve duty after our oldest boy had learned to walk and he was old enough to notice my absence, my wife said that he’d waddle into the various rooms of the flat, look inside and ask, “Abba?” I remember the first time I went off to reserve duty after we had adopted him, I was afraid that he wouldn’t remember me when I came home. I remember how overjoyed I was when I came home and he looked up at me & his face lit up and he got all excited & started waving his arms.
I’ve been on the Egyptian border (1993), on the Lebanese border (1992), in Lebanon (in 1994, by about 300 yards) and in the Jordan Valley, including on the northern end of the Dead Sea (lots of times).
In the late summer of 1993, I was at a little base on the Egyptian border, between Sinai & the Negev, way out in the middle of nowhere. One night, I drew the all night/wee hour patrol shift. Myself & three other guys were about 20 miles north of the base, on motorized patrol. We stopped for a break. Our Bedouin tracker made coffee on his little portable gas burner & we turned off the lights on the jeep to enjoy the stillness. We were at least 20 miles from the nearest electric light & it was a perfectly clear night. I looked up and just stared in awe at the heavens. I have never, either before or since, seen such a display of stars, the sky was carpeted with them! I could see the Milky Way. I saw falling stars. It was awesome (and humbling). I said the bracha oseh maaseh bereshit. I stood there, just gaping upward, for about 10 minutes until it was time to resume patrolling.
As we were riding around that night I remembered how back in the US when my brother (3.5 years younger than me) & I were little kids, we would be afraid to go all the way downstairs first thing in the morning (we were always up before our parents) lest the monsters down there get us. So we’d go as far as the landing on the stairs & then call for our big German Shepherd (whom we adored). We’d call for him & wait there on the landing until he came to the foot of the stairs, all bleary-eyed & wagging his tail. Then we knew that it was safe to go downstairs because our good, good dog had chased the monsters away. And I thought about this and I looked around and saw that I was armed to the teeth (M-16 with 5 clips, a heavy swivel-mounted machine gun & a box of grenades) on guard against monsters who were all too real. All I could do was remember that time when the only monsters were the ones in two little boys’ collective imagination & who could be chased away by the family dog.
I still have a small callous just on the palm of my right hand just below the indexfinger from when I spent 2 hours sweeping & mopping the shul at the base where I was at in 1995.
I remember seeing the Hale-Bopp comet through the big binoculars in the guard tower at the base I was in in the Jordan Valley in the early spring of 1997.
I remember, in February 2003, being in the base guard tower (in the Jordan Valley) on a Friday evening, as Shabbat was coming in, in the midst of a howling rainstorm, as the tower windows (shatterproof) were rattling in the wind, and singing Lecha Dodi and feeling as close to Hashem on Shabbat as I’ve ever felt.
My company commander is/was a real sweetheart, a very nice guy, who looked out for us, went to bat for us, etc. One year, we were all waiting around, on the day we had to report, to receive our assignments. One of the guys sauntered in very late. We kidded him that the company commander would be upset (he wasn’t). The guy, a big burly fellow, said, “Ah, I’m not afraid of him. I’m afraid of only two things in this world, Hashem and my wife.” One of us (not me!) asked him, “Nu, who are you afraid of more?” He replied, “I can see that you’re still single.”
In August 2000, we had a 1.5-weeklong exercise at a huge base down in the Negev (the desert region comprising southern Israel). We were in the classrooms at the base for a week and then packed up & shipped out for a 3-day field exercise way out in the desert. It was HOT, it was dusty (and we had huge trucks, halftracks, jeeps & such driving all over the place, kicking up LOTS of dust) and I was forced to go 66 hours (by my calculation) without showering. Sanitary facilities consisted of a convenient gully or ravine. I got home (just before 01:00) as dirty as I’ve ever been and as trans-exhausted as I was (I got about 6 hours sleep during this 66-hour period), I went traight into a shower. I had to shower myself twice; one wash just didn’t do the job. I slept for 14 hours afterwards.
I ate army food that ranged from lousy to mediocre to pretty good (but was almost unifornly bland; I started taking a bottle of Tabasco sauce along with me). I slept in sleeping bags a) on a stetcher under the stars, b) in tents, c) in barracks, d) in underground bunkers, and e) in the back of an open halftrack. I froze (wore 3 pairs of socks), and melted in 100-degree heat. I learned the joys of getting a full aerobic workout simply by walking (thanks to the enormous quantities of thick, viscous mud stuck to my boots). I cultivated my love of Turkish coffee in the IDF (and learned from my Bedouin & Druze comrades the importance of buying the good stuff).
There’s nothing like being woken up by having an excited 6-year-old and an excited 3-year-old jump on your head, shouting, “Abba’s home from the army!”
Kashrut was occasionally problematic, especially at the tinier places I was at but one manages. Just before Pesah one year, I was stationed at the (then tiny) roadblock/checkpoint as you go out of Ramot towards Kever Shmuel. During the week before pesah people kept bringing us their chametz. We got cakes, donuts, cookies, you name it. The post was just a few paces outside the Ramot eruv. I called a rav friend of mine (now in Australia) & asked him a few fine points about muktze & such. He called me back later & said that one of his (haredi) rabbonim lived in Ramot & invited me for any meals I could get away from the post for. The last day of Pesah was on a Friday that year; I went to him for Thursda night & Friday night dinners. Lots of locals along the way to his flat asked me if I needed a meal. (I carried my M-16 & ammo, not muktze those, and nothing else.) I did get out for Seder that year. I was in for Purim, Chanukah, Tu B’Shvat & Tisha B’Av but not the chagei Tishrei (thank Hashem).
I was by the now-closed Adam Bridge in the Jordan Valley once. I asked the rav of the Jordan Valley Brigade (who happened by the base) if, citing Yehoshua 3:16, I could say the bracha “sh’asah lanu ness bamakom hazeh.” He said yes but that I would have to go down do the river to do so (the base was some way off) and since I never got down there I never said the bracha.
I was discharged in May 2004. After getting my discharge certificate, I walked over to the base shul. I needed to say mincha because it was late enough in the day that if I left right away & drove home, I would get home too late to say mincha. But before I actually said mincha, I walked up to the aron kodesh & took hold of the parochet and kissed it and held it to my face and cried as I thanked Hashem for affording me the privilege of serving in the IDF. I thanked Him that I had never had to aim a weapon at anyone, much less fire one (except on the shooting range). I thanked Him that I never had to put an IV into anyone except in exercises and that I never had to anything more serious than take out splinters, give out paracetamol & refer soldiers to this or that doctor. I thanked Him for keeping me & my family safe & whole. I thanked Him that I was fortunate enough to have never done anything as an Israeli soldier that I should be ashamed of or regret. After thanking Him a good bit & having a good cry doing so, I stepped back & actually said mincha. I said the tefillot for the welfare & well-being of my fellow soldiers, the memorial prayer for the soldiers who fell and the prayer for the State of Israel. I then left the base & drove home.
Our eldest son (now in 12th grade) will be inducted next October.
How’s that?