The training pace is picking up. The hikes are getting longer, there's more running and crawling and we are shooting more and more. The specific details of how various training is carried out is classified, but can easily be imagined. We generally get 6 hours of sleep, so exhaustion is not as much of a problem as it could be. When my squad guards at night, each person has to wake up to do his half hour. In those cases 5 hours of sleep is the most you can hope for. We are all getting more and more comfortable in our vests, learning to use the pouches, and attaching strings to everything. Most items that one puts in one's vest, and some that go into the pants pockets, have to have strings attached for convenience and to lessen the chance of losing the item. Tape is also widely used to tighten up loose ends. Between two types of tape, string and a lighter, one can pretty much "improve" all of one's equipment. This "improvement" is mainly to save time when the equipment is used, and time is probably one's most precious commodity. If you can get ready to do something in 4 minutes instead of 5, that's pure gold in the army environment.

Of course, there are also the duller aspects. There's kitchen duty, generally a full day once every two weeks. A lot of people, including myself, view kitchen duty as a break from working hard and we rather enjoy it, especially the long breaks we are able to get away with. There's also the rotational duties of guarding the base itself, which is quite boring and has little actual use aside from accustoming us to wearing the equipment and using the radio.

Everyone is expected to become at least a decent shot, so we have been spending quite some time at the shooting range. It takes some time to get used to one's gun, as not all guns are identical. They need to be adjusted and you have to develop a feel for the gun and for how you position your body. As my commander put it, in an ever-so-cliche manner, "you have to be one with the bullet." I don't know if it's my Russian connection (Russians are the best shots) or if I just get a lot out of my religious observance, but I am doing as well at the 50 meter distance as I did at 25, and that should mean success at 100 meters as well. There's only one guy in my company who is a better shot, but only in daylight. We have started practicing twilight and night time firing, which is obviously much less accurate, but clearly highly applicable. Apparently, I can see at night, because most people can't even hit the target, and I seem not to have those problems.

We have still not gotten our sighting mechanism and are shooting with the naked eye, although that is about to change. The kids who are having problems are taken to shooting simulators, where they basically play an arcade type video game and a sophisticated computer monitors every detail of their body positioning. They can then adjust accordingly. Aside from some special cases, the majority of guys will end up being accurate enough.

Aside from pure military content, there has also been a good dosage of classes that emphasize Zionism, Israeli military history and Judaism. I guess the IDF has moved beyond its socialist days and the top brass is realizing that secular Israeli kids need serious strengthening of their Jewish identity and their connection to Eretz Israel. Most people admit, if grudgingly, that it is the disproportionate presence of national-religious soldiers in the IDF that has transformed the army from a bearer of socialist/atheist/progressive ideas into more of a Jewish army with an emphasis on allowing the full range of Jewish observance and on holidays. Hannukah, which commemorates Jewish military prowess in the times of 2nd Temple, was emphasized heavily, which I am very happy about. Coming back from a hard march late at night, gathering around to light the Hannukiah, reciting the blessings and then singing Hannukah songs, in full equipment and war paint - that's a pretty rousing experience.

A note on food - they are feeding us a tremendous amount of calories, I counted that I consume about 4,000 per day, and I am a small guy. I don't burn more than that, so my weight is constant. I have been told though, that they are trying to fatten us up in the beginning. We will be having weeks of living and doing various training in the field and there will be a lack of food relative to the amount of daily activity. Clearly, this leads to weight loss. So, the IDF wants to make sure no one loses too much weight once the field training really starts. Otherwise, the chance of injuries drastically rises. Quick weight loss stresses the body, and if you're carrying weight over long distances and working out hard at the same time, you can easy get injured. Hence, we should still have some fat before things get more intense. That's the logic anyways.

I have a visitor from the States this weekend, who's here on one of those ridiculously subsidized 10 day trips. I got the weekend off from the army and it's really great to be with people from my pre-Israel days. The world is quite small though, so there's no reason why the connections that I made in the past should wither. Quite the opposite, they can grow in a new way. My current visitor is one of my best friends and there are other best friends who should make their way over here to the Eretz Israel, the ever-growing and ever-improving Land of the Jewish People. Israel is the center, and the off-shoots are contracting, coming back to the source. You can't argue it or fight it, you can only deny it.

One week down, 15 more to go in basic training.

Generally, the army is about getting up early, exercising and spending all day either in class or out in the field, training. A certain amount of time is alloted to cleaning, eating, dealing with equipment and randomly getting punished (push-ups, sprints). The news is that I now have an M-16. It's the shortened, improved version, and I have a Meprolight on it. This little scope-looking thing doesn't magnify the target, it just shows you a yellow dot when you look through it, which helps you aim quickly. After a year, everyone gets an M-4 "flat-top", which is the latest best thing by Colt of HARTFORD, CT. Yes, as strange as it is, all the M-series weapons in the IDF have my home address written on the side.

I also happen to have been the 2nd best marksmen in my company of 119. I am quite impressed with myself. We shot at a little piece of paper at 25 meters, which doesn't sound like a long distance, but when the target is small, it's quite a challenge. My first five shots were within 1.5 cm of each other, which is very good considering the average was a 5-6 cm spread. Next week there will be much more shooting, so I'll have to improve. If I can get it to under 1 cm, I will beat that one lucky kid who was the best shot in the company. The point is that the expensive lasik surgery I had a year ago gave me the 20/20 vision, which is a fundamental requirement. But everyone has that, with or without glasses. What makes someone a good shot is the ability to relax and focus.

This next week also promises to include some hiking and crawling - two basic army activities. The fun is only beginning.

Basic training starts this upcoming week and continues for 16 weeks. The last week in March I have a regila, which is a week off. B'Ezrat Hashem, my mom will be in Israel during that time and I will be able to ride around the country with her and make her as at least as relaxed and happy about Zionism as my dad. Having your parents, and your family in general, support you is important. Although, considering how misinformed people are about Israeli life, and how disconnected family members can be from their more ideological relatives, many people in my situation have to go it alone. In a sense, it has a hardening effect. Just another factor of life in Israel that hardens people. But to get the good out of Israel, which is very good, we have to deal with some of the negative aspects.

With regard to the good, Zionism is doing well, as long as you don't listen to middle-aged immigrants, secularists obsessed with material wealth and post-Zionist left-wing intellectuals. Those three groups are really problematic. The first group will vanish with time and their childrens' full absorption will make Israel a better place. The second group will either continue to complain or move to Los Angeles, either way, they don't matter much. The third group is the real problem. Left-wing intellectuals run the Ministry of Education and the university system, which allows them to bring their demented anti-Israeli ideas to young people. Intellectual elites have historically done the best things and the worst things to societies. I guess Israel must bear through some massive national mistakes on its way to becoming a state with a sense of purpose. It's not pretty, but we'll have to bear it through.

Tomorrow, I will be placed in the pluga, company, with which I will stay for my first 12 months in the IDF. The key to getting through the IDF without getting angry, depressed or overwhelmed is to bond strongly with your fellow soldiers. No one can make it through the service by being an individual. The system is designed in such a way so as to make it impossible to do most things by oneself. It's a group effort all the way, or it's failure. Supermen are pretty much useless in the IDF ethos. From what I've seen so far, aside from a few bad apples, I should be getting put together with some great guys. My machlaka, platoon, should be 30-35 guys and there should be a minyan of 10 of those who pray regularly. That will definitely happen, as long as the commanders will spread out different social groups and not bunch people together. Being able to have a minyan, even when we're out in the field with no synagogue access will be a real kiddush Hashem.

In random news, I purchased and then returned two electrical heaters. I can't seem to find one that makes me happy. I am, however, overjoyed that I was able to return a product bought in a store and get my money back on the spot. This is standard procedure in the US, but in Israel this was not common practice until recently. Progress does happen. Sure, I had to raise my voice a little bit to get cash back instead of store credit, but it's a lot better that having to come to blows with the manager. Those who know Israel know what a great bonus it is to be able to get customer service without fighting for it.

Alright, I gotta go pack my bag and get some shut eye. Remember people, money is the root of all evil. And if you can't control the evil, it will control you.