Easing into Pain

After my regila, week off from the army, I started advanced training. The first week back was based around the concept of "lets make sure these kids are Zionist in that good old-fashioned military way." Excellent idea, and it was executed quite well. Five days of touring battlefields, history museums, meeting with veterans of different wars, and learning Jewish and Israeli history since the inception of modern Zionism in the late 1800's. The only thing we did that seemed to remotely resemble army life, aside from wearing the uniforms, was a couple of running sessions. The best part was that instead of being on base, we lived in a series of nice guesthouses. I was happy to find out, over the course of the seminars and discussions we had, that about 90% of the guys in my unit are center-right or right-wing in their politics. The kibbutzniks aside, nationalism is strong with my brothers-in-arms. On the other hand, the kibbutzniks perform so well in the army environment, that I have to say I wouldn't mind if they were 30% of my unit, instead of 10%. Their basic human values and work ethic are very strong, even if their Jewish identity is, for all intents and purposes, zero.

The following week, my training company had guard/kitchen duty on base. Luckily for me, my squad was chosen to guard the ammunitions bunker in Beit Lead, the Central Command HQ base in the center of the country. The base itself has many different units, but most people there are jobnikim, or non-combat soldiers performing an assortment of administrative and sundry duties. Since we were not on our home base, our commander decided it was a good time to let us lehit'khapshen, or slack off. We did some runs, practiced a cool way to turn a corner in urban combat, slept a lot and ate unreal amounts of food.

Mostly though, we took turns guarding the entrance to the plot of land on which several dozen ammunition bunkers are located, many half-buried and covered in thick vegetation, giving the place a non-military feel. One person would guard the gate, checking all those coming in and out, while two others would go on "patrol." Technically, we were supposed to look for suspicious objects and activity, and check the locks to all the bunkers. In practice, the "patrol team" would find a nice spot out of the way from prying eyes and nowhere near the entrance itself, take off our vests and guns, and lay around, talking or sleeping. During night shifts, sleeping on patrol was crucial. If the commander would approach the gate, the guard there would phone his slacker buddies, who would get up, suit up and walk back to the gate, as if coming back from the required 30-minute patrol. No harm, no foul. Of course, you may say what we did was wrong and that we shirked our duty and endangered the ammunitions stores of the base. To you I say - try guarding 2 hours on, four hours off, non-stop for 8 days and nights, then talk to me. Napping or fooling around, or in my case, reading, is the only way to deal with guard duty. Yes, it is technically sketchy what we did, but anyone who has been in the army knows what a pain in the ass guarding is. It's pointless, boring and the chances of something happening are so slim, you might was well not guard at all. Finding ways to make guarding bearable is one of the chief preoccupations of soldiers since the nascence of organized force.

After two easy weeks, we come to this past week - shavua kita, or squad week. The week was spent in the field, marching and training with an intensity way above anything up to this point. The ultimate misery were the dual abuses of lack, or total absence, of sleep, and the brutality of stretcher marches. The only upside was that the backpack with the eight 2-liter water bottles that every squad carries was replaced with a special pack that sits quite comfortably on ones lower back. I volunteered to spend an entire day and night carrying the water, and I have to say, a better bag makes the difference between horrendous pain and barely bearable pain. But the award for being the most hardcore goes to my buddy, the quiet Russian from the Transdniestrian Republic, who carried the Mag, the heavy machine gun, during the entire week. The gun is bad enough, but the ammunition is the real killer (pun intended). His total combat load was 60 lbs.

Speaking of combat loads, I think some of my readers may be interested in what exactly is the weight that I keep complaining about in my posts. There's the basic combat weight that one has to carry, based on one's specialty, and there's the additional weight which includes squad level equipment and extra clothing, sleeping bags, etc. The combat weight (fairly evenly distributed thanks to the new vests, except for the gun of course) for each specialty is:

Regular soldier - 27 lbs
Sharpshooter - 33 lbs
Grenadier - 36 lbs
Light MG - 50 lbs
Heavy MG - 60 lbs

MG means machine gun, by the way. These weights may not sound like much, but imagine that you have to run up and down hills in rough terrain, crawl for hundreds of yards at a time, or march long distances on rocky, dirt roads. Not pleasant. Each squad also carries a stretcher, about 15 lbs, a communications device, 22 lbs, and the water pack weighing 35 lbs. Three people have to carry these (on a voluntary or rotational basis), and the rest of the squad needs to carry the personal bags that contain sleeping bags, ground blankets, clothing and random other items. There's a personal bag for every two people. Frankly, I think the only thing that military inventors should focus their energy on is how to make the soldier's equipment lighter. Forget the missiles and planes, those things are useless anyhow. Make lighter steel that's cheap to produce and the soldiers' performance will skyrocket.