OK, the IDF needs to get it's act together... not that I'm complaining!
Monday morning I report in to base, and we start training. Firing ranges, movement in built-up areas, etc - all in pouring rain. Go to sleep around 11pm, wake up the next day at 6:30am for a morning of the same. Around noon most of the commanders and sergents leave to tour around the area we'll be patrolling, familiarizing themselves with the territory. Everyone else stays behind for some classroom lessons on first aid, radio operations, and explosive devices we can expect to encounter in the line of duty.
They also inform us that our company had 72 soldiers report in, as opposed to the 40+ in each of the other two companies. With us being assigend to a 40-man patrol area (meaning it takes 40 soldiers to fully man all the outposts and change shifts among themselves), this means that we have quite a bit of leeway with people able to get off for the various events they want to get to in civillian life (end-of-semester tests for the university students, weddings, etc). It also means that we'll be able to split the service period of a good number of the guys right down the middle; some will do the first half, some will do the second half.
That evening (Tuesday), they release most of the soldiers to go home for the night, with 6 staying behind for guard duty and to load up the truck the next morning. I'm among those that go home.
Our assigned area is snuggled in between the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of
Pisgat Ze'ev and the Palestinian city of Ramallah. I live in Jerusalem's southern-most neighborhood, Gilo. Still, this means that there's only 2 buses between base and home - one from base to the center of town, and another from town to my home. Niceage.
Anyway, Tuesday night I sleep at home, and wake up at 8:30am. I get to base around noon, where, after an overall briefing on the area, they send me out to what they call a "pillbox" - basically a 15 meter high, 3 meter wide concrete cylinder, with bullet-proof windows around the circumfrence of the top level. This post is a two-person, 24 hour shift. We lock ourselves in there for 24 hours, switching between resting and watching over the very busy checkpoint below us as we see fit.
2 hours later, I get a call on my cell from the guy in charge of making all the lists - the guard duty lists, the who-goes-home-when lists, etc. He asks me if I would mind splitting up my time - going home for the first half, until the 20th, then finishing up my service on the 2nd. "Uhh.... sure, I guess so. Why not?"
So... here I am. Home.
