givingupsundays

Back in Business

I forgot what it was like, I think. I used to speak to groups of Americans about what I did. I had my lines down perfectly. I knew where to put the emphasis to get the laugh. I knew which part was worth the most shock value. I could present myself perfectly. But I left the army and started school and I felt naked. It was like all of those things I had said--or worse, all of those things I had done--were all talk. It was all bullshit. The self righteous Ya'el with her gun and her dog and her boots and her pride had melted into a puddle and for the first time in three years I saw the man behind the curtain. I spoke to those groups a few more times but it wasn't the same. When they asked me why I did it, I couldn't remember. Or worse, I could remember. I could only remember the real answer. "I didn't want to go to college." I couldn't remember the answer I was supposed to give. "I love this country. It is our haven and it is our duty to protect it. It asks nothing of us and we cannot take that for granted." I worked hard on this shit. Perhaps not consciously but I had a thousand bus rides with strangers to practice my lines and try out new material. I dreamed of the day that I would tell them where I was in the army. I got butterflies just thinking about how the boys would look at me when they found out that I was the dog handler that was coming with them. But there is a new struggle now. Do I let people know? No. They find out when they find out. I already have enough traits that cloud their judgement. So I'm listening to O and keeping it to myself as much as I can. I hope I can make it. 

self censoring...

I want everyone to know what goes on. Not because I think it needs to change and not that I think it should stay as it is. Just that we go through things that make you feel like you are in an alternate universe. Rules of culture and behavior as accepted as gravity disappear only to be replaced by chaos and insanity. But I can't open my mouth for fear that my words will be used in the wrong way. You need fuel? Tell me what side you're on. The left? No problem, we have a warehouse full. Oh, you said the Right? No problem, we have a warehouse full. Try to understand that none of this is so simple. Put too many books on this side of the shelf and they'll start falling off the other side. No matter what, you are stepping on someone's toes. What do we do? 

my old bedroom

It's been a long time since I was here, or at least here with my fingers on the keyboard because I have thought a lot about things I want to write but I never could. Don't know why. Now I feel like I'm walking into my old bedroom. I'm done with my service, now. Yes, even with that extra year that I signed on. I'm more relaxed now, I guess. But I feel cracked right down the middle. Like there's a big hole in the middle of me. Just typing this makes me break down.

You know that we did what we did. We served in the army. Wore green. Shot our guns. Practiced, trained, cried and suffered. That we got up and did it again and that that is one of the things that make israelis who they are. What they don't tell you is what happens afterwards. Maybe you hear about their year in Thailand or India. They might tell you that they needed to chill out. They get into drugs there, usually. Some more than others. They come back just to leave again because they can't come back into their old bedrooms. There's something in there that scares them. Something they can't grasp. They aren't sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. They can't describe it but everytime they try to look at it straight on they break down a little.

They told me that it gets easier with time but I can't see that yet, maybe because my eyes are all blurry. I need more distance or something. I guess that's what they do. They get distance. But I can't. I'm here. I've tied myself to enough responsibilities to make it feel like my own little army. Hell, I even take my dog for a walk every morning--my dog from the army. But as I walk with her I am 2 months out and the smell of car exhaust won’t stop throwing me into Schem. I hit the pavement face first and tumble a few meters before standing up and realizing I’m in Tel Aviv. As I climb onto the intercity bus I swing into a seat on the left side of the aisle and hold the handle on the back of the chair for support but just the feeling of the bumpy black plastic makes me reach for my clip but instead I find that I have no clip. I have a pair of jeans on. My M-16 is gone. So please make it stop. I gave you what you wanted please get out of my head. Let me forget what I saw. Let me forget what I know. My friends? I want to keep those. Why can’t I keep only the good things? Enough checkpoints. Enough Arabs. Enough screaming. Enough bombs. No more shooting. No more stories. I don’t want to see the paper. I don’t want to train. This animal that sits next to me, she is the tie I cannot sever. She will always look at me and say army. Biology Biology Biology. But now I sit in chemistry and we hear about the chemical composition of C4 and I want to be like the girl who sits next to me and doesn’t know what the hell C-4 is.
But then I realize that all my things I carry with me. For better or for worse. Would I go back and change it? I don’t think so. I loved it. So why can’t I get past it?
In three years if I apply for a job and they ask me what I did for three years what will I tell them? Do I tell them about the movie that I lived in? or do I tell them about how we built the set? It was made of cardboard and bullshit, you know. The beret is cloth, not honor. The jump wings are just cheap metal. How do you let us crash like this? We gave you 3 years, let us down slow, please. Please.

ok ok ok i've got it...

get this. I think...i think I'm afraid of being a civilian. Is that weird? I can't handle the whole big life moving change thing. So I signed another year. yeah. Oh and it's not as work...no. I signed more time to my regular, low paying, soul-eating service. But I love what I do. That's not a lie. I'm getting myself riled up for school but it's gonna have to be a DAMN good school cause I need my daily dose of pats on the back. Here we go...

"The hottest places in hell..."

On July 7th, 2005, Arutz 7 in Israel reported about 3 soldiers who were ordered to participate in the disengagement and refused. The prision sentence for the crime of "seruv p'kuda" or disobeying an order in this situation ranged from 21-56 days.

**POLITICS ASIDE**

Another disengagement, this time from the West Bank, is definitely not out of the question. On the one hand, I want to say that I volunteered for this army. I chose to be here knowing that I might not agree with everything they do but that an order is an order. When soldiers disobey orders, the system breaks down. On the other hand I know that one day someone will ask me, "how did you contribute to the jewish people?" And I will have to respond, "well, I pulled Jews out of their houses." But the truth is that I feel like my hands are in boiling water. I just want to pull them out. I want to call in sick. That is an easy out.

When I was in high school my guidance counselor had a poster on her wall with a quote from Dante Alighieri.

"The hottest places in hell," it said, "are reserved for those, who in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality."

Hm. At least we know I won't be calling in sick.

We got a baaad history...

When my cousin was 18 he moved to Israel and joined the army. They put him into Shiryon, the tank unit and they didn't really take into account the fact that his Hebrew was pretty weak (cough@#$ I wonder what that's like*$# cough#$ cough hack). In a tank there is a driver and a navigator. The driver can't see and the navigator can't control the tank. My cousin was driving and the navigator told him "He'et" a nice word for "slow down". My cousin didn't know that word. He crashed the tank. He caused $83,000 worth of damage. Now for my turn. We were on an afternoon patrol last week (8 hour hummer ride from 4pm to midnight) on the Jordanian border. We spent a lot of it sitting at the border crossing and at 10 to 12 we started driving back to the base to switch up. Our hummers are open hummers, most with no windshields and I was sitting behind the driver with my fleece sweatshirt on backwards over my face so the wind wouldn't bother me. The driver, at one point lost control and I felt the car turn sharply so I took the fleece off my face and we crashed into the fence. I'm the only one who got hurt and I didn't really get hurt that badly. Some wicked bruises and scratches from the barbed wire on the fence. My favorite phrase in this whole army is "maximum, sick leave". For example: "Ya'el, aren't you scared to go to the shooting ranges with the borderline disfunctional commanders in your unit?" "Nah, maximum, sick leave." Or: "Ya'el, you aren't worried about going out with a driver on his first patrol?" "maximum..." You get what you wish for.

Where is the human nature?

One of my regular guard posts is Masof Rabin, or the Rabin Border Crossing between Israel and Jordan in Eilat. We have 8 hour patrols most of which are spent sitting there and at one a few weeks ago, a passed the time the way I usually do...by standing with the guards and customs control workers there. It was about 9:30 at night--a time at which the Jordanians with Israeli work permits have all already gone home and the only people passing through are American/French/Israeli/British/etc (usually) Jewish tourists who spent a few days touring in Akaba. I was standing with the guard "Lior"--a massive 25 year old with an M4 hanging by a strap around his chest--when I noticed a dark figure running towards us down the 300 meter stretch between the Jordanian and Israeli border control stations. As the figure came closer we noticed that he was waving a gun. There is a second of panic, a sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach, where your eyes get wider and your hands get tense and you can't plan what to do. Whatever you do is instinct. But within that one second the figure moved under a light for just long enough for us to realize that it was nothing more that a small child, no older than 5 or 6 with a plastic gun in his hands. Trailing behind him were his father, a short dark man with a mustache and a metal cart covered in luggage, his mother, a slim, pretty woman with a shawl covering her hair, his two sisters and his brother. Lior turned to the father with a "give-me-a-break" tone in his voice. "You know better than to let him run here like that," he said. "You can clearly see he's a child" said the father in accented Hebrew. "And what if I couldn't?" pleaded Lior. "Next time put the gun in the suitcase before you pass through." Lior radioed to the customs officials inside and to the command squad that there was a small boy with a toy gun coming through so that they would not be taken by surprise and maybe accidently make a mistake. Lior and I and the man with the mustache all knew that he did it on purpose...that he let his kid run up to Israel this way. Why would you take the chance of your child being shot? So that you can blame Israel? Is it really worth it?

dirty blonde green-eyed killer

So I came back from the army this week to something lone soldiers rarely (if ever) get--an apartment full of food, a bed and a washing machine. Oh right. And my dad. My parents came to Israel for my beret ceremony (end of basic training) last week and rented an apartment for 5 weeks. My mom had to go back to America but dad is chilling here and working on whatever it is he does.

Remember when you were little and you came home from 2nd grade and showed your parents your pretty picture of a crayon-squiggled family standing in front of your crooked purple and orange house? Or when you came home in 6th grade with a 97 on your math test? Or senior year when you pasted up your acceptance letter from university on the fridge? I brought my dad home a target that I demolished this week with my M-16.

Oh, Toto. Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm not in Kansas anymore.

Super Mario Bros. syndrome

There is a lack of combat soldiers in the Israeli army. That is a fact. Technically, every male is required to go into combat, but for medical reasons (or other reasons) many of them do not. So the Israeli army did something very smart. They began accepting girls into combat units, even designing a special unit to include girls. This kills like 83 birds with 1 stone. The girls feel "equal", get to walk around in boys' uniforms, etc. and they have found more people for combat. That said, they are still very careful with where they put us. We guard on a border more famous for drugs and prostitutes than for illegal weapons or suicide bombers. In my service I will never run a mission and chances are I will never use my gun.

The combat boys have their own opinions about what we do. Some are impressed while others talk about how we are "wannabe" combat. I realized, though, that someone has to do our job. No matter what, the IDF has to put forces on these borders. If we weren't there, it would be the boys. The idea that I will not kill someone in my service doesn't make me feel less combat and the dumb boys who have not yet absorbed the weightiness of killing another human being deserve a smack in the face and a billboard-sized sign that says "THIS IS NOT SUPER MARIO BROTHERS. IF YOU DIE, YOU DON'T GET TO PRESS "PLAY AGAIN".

One thing this army does is make you grow up super fast. One day these boys will learn how serious it really is and I hope they don't learn the hard way.

Apparently 'chupar' is Spanish for "a night of going out and getting unbelievably drunk"...

...but in the army, it's a present for doing something good. Best soldier in Officers school? You get to go jump out of planes in Paratroopers course and such. So my...platoon (I guess that's how you say machlakah in english) got a chupar because we are the best of the three in my unit and we went to guard at the main bus station in Be'er Sheva where all the combat soldiers who train in the south come every Sunday morning. Being in uniform in public makes me wicked uncomfortable simply because they look at me like I have 3 eyes. Or like I have some intricate message written on my forehead and it takes a little pointing, staring and gasping to decode it. Mostly it's because the girls in my unit wear boys uniforms. We are a combat unit so we have everything the boys have and for some reason, this is shocking to Israelis. In these precarious situations I must be cautious to speak in short one syllable sentences so as not to give them a heartattack when they hear my accent and find out I'm American. Still though, this place is so great. I get yelled at by my commanders for smiling. There are worse things.