Beyond the Green Line: Masa

These marches didn’t scare me, I had run 10km a day while training for the gibush so the idea that a mere 5 km march would be a problem was laughable. The marches took place through the night, the first one saw us loaded down with our weapons, water and ammunition as well as one big radio, one stretcher and a jerrycan filled with 10 litres of water, all three of which were to be carried on every march by a volunteer, later more pieces of equipment would be added but for now it was just those three things. In keeping with my new found ideology I opted to take the jerrycan.

The march began at night with the day simply being too hot to engage in that kind of physical activity. The Sayeret began the march first which was something that I found incredibly irritating, we followed. The Sergeant was up front while Alon and Ran marched behind us, we had been drinking all day in preparation for this and even in the late hours of the night I could feel the sweat trickling down my back. We were in two lines for the march and without much ado the Sergeant began to move.

The pace was a half run half walk which seemed to completely prevent me from falling into a rhythm. My lower back was in anguish after a mere few minutes, the weight of the water sloshing around in the jerrycan was constantly tugging at the straps on my shoulders, ensuring that they were biting into my skin. The dust kicked up by those walking in front of me dried out my mouth bringing upon me an instant urge for water that was made alot worse by the knowledge that I was carrying 10 litres of it on my back and wasn't allowed to drink it. My watch became my best friend and my worst enemy, I was constantly focussing on it to draw strength from each second that passed and yet I looked at it so often that timed seemed to pass by only with exasperating reluctance. The straps continued to bite into my skin and the weight on my back pulled me down into the soft ground underfoot. Soon the sweat on my face was wet not just with sweat but with tears of exasperation. I didn't even possess the vocabulary to ask someone to take the load from me.

I wasn't the only one suffering, through the prism of my own pain I could hear young soldiers crying out to stop for water or to be able to remove their load…just for a moment. I could hear them but they were in another dimension, I was locked inside my own world of pain and discomfort as I placed one foot after the other in a burning desire to continue on this “mere 5km march”. The struggle became one of internal desperation, constantly fighting with my body while failing to shut out the screams coming from within. And then the realisation that if I could just be rid of the weight on my back I would be able to carry on, or rather that without jettisoning the jerrycan I simply wasn’t going to make it.

Before I knew it I was shamelessly begging the new soldiers around me to take the weight from my back. I pounced on them one after the after begging them, using the few words of Hebrew that I knew jumbled up with my English. One after the other they waved me away, too encumbered with their own personal pain to help me with mine. I went from one to the other “pleeeeease I begged, all restraints imposed by self respect and dignity long since forgotten as the pain in my body utterly dominated me. Eventually I fell only to hear someone behind me say, “okay Brity, I’ll take it.” The joy that coursed through me on hearing these few words was one of the most wonderful feelings that I had ever experienced. I shrugged the jerrycan off my back and allowed it to fall to the dust with a thud.

I watched the smiling soldier pick it up, he gave me a playful punch in the arm, took the weight onto his back and moved off. I didn’t yet know his name but he had shown me something that my middle class London life had forever deprived me of, it was my first experience of receiving a helping hand when I was in pain and it came from someone I didn’t even know. The army would teach me what it is to be hungry, to be tired to be in real, indescribable pain. The army would teach me how to balance those needs, to control my mind, even in the midst of suffering and how to simultaneously be mindful of those around me whose need was greater than mine. They did it by making me feel the extremes of horror and the relief that comes from a helping hand. Merely by taking my jerrycan Forrest had forever burned himself into my consciousness, he had relieved my pain when I had most needed it and I would never ever forget it.

Moving on was a joyful experience, I was so light I felt that I could fly. It was a feeling of elation that lasted only a few moments. Now I was aware of pains and straps stamping their authority on my body that I had been too preoccupied to notice earlier. Ran and Alon were having a great time running up and down the columns of their soldiers, showing us just how easy it was. Ever so slowly the burning sun rose over the dunes, our first march ended at the top of a steep hill. We walked up while the Sayeret walked down, having already completed it. I bumped into one of the guys who had been in my group during the gibush he nodded to me on his way down “don’t worry Brity you’ve made it to the end!” I grunted but in my head I was thinking “fuck you Sayeret man I am with the Orev and we should have had the honour of finishing first". It was a watershed moment.

I made it to the top of the hill unsure of how walking half of what I had run every day had been quite so hard. I had taken weight on my person and on my back and I couldn’t understand why it had proven to be such a challenge. I turned to Forrest who was still carrying the jerrycan on his back and wearing a triumphant smile on his face, he nodded to me and I nodded back. A soldier fell onto his knees and started to throw up into the dust and sand. The sergeant walked up to him and patted his back, at the same time gave him words of encouragement. It was Iddo, he had a first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and slept in the bed next to mine. Every night Iddo had given up some of his free time to whisper to me in broken English what we had covered in the lessons that day while we looked over each other’s shoulders to make sure that neither our officer nor commanders were in earshot as he did so.

While he was being sick Ran took me aside, “jerrycan?” he said, I nodded towards Forrest, who was standing off to the side with the offending item. He looked at me, “you finish with the pack you start with Marc, always!” It was somehow worse for the fact that he was saying it with a soft voice, he seemed so disappointed in me when he said it. There was nothing for me to say, I nodded my head and learned the lesson, I had been weak, not physically, everyone had found it tough going, but mentally, in my pain I had given up the equipment I had set out with, the taste of failure mixed with the relief of finishing and the sand that was still in my mouth.