With Field Week behind us it was time for everyone to receive their own particular special weapon and learn how to use it. The team was broken up for a week of training, I was with my marksman’s day and night scopes, Haim was given a big Belgian FN MAG machine gun, Asaf a Russian made RPG and Yaar was utterly disappointed when presented with a radio set and told that he was to become the radioman. Other pieces of equipment included Negev machine guns and the uber cool looking M203 grenade launchers that sit under the barrel of the M16.
For me the week involved classroom lectures about how to use the different scopes especially concentrating on the way that the crosshairs were setup to tell the marksman where to aim for various ranges. We shot day and night at the range shooting at various different distances and different positions. There were four of us there from the Orev, another 4 from the Sayeret and another from the third unit being trained with us in the plugah called the Palhan, this was the unit that dealt with explosives.
So the 12 of us were pitched against each other every time and I was desperate for us to come out on top. Everyone had volunteered for the Sayeret at the start of their service but now that we were in our various places we were all about proving that we were the best despite not being chosen for the most ‘elite’ unit. We started on cardboard targets 50 meters away and worked through to metal targets at 250 meters. There was nothing as satisfying as hearing the loud ping bounce back from such a distance telling me that aiming well above the target had ensured a hit at that distance.
Shooting at night was the most exciting, the walk to the range was nothing like when following the sergeant, for this one week of boot camp we were all treated like normal people. Times were given for tasks but they were actually long enough to get the job done. The punishments never came and for the first time I was actually having fun. At meal times the whole plugah ate together at the base and we swapped stories about the courses we were on. Yuval was particularly excited by his new grenade launcher. Usually me, him and Haim ate together. Yuval was a baby faced soldier who grew up in the same area as Haim and who was desperate to prove that despite his baby face he could make it through the training. He strutted around the plugah with his new M16 and under slung grenade launcher like he was Rambo, he loved his new weapon every bit as much as I loved mine. Later on he would be nicknamed “Baby” not just because he looked liek a newborn but for his habit of whining, he also had a natural talent for finding out information, both during boot camp and throughout our army service. If I wanted to know what was going to happen in the next week I asked Yuval, if I wanted to know how to get hold of something I asked Yuval.
The weapons courses were a good way of getting through another week of boot camp and they were followed by yet another easy week. We were bussed up north to the same base that I had spent 3 weeks in before my service to learn about the concepts of “purity of the rifle”. Ultimately the week was to teach us in what circumstances we were permitted to open fire over and above the rules of engagement. Our officer showed us video clips I clearly remember one from the film Platoon where the soldiers run amok in a Vietnamese village. One of their friends had just been killed and they took out their aggression on nearby civilians. Our officer pointed out the lack of control that commanders exercised over their men, the lack of discipline. It seemed odd to hear him talk of discipline, seeing as how I never so much as had to march in step, or shine my shoes, even saluting had been dropped after a couple of weeks. But he was referring to a different kind of discipline, a discipline that comes into effect when a soldier stands before a civilian and there is only his own sense of morality preventing him from doing wrong.
I had never before considered myself in that position, as holding power over the life of a civilian. My fantasies of war had involved being locked in mortal combat with an enemy who I would ultimately and heroically vanquish, the thought of dealing with civilians hadn’t entered into the equation. There is a written code for the principals of the soldiers in the IDF, a code of conduct that stresses the sanctity of human life and emphasises the responsibility that soldiers have when in the field. We were each given a laminated business card size document that outlined the principals we were being taught to keep with us at all times.
Outside of these lessons the Sergeant was in charge. He delighted in devising innovative ways to keep us awake and alert. One of his methods was to place a plastic bag in a large bin, fill the bin with ice and water and then time how long we were able to hold our breath underwater. I lined up for my turn surprised by how bad the records being set by my friends were. When it came my turn I happily dunked my head into the bin utterly unprepared for the fact that the moment my head entered the water the freezing cold forced the breath from my lungs. I held on for another 10 seconds but had to come up for air only when I tried a hand on the back of my head prevented me from rising, only for a moment, before allowing me to grab the desperately needed air.
That was just one of his in between lesson tools, he had other methods in mind for punishment. When we lost a football match against the Sayeret he lined us up and walked up the line hitting each of us with a tree branch. “My team lost!” he shouted, “utterly unacceptable”. Ran joined in with the action with a branch of his own. The really strange part of this was that it made us love him even more. Instead of cries there were suppressed giggles as he walked past us with his branch, we were all in it together and the Sayeret was watching. There simply wasn't anything so sweet as knowing that we were having a harded time during training than they were. There at that base our Sergeant made a mockery of the level of discipline imposed on the supposedly ‘better’ Sayeret by physically beating us and he always did it while they were watching.
This was the genius of our Sergeant, he didn’t shout at us nor did he attack us with malice, he simply imposed illegally harsh standards upon us precisely when we, the soldiers who weren’t accepted to their unit of choice, needed it. There was no difference between the man who whispered the answers to me in that first test and the man who ruthlessly punished us for losing a football match, his intent was always to make us better soldiers and he did. Once, when we were in the push up position on our fists and he walked up and down the row of us kicking us in the stomach he simply said “do you think Hezbollah would go easier on you?”
By the end of boot camp he was no longer with us, word had got out to the powers that be what he had been doing to us and he was sent to prison a couple of months for it, I never saw him again during my army service yet he influenced me all of the way through. Alon and Ran also left us behind at the end of boot camp, they went on to officer school. So we were left with our officer and 3 new commanders who were to put us through the horrors of advanced infantry training.
For me the week involved classroom lectures about how to use the different scopes especially concentrating on the way that the crosshairs were setup to tell the marksman where to aim for various ranges. We shot day and night at the range shooting at various different distances and different positions. There were four of us there from the Orev, another 4 from the Sayeret and another from the third unit being trained with us in the plugah called the Palhan, this was the unit that dealt with explosives.
So the 12 of us were pitched against each other every time and I was desperate for us to come out on top. Everyone had volunteered for the Sayeret at the start of their service but now that we were in our various places we were all about proving that we were the best despite not being chosen for the most ‘elite’ unit. We started on cardboard targets 50 meters away and worked through to metal targets at 250 meters. There was nothing as satisfying as hearing the loud ping bounce back from such a distance telling me that aiming well above the target had ensured a hit at that distance.
Shooting at night was the most exciting, the walk to the range was nothing like when following the sergeant, for this one week of boot camp we were all treated like normal people. Times were given for tasks but they were actually long enough to get the job done. The punishments never came and for the first time I was actually having fun. At meal times the whole plugah ate together at the base and we swapped stories about the courses we were on. Yuval was particularly excited by his new grenade launcher. Usually me, him and Haim ate together. Yuval was a baby faced soldier who grew up in the same area as Haim and who was desperate to prove that despite his baby face he could make it through the training. He strutted around the plugah with his new M16 and under slung grenade launcher like he was Rambo, he loved his new weapon every bit as much as I loved mine. Later on he would be nicknamed “Baby” not just because he looked liek a newborn but for his habit of whining, he also had a natural talent for finding out information, both during boot camp and throughout our army service. If I wanted to know what was going to happen in the next week I asked Yuval, if I wanted to know how to get hold of something I asked Yuval.
The weapons courses were a good way of getting through another week of boot camp and they were followed by yet another easy week. We were bussed up north to the same base that I had spent 3 weeks in before my service to learn about the concepts of “purity of the rifle”. Ultimately the week was to teach us in what circumstances we were permitted to open fire over and above the rules of engagement. Our officer showed us video clips I clearly remember one from the film Platoon where the soldiers run amok in a Vietnamese village. One of their friends had just been killed and they took out their aggression on nearby civilians. Our officer pointed out the lack of control that commanders exercised over their men, the lack of discipline. It seemed odd to hear him talk of discipline, seeing as how I never so much as had to march in step, or shine my shoes, even saluting had been dropped after a couple of weeks. But he was referring to a different kind of discipline, a discipline that comes into effect when a soldier stands before a civilian and there is only his own sense of morality preventing him from doing wrong.
I had never before considered myself in that position, as holding power over the life of a civilian. My fantasies of war had involved being locked in mortal combat with an enemy who I would ultimately and heroically vanquish, the thought of dealing with civilians hadn’t entered into the equation. There is a written code for the principals of the soldiers in the IDF, a code of conduct that stresses the sanctity of human life and emphasises the responsibility that soldiers have when in the field. We were each given a laminated business card size document that outlined the principals we were being taught to keep with us at all times.
Outside of these lessons the Sergeant was in charge. He delighted in devising innovative ways to keep us awake and alert. One of his methods was to place a plastic bag in a large bin, fill the bin with ice and water and then time how long we were able to hold our breath underwater. I lined up for my turn surprised by how bad the records being set by my friends were. When it came my turn I happily dunked my head into the bin utterly unprepared for the fact that the moment my head entered the water the freezing cold forced the breath from my lungs. I held on for another 10 seconds but had to come up for air only when I tried a hand on the back of my head prevented me from rising, only for a moment, before allowing me to grab the desperately needed air.
That was just one of his in between lesson tools, he had other methods in mind for punishment. When we lost a football match against the Sayeret he lined us up and walked up the line hitting each of us with a tree branch. “My team lost!” he shouted, “utterly unacceptable”. Ran joined in with the action with a branch of his own. The really strange part of this was that it made us love him even more. Instead of cries there were suppressed giggles as he walked past us with his branch, we were all in it together and the Sayeret was watching. There simply wasn't anything so sweet as knowing that we were having a harded time during training than they were. There at that base our Sergeant made a mockery of the level of discipline imposed on the supposedly ‘better’ Sayeret by physically beating us and he always did it while they were watching.
This was the genius of our Sergeant, he didn’t shout at us nor did he attack us with malice, he simply imposed illegally harsh standards upon us precisely when we, the soldiers who weren’t accepted to their unit of choice, needed it. There was no difference between the man who whispered the answers to me in that first test and the man who ruthlessly punished us for losing a football match, his intent was always to make us better soldiers and he did. Once, when we were in the push up position on our fists and he walked up and down the row of us kicking us in the stomach he simply said “do you think Hezbollah would go easier on you?”
By the end of boot camp he was no longer with us, word had got out to the powers that be what he had been doing to us and he was sent to prison a couple of months for it, I never saw him again during my army service yet he influenced me all of the way through. Alon and Ran also left us behind at the end of boot camp, they went on to officer school. So we were left with our officer and 3 new commanders who were to put us through the horrors of advanced infantry training.
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