Disarmed

by Izzy Ezagui

  Then my vision clears like a windshield with wipers flipped to high. The blur hones into perfect focus. The targets and my future sharpen perfectly through the Mars infrared scope. I can see the individual lines on the black-and-yellow bull's-eye fifty meters away, the grains and cracks on the tan post holding those wise men steady. Time creeps like a tarantula as I fire a fast clip. The silence between each trigger pull deafens me, temporarily stopping my heart. Only the next pull jumpstarts it again. This throbbing wound, this adrenaline, this will—have all shifted into a weapon. A painfully secret weapon. They have forced me to become a more accurate marksman. A stronger soldier. A better man. Phantom's not my bitch—we're in this together, like it or not.

  Will my body ever cease shuddering?

  How many days have I toiled on this range not knowing how close I knelt to the solution? I easily could've stopped fighting. I easily could've dropped my weapon and shambled back into darkness. But I never would have discovered the treasures that are now mine. I've now accomplished what any two-armed soldier could. Piles of shiny shells surround me. Both they and I are glinting in the sunlight.

  FLATFOOT

  March 2008. The night of my return to Camp Michve from my non-start at the paratrooper test, my uniform seems to sag on me. Wearing olive-green suddenly feels wrong. I can't face the UN, my friends, in the barracks. Instead I find a dark corner of the parade ground, where I sit on a concrete slab thrusting out of the ground at an awkward angle.

  Alone with my thoughts—I failed, I failed—it takes me a moment to realize someone's stepped partway out of the shadows. I see the Reeboks first. “Sir.” I jump up and thwack my brow, a painful casualty of my own salute.

  “At ease, Recruit.” Sergeant Sneakers flickers into view as he lights up a cigarette. “Any reason you've decided to take over my private oasis?”

  “No, sir. Sorry, sir.” I turn to leave.

  “Relax, Recruit. Have a seat.”

  I've never been one-on-one with a superior before. How are you supposed to act? The sergeant studies the strange American, takes a deep drag off his cancer stick. I realize this is the first time I've seen him without Oakleys covering his eyes. Of course—it's dark out. “Spill it,” he says.

  “No disrespect, sir. You wouldn't understand.”

  “Try me.”

  By the time I finish explaining what went down at Bakum, tears are streaming down my face again. I hate myself for crying. Tears and temperatures—my body's failed me many times today. Sergeant Sneakers drops his cigarette, puts it out with the heel of his right Reebok. He says, “Ever wonder why I wear these?”

  “Everyone does.”

  “Flat feet. The doctor discovered the problem when I went in for my pre-enlistment examination. Do you know what that means?”

  “I don't, sir.”

  “Flat feet are an automatic physical-profile reduction. Automatic,” he repeats. “So I also didn't get the profile I needed to try out for the paratroopers, or any of the other units I wanted. They offered me Tanks or Artillery. I chose Tanks.”

  “Wow.” I don't know what else to say.

  “I didn't end up where I wanted. But I'm still contributing.” He tucks a new cigarette between his lips, lights it. “I look back at my service now, and I'm proud. It'll take time, but you'll learn, as I did. The paratroopers aren't the only soldiers making a difference.” He inhales deeply, releases the smoke with a sigh. “We all fight. We all matter. Now…Recruit?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get the hell out of my oasis.”

  LIKE THE BACK OF MY HAND

  April 2010. The day of my first attempt to pass the obstacle course comes halfway through the month I've been allotted. I know every inch of this monster. Still, my stomach is doing loops. Vest on tight. Helmet tight. Rifle swinging freely from my hip for Fuks's sake. Ofir stands with his stopwatch in the morning sun. Some of the female fitness instructors are there to cheer me on. Two of them are straddling the wall I must conquer. Efi has come to run the course with me even though his beloved Blue and Whites are gunning again to qualify for the World Cup.

  When Ofir gives the signal—“Tzeh!” I dash out madly, so fast that Efi beside me says, “Duuude, pace yourself. You're gonna burn out!” But I just smile and ignore him. I need beast mode. I actually leave Efi in my dust. But I still hear him behind me, egging me on. I reach the girls at full gallop and simply soar right over the wall like Deadpool. “Hey, ladies!” Even I can tell it's a thing of fucking beauty.

  But on the other side, the brute effort I've been making begins to take its toll. Efi's right. I can't catch my breath. I'm not willing to slow down, though. The rhythm of the rifle banging against my hips keeps me going. It says, “Just do it, just do it, just do it…”

  Suddenly, I'm at the rope. I'm dog-tired. There's a random veteran unit stretching for a run right beside the course. I don't know why they're on our training base; they're already active combat. But a few of them notice me. Then all of them. And then they spot the missing arm. They're shielding their eyes from the sun, and they begin to prod one another, to point.

  Am I making a fool of myself? Are all these guys about to watch me fail?

  They start to cheer me on.

  “Yalla! You crazy beast. You can do it!”

  “Go, Beast, go!”

  But I don't make it up the rope the first time.

  I don't make it up the rope the second time.

  You can't do this, Izzy. Time to give up.

  Those veteran soldiers all start to run over. They can see I need more motivation. The third time takes a thousand years of pain and robs me of all breath. I can feel my heartbeat in my neck. My head is throbbing against the inside of my helmet. Finally—plunk!—my helmet hits the beam! An upwelling of roars overwhelms my ears from below. There's an obese fly up here with me, and I say, “Hey, fella…Nice view from the top.”

  I drop down into the crowd of vets—they're on the course with me now. They're nipping at my heels as I drag my bones to the next obstacle. “Come on, Beast! You're an animal! You're kicking ass! Yalla!” (“Yalla” means “C'mon!”) They surround me. Envelop me. A chorus of “Yalla!” Gravity draws my eyes to the ground as we run, and all I see are flashy feet flitting in and out of frame. Their energy carries me along like one of those moving sidewalks at the airport. Blur of yellow, of neon-green, of pink, of yellow again—the soldiers’ sneakers. They simply don't allow me to slow down, to collapse, to fail.

  We all cross the finish line together. They're going wild. I'm a palpitating mess. All fifteen of them slap my back, roughly. So does Efi. He'd skipped all the hard stuff and was waiting at the finish line. Goofball.

  I gulp stale water out of Ofir's ancient canteens. I can't explain why, but I'm utterly dejected. Yes, I made it. But I know it took me almost twice as long to get through than the passing time I need. So, basically, you failed. It figures. Failures fail, says Phantom. That goddamn rope ate up too much time. In basic training, I failed the course by ten seconds. Now I'm sucking all over again.

  But Efi and Ofir are staring at me stupidly. “All right,” I manage to eke out. “What was my time?”

  They just keep staring at me, staring down at the stopwatch. “Come on, guys.”

  Then Efi says something that blows my mind. “Dude. 8:30 on the dot. You passed. By a full two minutes.”

  AN ARMY MARCHES ON ITS STOMACH

  March 2008. On to basic training in the Jordan Valley. Having missed my only opportunity to make the paratroopers—thanks, in part, to a combination of my terrible Hebrew and a hornswoggling officer who didn't fully explain the options—I'm exactly where I don't want to be. Kfir. Infantry. Two-and-a-half years of monotonous guard duty and terrible, overcooked food ahead. Welcome to the IDF.

  All Kfir recruits must survive eight months of combat training to graduate to active service. Training includes the “basics,” meaning discipline, physical fitness, and various weapons and tactics. Specifically, marks
man classes, basic field-navigation training, open-space warfare training, helicopter-deployment training, special-weapons and physical-fitness training, Krav Maga, as well as some general education classes. All of this at Kfir's main training base, called Peles, on the Jordanian border.

  Welcome to the “Victory in Judea” Battalion. I'll be your host, Satan. I'll recognize you peons by your dark-green beret. Remember, the only thing to fear is Kfir itself.

  I come to learn here very soon that, in fact, the “basics” on this base basically consist of four rather-base activities, in a loop, for sixteen weeks. None of them involves jumping out of an airplane at ten thousand feet:

  1. Guard duty.

  2. Push-ups.

  3. Kitchen duty.

  4. Repeat.

  Guard duty: Countless hours, days, and weeks standing on bruised, possibly suppurating feet. Eyeing the distance for Bedouin smugglers, guerrillas, and other creatures of the night. Ten jammed little piggies. Blistered ankles bound by rough leather boots not yet worn soft. Moth-eaten socks. Flies.

  Push-ups: Shredded palm-skin. Congealed blood from broken blisters. A subtle twitch of the arms that sends sharp, dagger-like twinges down triceps. The smell of piss and sand.

  Kitchen duty: Flies. More flies. And smells. Loof, like canned possum. Recycled Crisco. Burnt rice. More flies. Huge tubs of dirty trays glued to each other with powdered mashed potatoes, mystery “meat,” and sliced eggplant that seems to grow spider-legs before your eyes. Nope, that's a spider in the eggplant. More flies, like a plague on Egypt.

  Guard duty: A rock to kick becomes a long-sought treat, though only fleetingly. Counting the cracks in the wooden beam overhead kills a few minutes. Counting again. Waving hello to a scorpion sightseer. Flies. Suffocating silence.

  Push-ups: Coolly delivered reprimands dropped from in between the crooked yellow teeth of another robotic boot sergeant. Aching shoulders weighed down further, somehow, by the bully's invective, and personal shame. Flies.

  Kitchen duty: Sliding inside from the desert sun's devastating “dry” heat into the steam room of commercial ovens and giant cauldrons of boiling slop. Kilos of flies, alive and dead, dropping into the mixers and pots. Rivulets of human sweat pouring into all receptacles. Loof, all asshole and eyeballs, which only a Russian recruit could relish.

  Guard duty: Solitude. Loneliness. Despondency. Flies.

  Push-ups: Calcified palms. Core strength. The occasional shared smile six inches off the asphalt, out of view of the commander above. Getting so good you can clap on the upswing. Once for your honor. Once to kill a fly.

  Kitchen duty: Psych! It's a gas-mask drill. Put your masks on, Tzeh! Tzeh! Run! Now masks off! Did I give you permission to choke, Recruit!? Now give me your ID number. Run! Fifty push-ups, then second position…hold it…What was that ID number again? Give it to me backwards. Dead flies, strangled in the gas. No more flies. For now.

  Repeat.

  Repeat.

  SHOW OF HANDS

  April 2010. The big test. Another big test. The training grounds are barren except for rusty barbed wire and a few dead shrubs, which look like scorched bodies that nearly escaped hell. My leather boots sizzle until I find a patch of shade beneath a steep hill that dominates the horizon. Conquering the arduous incline is my last obstacle before I regain combat status. At least, that's what everyone keeps telling me.

  I've jerry-rigged solutions to all possible problems. For example, one day I hit upon wrapping grenade pins in thick hockey tape. Smartest thing I ever came up with considering its simplicity. No damage when I use my pearly whites to pull the pins.

  Soon, I'll charge up the untamed ground and attempt to score hits on cardboard enemies that Shoogy set up along the ridge's steepest face. The forefathers of the IDF created this exercise to simulate a worst-case scenario, a literal “uphill battle.”

  Think happy thoughts. Don't poop your pants during the drill. That would suck for Shoogy, who's going to follow a stride or two downwind.

  Shoogy wears her hair in a tight ponytail. She's got her favorite blue “One Shot—One Kill” T-shirt on. I'm wearing Ofir's sleek black vest wrapped tightly around my chest. I've wedged my helmet between my remaining bicep and a few lightly bruised ribs. This past month has left no part of my body anything less than black and blue. No part.

  My rifle swings freely by my side.

  Moni Katz's jeep comes to a stop before us in a cloud of dust. I use my flopping left shirtsleeve to wipe the sweat from my forehead. “You ready?”

  I nod. I wedge my helmet on my head, using my thumb and index finger to buckle the clips in place.

  I don't bother saluting.

  I lift my rifle so it parallels the ground, a sign to Katz that I'm ready to get things started.

  “Tzeh,” he orders.

  “Commencing live fire exercise,” I alert.

  Cautiously, I walk toward the first set of targets. I sweep the terrain with my rifle as my finger hovers over the trigger. I allow my mind to go blank. For once, I don't hold my breath. I can hear the flies buzzing. And just as I breach the three-meter mark separating me from my first cardboard enemy, Katz barks, “Under fire!”

  I let countless hours of training take over.

  “Under fire, under fire,” I repeat, while charging for the first set of targets, firing multiple rounds instinctively from my hip.

  Passing the enemy's line of defense, I dive to the ground for better cover. Without a second arm to ease my fall, I hit the sand with a teeth-jarring impact.

  “Four enemies at my twelve,” I yell, trying to retrieve my lungs from where they've been slammed up in my throat, simultaneously firing at each target in my sights, all roughly twenty meters out. “Moving out!”

  I roll out and upward, using both legs to thrust myself away from the sand. Even without a spare arm to lift my body, the force of my up-kick propels me into a run. I sprint forward, firing at a target above me.

  Two shots later, it happens. That telling, hollow-sounding click. My rifle has jammed. Whatever. Now I can show Moni how I take care of business. In one smooth motion, I release the magazine from my weapon, discharge the shell stuck inside, cock the rifle twice, reinsert the magazine, and reload.

  Hot damn.

  A soldier should be able to unjam his rifle in five seconds flat. I'm able to do it in three, by pinning the rifle to the ground with my stump and using my hand to go through the motions. Of course, the act sends jolts of pain through my missing arm, makes Phantom sing for his supper. This sends an octane boost of adrenaline through my system, giving me an extra edge.

  But my rifle continues to jam after every shot. There are few things more difficult than trying to charge up a hill while firing a rifle and hitting each target. One of those harder things is doing all that while pausing after each shot to unjam your weapon.

  And then it's over. All I can think about as I stand there, shaking the desert from my soiled fatigues, is how unlucky I am. Every last bullet? Really?

  “Izzy, any thoughts on how you could have performed better?” Katz asks.

  “Sir, looking back, I can see that if I positioned myself closer to the center of the hill, there'd be more room for the squad accompanying me. If the scenario was real.”

  He nods agreement as Shoogy joins us. She's carrying the targets she gathered from the drill. She has a smile on her face. “You see?” She rifles through the targets one after the other. “Besides the first target, he hit each of them four times, center mass.”

  Moni Katz says nothing. No smile. No frown.

  What does that mean? Do I pack up my gear—or do I pack up my gear?

  FINGERS TO THE BONE

  March 2008. First week of basic training, and another opportunity—this will be the last—to test for a Special Forces unit. This time, it's the IDF's elite canine unit, Oketz. If I can't jump out of planes, I'm going to have a sturdy dog by my side. It's a three-day Gibush, one of the toughest tryouts in the IDF. I wake at dawn with a wi
cked hangover—but, wait, I didn't drink last night. That means I'm actually sick. Headache. Nausea. Fever. “Pain is only in the mind,” I decide. “Fear is the mind-killer.” There's no way I'm missing another chance.

  The actual Gibush—the tryout—won't commence until nightfall, but my engines are already revving. This is all an enormous waste of energy.

  Halfway through reveille: “What's this?” The commander's thumb and finger press against my upper lip, tickling the pitiful growth there that left me with a blessed extra bit of time each morning. “Two minutes,” he orders, and off I sprint to shave—another untold number of unnecessary calories cooked.

  Kfir's training base is witheringly hot during the day, and it's only going to get worse as the months wear on. Practicing an impressive abundance of caution, the IDF does its best to combat the devil Dehydration. You're not allowed to take a step outside without a canteen connected to your person.

  “You don't know?” one of my fellow Oketz wannabes says. “Dudes have died during these tryouts. Sure, a while back, some really determined bro was found all dead and shriveled. His body was dry as a bone and stuff.”

  This was on Jonny's original list of do's and don'ts: Don't wait till you're thirsty to drink. It's probably too late by then. He said the Israeli military used to be very stingy with water. They wanted soldiers to learn how to fight effectively in the absence of clean drinking water. But that proved foolish. You can't prepare or train against dehydration. You just die.

  Of course, I already proved last month that just one canteen lowered this human's body temperature a full one degree Celsius in five short minutes. I'm not about to get disqualified again on any high-temp technicality. I'd rather my dry, withered corpse be found than fail to begin yet another Gibush. The commanders make us down five canteens of water in a matter of two and a half hours. No sweat, right? Well, you ever hear of hyponatremia? “Water intoxication” can occur when you drink too much or too fast for your kidneys to piss it out. In some cases, this can actually kill you. So we pee a lot. They don't even have to order it.