by Izzy Ezagui
On the third day back on the parade ground, I'm looking down—he's only 5´6˝—at his outdated facial hair, and he's looking up at my pasty, wet face. “Why is this man wearing a coat? It's hot as blazes out here.”
“He's cold, sir,” says someone faceless in the platoon. I cannot differentiate him from all the other recruits, even if I could find the strength to lift my lids. This person, who I'll only later learn is Amir, shows tremendous guts when he follows with, “He needs a medic right away, sir. Maybe you should take him yourself.”
It's obvious that Major Muttonchops can't keep up the abuse anymore, so, through his largesse, I get to see a medic—who quickly sends me to the doctor, who says, “My God, you're more fever than man.”
I get a pass home for three days. (“You better come back a brand-new recruit, Recruit.”) Three days to consider that final interview. For weeks after the Gibush—after I finally beat my flu, and long after I get the news that Oketz passed on me—their question haunts my thoughts. How do we know?
May 2008. It's about two months into basic training. I wake up one morning and see everyone tying their boots extra tight. The tent is buzzing with energy (and wings) like something out of a high school football team's locker room. The whole battalion's getting pumped for something big. What? Seems my poor command of Hebrew has kept essential information from getting through to me again. I ask Kobi what's going on. “Course of obstacles today.”
The first thing I notice is that recruits from other units are strapping their rifles to their backs, freeing up their hands to make the obstacles easier to tackle. “I thought we weren't allowed to do that.” I say as we prep our gear.
“We're not. Not our unit. Listen.”
Fuks nods with his chin toward those other guys, says, “This unit is above that kind of bull. When you need to jump over a wall during a firefight, do you think you'll have time to neatly strap your gun behind your back? Do you think you'll want to?”
Ten minutes later, it's my turn. I stand at the starting line with three other recruits, all ready to give it our best shot. They're going to keep sending us out in waves of four. In a strange way, I feel like I'm representing Team America, and if I fail, I'll let down everybody there. Countdown…“Tzeh,” a commander says, and the four of us balls-out sprint. After about fifty seconds, though, we realize this was not the right approach. We all slow down so as not to burn what's left of our energy. The concrete wall looms larger as you close that third of a mile. Simple physics—the closer you get, the higher it looks. How am I going to do this? I think Spidey. The Man of Webs can walk up walls, and that's kind of the goal here. In fact, there's no real other way to do it. You have to run at the wall with enough momentum that, if you throw a leg in front of you, you'll actually start to climb vertically. I've seen all those kung fu movies—those guys don't have stunt doubles. Even with my rifle flopping and slapping, I'm able to bound over the wall with relative ease. Pays to be 6´1˝ in a land of 5´7˝s. And I idolize Spidey.
Getting up the rope proves much more difficult. It takes me two tries, and I waste precious time. Two of the other guys in my group slip ahead, and I can't stand that. The crawling also goes at a slug's pace. Dragging my heavy vest through thick sand reminds me of failing to get accepted into Oketz. Oketz actually means “sting”—and that one really stung. Sometimes your best isn't good enough. By the time I finish the crawl, all I have left is a half-kilometer sprint to the end. I push myself, but all I can manage is a pace slightly faster than a jog. When I cross the finish line, finally, Fuks says, “Fail.” And then moves on to the next guy.
My time was 10:40, a full ten seconds above the minimum passing time. Ten seconds, God damn it.
“I can't believe I didn't make it.” I tell Kobi, as we lumber back to the tents.
“Yeah, that was one tough course,” he agrees.
“But you passed.”
“Only by a few seconds. You'll get it next time, Izzy.”
“I seriously better.”
Next morning, I'm in the middle of a lovely dream in which two lovely ladies—
“Get up.” It's Fuks, shaking me awake.
Some Hebrew must be sinking in, because I offer up a curse in his native tongue. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to pass the obstacle course.”
“Sir, my legs…We just did it yesterday.”
“And you failed yesterday. Today you'll pass.”
Only eight of the thirty of us need to rerun the obstacle course. We all stretch in silence near the starting line. It kills me to be in this bottom third. The fat kid. The kid who keeps losing his glasses. The kid who gets picked last for dodgeball. But there are one or two surprises among this lot, super-fit guys who, for one reason or another, didn't make the cut. All of our bodies are beaten from the previous attempt twenty-four hours earlier. As I passed Kobi's bunk—he was smiling in his sleep, the bastard—I decided there was absolutely no way I was going to do this thing a third time.
“Tzeh.”
The wall's still a piece of cake. Rope goes better. Crawl goes better. Ten minutes and twenty seconds later, I'm crumpled in a heap by the finish line, huffing and happy. Happy that Fuks says, “Well, you didn't fail, but—”
“Thank-you-sir-gotta-go!”
I stumble back to my cot, drop to the concrete slab beside it, and lie there, facedown, until reveille. Amir nudges me awake with his boot.
“Seriously, dude,” he says. “Show an ounce of willpower.”
THUMBS-UP
30 December 2009
My Dear Friend Izzy,
Good to hear that you are moving ahead. I'm not surprised at your fast rate of progress since I noticed your willpower a long time ago. It is worthy of admiration.
Continue to send these messages as it is important to me that I know your situation and how you are feeling.
Best of luck, Yoav
THE IRON FIST OF COMMAND
I'm starting to feel like a circus freak. Dance, Izzy, dance! It's August 2010. I thought I was done with all the testing, thought I was just waiting for Moni Katz's final approval for combat status. But this is the third monthly request dropped on me to “perform” for a litany of high-ranking schmoes. “This one's important, Izzy,” Moni says. Some bigwig from Southern Command.
Once again, I'm standing in the blazing sun at the foot of the training hill, wearing Ofir's gear, my helmet in hand. Vehicles soon approach, kicking up a storm of dust. I feel a little like I'm in a Bond movie. The door to the lead jeep opens, and right then I understand that I'm screwed.
“James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.”
Of course. It makes perfect sense. The bigwig is Dr. Notgudenuff. Smirking as he strides up to my position.
Now the IDF has 176,500 active personnel, and another half a million reservists. That's a good-sized army (thirty-fourth in the world, but for a nation about the size of New Jersey). So there are many thousands of officers. But Dr. NGE and I both fall under the same Southern Command. And his job—a fact I already know but must have put out of my mind—involves dealing with medical-related issues—especially the non-routine ones that underlings can't handle. Like, say, a one-armed guy trying to get back in the fight…Would I have pushed as hard over the past months if I knew I'd eventually come face-to-face again with the one guy who told me “No way”?
No way.
“Sir.” I have to will my fist to open so that I can shake the doctor's outstretched hand. His smile is starting to creep me out. Does he actually enjoy shooting arrows through young men's hearts?
“All right, let's see what you can do, Izzy.”
I'll show you what I can do, Douche Wrapper.
Eight minutes later, I stand at the top of the hill, bathed in sweat, sand, and euphoria. Both runs, dry and live, went as smoothly as possible.
Five men who arrived in jeeps behind the doctor make their way up to the summit. The doctor turns to them. “What do you th
ink?” he asks.
Honcho Number One, who apparently commands a company of soldiers here on base, says to the doctor, “Well, you're more than welcome to stay and watch my troops perform the same drill, but I can promise you this man doesn't fall short of any of them.”
Not even a backhanded compliment. Take that. The doctor turns to the other officers, and they start discussing my fate as though I'm not standing right here, heart racing. I don't know what's worse—the doubts, or the laurels. Some of them are lauding my exploits over the past months as if I were some impressive shit-flinging chimp. Three of the honchos pummel me with a barrage of questions, constantly cutting each other off. “What do you do if a fellow soldier needs a tourniquet?”
“Well, sir, I—”
“How do you take apart your rifle? Clean it?”
“I—”
“Let's say you had to take over for a wounded handler of the Spike missile system…”
Then Dr. Notgudenuff—no, it's unfair to call him that any longer. I can tell from his face this is not the same man Galant introduced me to last year—then the chief medical officer of the Southern Command, shuts them all up with a raised open palm. “Gentlemen,” he says. “Enough. I don't see anything, physically or mentally, that'll get in the way of him performing his duties. Agreed?” And he actually winks at me. Could he have known that his “no way” would be the single most important motivator that got me here?
No way.
Or…?
The afternoon ends with each honcho shaking my hand and starting back down the hill toward their vehicles. “We'll do everything we can to get you back into combat,” Dr. Gudenuff says. “You've earned it, Izzy. And then, Command School. Any recruit would be lucky to land you as their commander.”
Who is this guy? That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me in twenty-one years (other than Amir's “You're not a pussy”). I could hug him. “Thank you, sir.”
I raise hand to brow out of respect as he opens the door to his transport. He does not return my salute.
PHANTOM'S KUNG FU GRIP
All of 2010. People keep telling me how inspiring I am, how “heroic.” Even before I jumped through all the hoops to get back into uniform. Do they have any idea how I feel inside?
Ugly. Alone. Worthless.
Always have. Always will. Phantom feeds on more than physical pain. He gorges on the perpetual motion of my shame. That I'll never be good enough, never be worthy of the mantle of a man, my father's level of accomplishment forever out of reach. That I'll never get the girl. There are times when it's almost unbearable to live inside my skin.
BUM FEET
After endless paperwork and a couple more meetings—but no more tests—they reinstate me in December 2010–February 2011. Holy mother of… So I've finally made it back to combat. The dream. Mission accomplished, right? They send me to join a veteran unit. It's Givati, the unit where my dear friends David and Shachar served. I get to wear the purple beret like they did. At the moment, this unit is back from a stint near Gaza to complete six weeks of retraining on some random base up north before heading to Chevron (Hebron), in the West Bank.
Really cold here at night in Tevetz, but the temps fluctuate wildly. In the middle of the afternoon you could be sweating your balls off, and at night find they've retreated toward the warmth of your core. The first weeklong exercise starts with a dash up a two-kilometer incline in full gear. A forty-kilometer trek through the mountains follows. Soldiers are dropping like poop from a pigeon. Hypothermia has the medical choppers working overtime as one frozen soldier after another needs to be airlifted to the hospital, a chattering mess. Dehydration's still a problem; you don't actually have to be hot to die of thirst. And simple wear-and-tear on the human endo- and exoskeleton takes its toll on a soldier, as it would on anyone.
I become one of these anyones. About thirty kilometers in, I cannot move another inch. Despite all my retraining, I'm not dealing well with this level of difficulty. Every time we stop moving, it's cold enough for me to find myself sincerely grateful my arm's amputated. One fewer limb to worry about thawing when the signal comes to trudge forward.
I'm always looking for some little edge to save me time or aggravation. Lacing up boots, despite how masterful I've become in the one-handed straight lace—still eats up precious seconds, and I'm damn tired of sleeping in my boots, Jonny. So I went on Amazon for a boot-hunt. These were supposed to be the best ones, tested by members of SWAT. They lasted about four kilometers. They have side zippers, which both split like a pole dancer's father, so I had to wrap them in rope just to keep them on. This made me waddle like I was an extra on The Walking Dead. They're also steel-toed, and the combination of the metal and my heavy wool socks has created two miniature furnaces that have flayed the skin off the tops and bottoms of my toes, even as the rest of me shivers. Pure podiatric hell.
They have to drive me back to base. It might as well be into the center of the Dead Sea; the shame is so heavy I'm floating on it. I can't even speak. I'm sitting in my new unit's empty parade ground on a metal folding chair, my whole body numb. Even Phantom sulks. I feel myself spiraling into a mire like used oil through a funnel. Didn't I fight tooth and nail to get here? Is it all over? I'm not the suicidal type, but I don't feel much like living right now. Living with this anchor tied around my neck, choking me, weighing me down. A twinge in the foot I deliberately broke reminds me that I might still be, regardless of all my recent hard work and heart, that one thing I vowed I would never be again.
Then I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up to see a face I don't know. A young officer. Receding hairline, dark eyes, arched brows, and that look of intensity not uncommon in IDF officers. I wish he would leave me alone. I don't think I can handle explaining my failure. He introduces himself as Ziv Shilon. He's come back to base to pick up more ammo for the drills. “I want to let you know, guy, I was watching you out there, and you kicked ass. Seriously. You'll be back on your feet by next week. Gotta get back. Bye.” He pats me on the back, and then he's gone.
That one officer was like a mercenary angel who breathed life back into me, and then disappeared into the ether. This is not a failure. It's a mere setback. I've overcome plenty of those—and one big one. I can do this. I have to do it. First thing first, though: I throw my dilapidated boots in a Dumpster.
IDF-sanctioned boots in hand, I get my head back in the game.
I keep a journal on my phone to document the next few months, my first back on active duty:
Saturday, Dec. 25, 2010, 5:18 PM, Entry 7
In regards to 13 Dec – 19 Dec
It was definitely the boots…. This time I kicked ass no problem. Merry Xmas.
Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011, 8:55 PM, Entry 9
I can't believe I actually made it. I'm sitting in a field-box smack in the middle of very Palestinian Chevron. Who would have thunk I could pull this off? I guess in a way I did, or else I would never have gotten this far. So here are the basics of what I'll be doing over the next few months. Our field-box is in the middle of Arab-populated Jabel-Jewara / Abusnina, both of which I'm spelling way way wrong. Four soldiers at a time are posted there in rotations that vary (about 3–4 days at a time). Three times a day the commander and two of the soldiers leave the field-box in order to do random vehicle searches and whatnot. When I'm not posted in the field-box I can be called upon to participate in arrests. Not only that—I would be in the entry team because I'm the Com. Spec.
I never really took the time to formulate who I am regarding the treatment of the Palestinian population. People seem to place me as a softy (lefty) for some reason. For me it's so much simpler than that. I might just be overly naive…but I look at it as follows: Good people are good regardless of race, creed, or religion, and good people deserve to be treated with respect. Bad people, such as terrorists, fanatics, and killers, are to be treated at the opposite extreme. As far as I'm concerned, that means death. When I say bad it could mean Jew, Arab, atheist, or Buddh
ist—as long as they fit the basic criteria for badness.
Tomorrow my officer will be taking us out to do our first patrol/search, etc…. I'm curious to see my own reaction to my job. I really want to do the right thing morally but I need to be on edge regardless, for the safety of my unit and myself.
I'm reading a lot on my off time. Happy that I have grown a thirst for world history. Even if it happens that I'm interested mostly in war…
Friday, Jan. 07, 2011, 2:40 PM, Entry 10
Just got back from my first checkpoint car search. I didn't get to interact because my sergeant placed me as the safety overlooking the group, to keep an eye on everything going on around us. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be, and I personally feel my guys were too lax with their own security. Allowing the people being stopped to walk straight up to them, and more than one at a time. Also lots of cars saw the checkpoint and reversed to take a different route. It doesn't get more suspicious than that…I guess it's because I'm new at this and still “live in a movie” as the guys keep telling me, but we could be doing a much better job…
The Arabs’ reaction to us varies dramatically from impatience to fear to open hatred. One little boy about six years old walked by confidently with a big smile and a wave, and I couldn't help but smile and wave back. These are people, too, and most of them just want to live their lives. Yes, we do make their life a bit, if not a lot, harder with our regulations and checkpoints, but we do this because when we don't, those few who want to hurt us send in suicide bombers, etc. I can't let the fact that a lot of these people are good blunt the edge that I need to survive this place.
Sunday, Jan. 09, 2011, 1:05 AM, Entry 11
Pulled over a car at the checkpoint today. Our sergeant finally let me perform the search instead of standing behind the group as overwatch. Three Arabs sitting there entirely drunk, haha. They offered me and the sergeant a drink. These men told us that the Arabs make all the damn problems and that if they had control of Israel, all the Jews would be dead.
YOU SLEEVE, YOU LEAVE