Why They Call us Lonely Soldiers

During Sha'pash, the hour to shower and chill before lights out, most Israeli soldiers have time for a phone call or two to their parents, girlfriend or the like. Even the newest of immigrants probably knows someone he can call. Thanks to Garin Tzabar and my past experience and relatives in the country, I have whom to phone as well.

Or I should.

The reality is that after a long and draining day, there are few folks I want to call. This is not a comment on the remarkable people I know in Israel whom I am fortunate to call my friends and relatives. It is more a comment on myself, and my conviction that the person(s) I am looking to communicate with during these precious few minutes knows me on the level of a parent, sibling or best friend. And like every chayal boded, every lone soldier serving in the IDF far from his family and (most of his) friends, having those people to call is not to be.

From my own brief experience as a chayal boded, the toughest part of the army is not having those lifelines to reach out to and communicate the thoughts that run riot after a long day in the field. For me, this public journal is part of the solution, though I know that the real answer will come in time as I grow ever closer to my fellow soldiers and new community in Israel.

This blog as it happens, was created to be a public journal, a space where I could share even my most private frustrations and aspirations with attentive friends and family members. Military secrecy aside, I have quickly realized that this forum is not the best place to air my more private difficulties with army life, since if I have a problem with an officer or fellow soldier, courtesy demands that he find out about it from me rather than via a public source in a foreign language. So from here on out, please realize that if my experience in the IDF seems uniformly positive, part of the reason may well be that the more frustrating moments are being necessarily shelved rather than publicized online.