Wonder in the Air: Parachute Course

Parents are no longer invited by the Israeli Army to watch their children parachute. As legend has it, years ago a soldier jumped at night with a glow-stick in hand so his anxious parents would see their son. While hopping from the plane, the boy lost track of the glow-stick and it plummeted to earth. Watching the green light drop from the sky proved too much for his father, who went down with a heart attack just as his son arrived safely on the ground.



While families are kept at a distance, fear remains an ever-present element of jumping from a plane. My curiosity was my best defense against the fear I carried with me into the IDF's parachute course. Never a fan of extreme sport, my wonder at what lay beyond the gaping door of the aircraft, along with a good grasp of the technique and a healthy dose of luck, saw me safely through five wonder-full jumps.

If fear, technique and luck are the holy trinity of jump course, then laughs are the ignored fallen angel. The IDF jump course takes place over two weeks, one devoted to drilling everything from how to board the aircraft to the correct landing position and the second to the jumps, five for soldiers in the Paratroop Brigade and select special units (that'd be me!) and two for other special units invited to the course. Whether it is because the course instructors take themselves so seriously (watching everyone's heads snap to attention at the sound of a "up!" command that came out more like "ape!" was constantly hilarious--a horrible bunch of trained monkeys, ape!, we'd make!) or because orders are given in a tradition heavy sing-song cadence (haKol b'Seder!), through the first week of drills everyone was always fooling around. Ultimately the humor was the best defense against a fear that loomed beyond the pedantic training regimen.



Training week at jump course was not all a laugh. Much of the training consists of jumping from a series of mechanical contraptions, from a three story high zip-line to a back and neck ache inducing annoyance known as the Eichmann for resembling a hangman platform. The idea was to master the technique so that when the moment of truth came the body would react without thinking. A reasonable idea that, one my mind never came to terms with.

The problem started when I failed to 'feel the shock' during basic landing drills. After hours of jumping off a ramp and landing on my leg in the sand, my instructor continued to insist I was not "feeling the shock." Completed flustered, I blurted out, "Not in shock? Every time I run off the ramp I enter a world of shock you cannot imagine." Shock neto (as IDF slang has it, neto an adverb that means something like super-de-duper). What I failed to understand, to peals of laughter, is that in Hebrew the term "shock" can mean the English word or, more formally, the calf muscle. My instructor, suffice to be said, wanted me to feel my calf and not my confusion as I hit the ground!

The first time I hit the ground for real, after launching myself from a C-130 Hercules at 1,200 ft, my mind was working overdrive. "Feet together, oh please G-d, feet together, if its the last thing I do, feet..." Nailing the landing carries the same pressure, and nearly the same technique, as a gymnast at the Olympics. The fear level is nearly the equal experienced when first leaving the place. The difference is that the fear of leaving the plane comes from the lack of control (not jumping is hardly an option) while the fear of landing draws from the knowledge that with the ground rushing ever closer, your fate on touchdown is completely what you make of it.

From the moment the heavy plane took off, I sang songs with (Chel Avir, Commando Chel Avir is the fave) and without (Kol HaOlam Kulow is my charm) everyone to calm my fears. We sat on a low bench, cumbersome jumping equipment wedged every which way, singing and blinking back fear in the eerie red-light. A few minutes and the place reaches the sandy beaches we will be jumping over. Instructors in snazzy pilot overalls start barking out commands. You stand and your body goes through the motions of grabbing the overhanging chord and readying yourself for launch. And then the side doors are thrown open, the wind comes rushing in, and the first poor boy- G-d bless his naive soul- goes flying out into open space. This is when the fear takes hold. Everyone shuffles forward. And like a bull on his way to slaughter, you can do nothing but shuffle forward with all the rest, eyes glued to the blue and white doorway that draws ever closer.

Suddenly no one is in front of you. Your hands are holding the sides of the aircraft, one foot forward as you have been taught. Throat so dry, nerves outstretched...



"Jump!"

You hesitate. You jump immediately.



It hardly matters because suddenly, somehow, the wind is taking you where it wants, body thrown around like a wooden puppet dancing his final dance. After less than two seconds of disorientating puppet ballet, the parachute opens and everything straightens out--canopy above, man below--like it should. And if you are like me and everyone else, you look up, see the white circle of fabric above, and thank the Lord the parachute is doing its job and none of the terrifying eventualities have come into play.

And then comes the wonder.

And the silence.

The glorious silence.

Eight seconds of wonder in the air. Eight seconds with the world on mute. Eight seconds of what must be flight, angels wings, because the ground is ever so far away and here I am, floating effortlessly through the sky. If it is a night jump, the world below seems aflame with pinpricks of light. By day there is only the blues of water reaching up to touch the sky while here and there are the greens and browns and grays and black of rural and urban life.

And then suddenly--it always comes in a rush--the wonder is replaced by the overwhelming reality that the hard ground is rushing ever closer. So close now, mental gymnastics time: What direction is the wind? Is my helmet fastened properly? Feet together, feet together.

I was greeted by a jeep on my first landing. Jeep being slang for when the wind is so strong that on landing, you get pulled along the ground by a canopy roaring along in the wind like a 4x4. I was plowed up and down sand dunes, through dozens of bushes, until one bush finally snagged my parachute. Save for the jeep, I took pride in executing a near perfect landing, toes lightly touching before my body rolled, calf muscle and all, over to the side. The rest of my landings were more touch and go with my helmet saving me from serious injury on at least two occasions.

Serious injury was an all too frequent occurrence with a few boys messing up their legs on every jump. All the injuries had taken place among the ranks of the Paratroop Brigade soldiers until the final night jump when one of my own messed up his leg. I was the first to reach my friend, running from my own landing site in the direction of the anguished cries of pain. Others came and we tended to our friend with the sinking knowledge that his injury would terminate his stay in our unit.

My friend's injury made the concluding ceremony all the more affecting. To the tune of Kol HaZman Tzanchan, our instructors pinned paratrooper wings (canfatz) to our chests. When my instructor reached me, he paused and set his bag of metallic wings aside.

"I have something else for you," he explained. "I want you to have my own wings, the ones I received when I completed the course."



"Why," I stammered, "what did I do?"

"You're just, you're a good man Charlie Brown," he said. While Minnesota's most famous cartoon hero was not actually part of his remarks, the line hung in the air as I thanked the instructor and promised to be worthy of the trust he had shown in me.

"You've jumped from a plane with nothing but a small strip of fabric on your back," my instructor told me as we said our goodbyes. "You realize what that means right? There is nothing now you cannot do. Because you'll always have those jumps as part of you."

My first day at jump school I had been buzzed to have arrived, proud that I had made it to a course that more than any other had served as some sort of goal when I had enlisted. Two weeks later I was leaving, silver wings on my chest reminding me nothing now was beyond my reach.

Note: All photos are public domain materials from the US Department of Defense. None of these are from the IDF since parachute photographs are prohibited. Check out this website for cool US parachute photos.

The Mavi Marmara Mistake

My world is full to bursting with the doings and demands of one of the IDF's most elite units. So when the rest of the world turned their attention recently to one of our sister units, Israel's naval commandos, I felt a certain level of undesired empathy. With all the confusion of what exactly took place on May 31, when Israeli naval commandos stormed the decks of six ships headed toward Gaza with humanitarian supplies, I also feel necessary to add my own few cents.

From what I gather, the basic story is as follows:

This summer a team of international, largely Turkish, pro-Palestinian activists organized a flotilla of ships to carry humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, a territory Israel and Egypt have placed under blockade since the radical Hamas group seized power in Gaza in June 2007. While Israel supplies humanitarian goods to Gaza, the blockade is intended to prevent Hamas from obtaining weapons like the rockets that continue to be fired on Israeli communities from Gaza. The flotilla was designed to call attention to the blockade, shaming Israel into opening Gaza's borders. As the boats approached Gaza in late May, Israel communicated they would defend the naval blockade and suggested the humanitarian goods be sent to Gaza through the Israeli port of Ashdod. When the activists refused, Israeli naval commandos boarded the six boats. Five of the boats were seized with no loss of life. Fighting broke out on the largest boat, the Mavi Marmara, leading to the death of nine activists and dozens injured on both sides. While the humanitarian supplies were then unloaded in Ashdod and sent to Gaza, Israel was heavily criticized by governments and mass demonstrations throughout Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Exactly what happened on board the Mavi Marmara, why the operation did not proceed as smoothly as it did on the other boats, remains mired in controversy. As an Israeli soldier, serving in a similar unit to the soldiers who carried out the mission in late May, I know first hand that the naval commandos and their officers are not brainless stormtroopers. I have heard that the commandos boarded the boats with paint-guns, with hand guns holstered and only to be used as a last resort. The special forces soldiers I know would not indiscriminately fire into a crowd or eagerly fire upon political activists. But they would fight to defend their peers, especially as I have read when some of their fellow soldiers were captured or otherwise threatened by gangs of violent activists.

So much for my personal perspective. My real issue with the operation is that it was a mistake from the beginning. The activists were looking to shame Israel. They came to instigate. Sending soldiers on board, even with clear orders to refrain from firing unless absolutely necessary, was providing the activists with the opportunity they craved. Of course some of the activists seized their chance to create a riot! The Israeli response should have been based on how can we best achieve our objectives- maintaining the legitimacy of the Gaza blockade and avoiding a media firestorm- and how we can best ensure that our opponents' objectives- shaming Israel and delegitimatizing the blockade- are not achieved. The fact that five of the six boats were taken without casualties suggests the commando operation had some technical sophistication. Nonetheless, the risk was too high that our opponents would stand to gain by sending armed soldiers on board. As committed as I am to becoming as skilled a soldier as I can be, I recognize that my services will not always be most effective to the dangers my state confronts. Israel leaders failed in that regard, failed to craft a more skilled response that would have ensured our opponents did not triumph in this tragic confrontation.

Surprise Birthday Party, by Mail

Gone are the days when soldiers would eagerly await the delivery of the weekly mail, bringing word from their sweethearts and loved ones about the world that continues to spin in their absence. Cellphones, text messages and 3G email access have made the precious letter that a soldier would lovingly guard for weeks on end a relic of another age. Relics have their place, however, especially in a unit where regular cellphone use is forbidden.

Several weeks after my birthday, while resting from a draining day of parachute drills, I received a small package from overseas. My sister's long promised gift had arrived! Inside were the gifts every soldier loves: durable socks and energy bars!

But what was this? Buried within the goodies was a small blue notebook. A journal by the looks of it. Just what I need, I feebly smiled, more paper to fill with one-sided conversations. But then I opened the small booklet and my smile took on a warm glow.

Inside were dozens of letters and photos from family and friends, each writing to me at the request of my sister on my birthday. If I hadn't had my fill of tears two weeks before on my birthday, I may have shed a few more. The words were so full of life, so true to the particular relationship I have with a given family member or friend. Reading the letters and taking in the pictures transported me from the muggy tent full of tired and naked soldiers to a surprise birthday party, attended my all manners of dear friends and family whom, with all the time in the world, spoke to me, revitalizing our ties with an energy I can take back with me to my daily reality.

For Love of Navigating

I will learn her curves and swells the way a husband learns his wife. I will learn to love this land by walking her every inch, and seeing her every beauty. There will be no secret place I will not see, and there will be no inch I will not tread.

These poetic words are how a friend of mine serving elsewhere in the IDF described the process of learning how to navigate in the Israeli Army (he also ties navigation exercises to the evils of the Obama administration, in an extended rant!). My own experience with army navigation has yet to inspire Pablo Neruda-like levels of romantic allegories. Yet with months of navigation before me, anything could happen!

My unit devotes more time to land navigation exercises than anyone else in the IDF. We cover the entire country, first learning the basics with veterans and then setting out in groups of four, two and eventually, by ourselves. Navigating always takes place at night, with enigmatic ridge lines and dry river beds shrouded in the inky darkness.

The basic idea is similar to any novice of orienteering. Earlier in by day we are given a map and a series of coordinate points in the wilderness. Over the next few hours we design a path that takes in all the points, and then memorize the relevant topography that lies along our route. The navigation itself will take place without a map, testing our recall and grasp of the wilderness. The evening exercises are also a physical test, since there is a limited time provided to arrive at the end point. And as veterans of my unit add with a grimace, the unimaginably heavy weight we eventually carry means the nights are not simply a test of memory and wilderness lore.

To get a good sense of IDF navigational exercises, see here.

BONUS
Shortly after arriving at our unit's base, a senior officer laid out the ropes as to what we can and cannot share about the remainder of our training. What can we share? Nothing! So what do we tell family and friends? Well, said the officer, since a big chunk of your training involves navigational exercises, from now on that is your answer. If anyone asks what you are doing, reply with just one word: Navigation!

Save Liberal Democracy in Israel!

What if [American Jewish college] students had been told that their generation faces a challenge as momentous as any in Jewish history: to save liberal democracy in the only Jewish state on earth?
An excerpt from the very necessary essay posted in full below.

I rarely post writings from elsewhere to this site. Mostly because the purpose of this public journal is to share my own reflections and not advertise positions or people I agree with. Nevertheless when I read something (an all too rare phenomenon with my limited time) that speaks to the very path I have chosen and the decisions I wrestle with every day, then I am obligated to share it with you. If you have not yet read the following, I urge you to. Not because you need to agree. But because you need to, as the author says, "watch," to pay attention to reality.

UPDATE: My Take
I agree wholeheartedly with Beinart's message that my generation faces a moral imperative to strengthen liberal democracy in Israel. Beinart strikes a false note, however, in arguing that the disinterest of American Jewish college students in Israel is due to the failure of the American Jewish leadership to foster a more liberal Zionism. The reality is that American Jewish students increasingly have little interest in Israel becaue they have increasingly little interest in their Judaism.

Orthodox Jews are not supporters of Israel because they sympathize with a conservative political ethos. They identify with Israel because a Jewish community in the land of Israel is a key tenet of their religious identity. Young Jews do not have to subscribe to orthodox Judaism to care about the Jewish state. But they do need to care and to understand what their Judaism means to them. Lack of support for Israel, sky-rocketing intermarriage, a dearth of young leadership in communal organizations. Each challenge stems from the same crisis within the American Jewish community.

The message is simple: if you do not value your Judaism, you have no reason to care for Jewish values. Beinart errs in identifying the failure to foster liberal Zionism as the key failure of the American Jewish establishment. The overwhelming threat the community faces is the desertion of the next generation, a generation that like the fourth son at the Passover Seder does not even know to ask about his lost heritage.

The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

By Peter Beinart (from NY Review of Books)

In 2003, several prominent Jewish philanthropists hired Republican pollster Frank Luntz to explain why American Jewish college students were not more vigorously rebutting campus criticism of Israel. In response, he unwittingly produced the most damning indictment of the organized American Jewish community that I have ever seen.
Article continues here.

A Birthday Release

The day after tomorrow I will be twenty-five. This is a good age, the "prime of life." It is once again a time of decision for me, I have decided I would like to be a company commander (mem"pei). The problems are how, where, when, under what conditions...I don’t feel like I am aging, the fact that I will finish my next position at age 26 or 27 is not worrisome. I am pleased that-
From the unfinished, final letter, dated 13 September 1987, of Alex Singer, an American lone soldier who was killed in Lebanon shortly after his 25th birthday.

I cried on my birthday. Cried like I have not cried in years. Cried as if every emotion that has been locked up inside of me for the last year and then some had been converted to water and was pouring down my cheeks like Niagara Falls. And after all that crying? I was horribly dehydrated. But first, some back-story.

Before the back-story, at the end of this post I added the ode a wonderful friend sent me for my birthday. So skip down below if you'd like to read his trippy lyrics and avoid my birthday melodrama.

My twenty-fifth birthday was to occur in my kibbutz home in the company of my garin. Friday May 14 marked a Garin Shabbat, the twice a year event when every member of my garin is released from the army in order to allow us to share a rare shabbat together on kibbutz. The day before the expected release, my commander asked me if I really wished to attend the garin event, bearing in mind I would miss military activities scheduled for Friday morning and Saturday night. Before reminding me that the decision was mine to make, he added that in his opinion it would be a pity for me to miss the training. Inwardly I was torn between not wanting to miss out on the garin or military activities. While one internal voice reminded me that the military should always take priority over my garin (after all, I joined Garin Tzabar largely for what it could add, not detract, from my military service), my decision had in fact already been made. There was no way I would act contrary to the implied directive of my commander that I stay. And so I assured him I wished to follow what he thought was in my best interest and remain in the army for the weekend.

My decision made, Friday May 14 passed very quickly. Beyond hoping my commander would grant the religious soldiers ample time to use our cellphones before shabbat, I was at ease with spending the dawn of my 25th year in uniform. At ease, that is, until my commander ripped into me shortly before shabbat. For five minutes he personally criticized me for failing to live up to standards in the inspection he had just concluded of our team's gear. I was willing to accept his decision to single me out for criticism, despite the public disappointment he had just voiced with nearly everyone. What really got to me, however, was that he allowed me no space to respond as he tore me apart. As fair as most of his criticisms were, the inability to voice what I thought set off a domino impact within me. When he was finished with me, I turned away filled with anger. The anger was largely irrational, yet it was pure anger all the same.

Following the regular end of the week group discussion, time was finally granted for the religious guys to use their phones. A dozen minutes, yippee ki yay. I slipped a call to my garin coordinator, ending the mournful conversation by confessing how disappointed I was that my officer had not granted me enough time to speak with my parents on my birthday.

And that is when they came. The tears. By the hundreds. Every tear bringing their entire extended family of tears along for the ride. It was as if the irrational anger I had felt earlier had kicked in a door I have kept locked within me through my service. A room where I keep all the frustration that comes with not being understood and being unable to communicate as I would like to with my officers and peers. A room that has never seen the light of day. Until today. Until now.

Minutes before shabbat, my parents suddenly called. I forced myself to get it together and managed a few sentences before telling them I needed a moment. Putting the phone aside, the tears came rushing back. Clearly, they were not done with me, nor was I done with them. When I got back on the phone, my parents could tell something very strange was going on. But time had run out and I had to hang-up, running off to the start of what I hoped would be a restful and reflective shabbat. The ironic coda to the weekend is that I was horribly dehydrated all shabbat afternoon, burdened by a painful headache and general lethargy the likes of which I only remember from the very worst of hangovers. Whether the tears were the release I secretly needed, I cannot say for sure. But they provided me with a link to my quarter-century birthday I will not soon forget.

Bonus
The following week my commander, per his custom, gave me a book as birthday present. Per my own custom to give gifts to others on my birthday, I had asked a friend to buy a book I intended to give to my fellow soldiers. Ironically, the very book I had intended to give was what I found waiting on my bed from my commander: Alex Singer: Building A Life in the new Hebrew translation! The gift was all the more timely considering what Alex wrote in his final letter (excerpted above), providing an unexpected link between our twenty-fifth birthdays.


A friend's Birthday Ode

Yes, he's the man we all know best,
With Chinese books clutched to his chest,
Now passing yet another test
Of quite a different kind...

This story starts a year ago,
At a marathon, we watched him go
Back and forth until, you know,
He only came in third...

He spent six weeks in Syr-ia,
Eluding capture, this Kshatriya!
Now he rocks the cafeter-ia -
Which has the better hummus?

Undaunted, our man bravely rose
Between the bird and cat he chose,
Neither would give him much repose,
Or even a weekend off...

Far gone is that day, I mutter,
When Sammy lay down in the gutter
His lips gushing wine like water
To Avital's delight...

Yes, now he has gone off to fight
Carrying stretchers late at night;
Unto the nations, he's a light
And to those he left behind...

Like a Swedish heart that sings sad songs
And with the northern lights belongs;
No worries, though, he's still a Chong!
(i.e. he's still got time...)

A man appearances cannot rile:
His Facebook pic - oh, it's been a while!
Marching to his own tough style,
He'll never wash his kippa.

So I suggest we all call out,
On behalf of he that we here tout,
For a mighty, cross-border shout
Of shēngrì kuàilè!

Masa Aliyah: Identity At Last

A giant kingfisher, azure wings and crimson crest strapped on to the hardy chest of a unit veteran, welcomed me to the Israeli Air Force base I will call home for the duration of my military service. After five months of basic training, first with the Nachal Brigade and then in my unit's own version of boot camp, I had arrived. Seventeen months of intensive commando instruction lie ahead. Ninety kilometers of twilight trekking lay behind me. Yet when the costumed kingfisher pulled me into a circle of rave dancing soldiers, I gladly threw my legs in the air and filled the air of my new base with cries of utter joy.

Most Israeli combat soldiers culminate their training with a masa kumta, a beret march designed to test endurance and composure over the course of an exhaustive all night trek. A hundred or more kilometers used to be the norm until the army changed tracks to stress the weight soldiers carry rather than the distance they travel. So today regular combat soldiers face a forty to sixty km hike before receiving the colorful beret- brown for Golani, red for the Paratroopers, bright green for Nachal, purple for Givati, etc- that identify where they serve.

No berets awaited us at the end of our mega-masa. But we started our ninety km trek with an even more desired objective: to finally arrive at our unit's real base, to finally gain a sense of identity and home better than any round French cap. After barely avoiding elimination from the unit the day before, I began what is known as the masa aliyah with an even higher level of motivation. I am so happy to be here, I repeated to myself as we set out in the early afternoon from a sandy bluff in the southern desert.

So happy, so happy, I repeated, as the sun set, as exhaustion and a stubborn knee pain became my only companions, as our steps took us out of the desert and towards the sea. Over the course of the night, two of our guys went down with leg injuries. Both times we responded by opening our stretchers and, until the next rest stop, carrying our peers through the endless night. I was frustrated all night by a searing pain in my left knee, painful enough to neutralize the high energy I usually bring to our masa'ot. The knowledge that I only the day before I had been given a second lease on remaining in the unit kept me going. A brief pep talk from my commander also added to the fire. A few hours before daylight, most of my team had been reduced to a catatonic pace, stumbling along with a glazed look in their eye. My commander responded by calling everyone to his side. Looking into our eyes, he reminded us that there is nothing a locham in our unit cannot overcome. "Raise your heads high," he insisted, "and stay close." Our pace picked up, the sun soon brought the promise of a new day and before we knew it we were only a few kilometers away from the base.

The rest of the masa was crescendoed pandemonium. First a gaggle of teens from Ben Shemen and fathers and older brothers whom also served in the unit emerged from buses and cars to walk by our side for the last few kilometers. Together we arrived at the beach, the sand and sea reminding me all too well of the infamous masa along the coast of Israel. And just like the conclusion to that incredible journey, again all hell broke loose. All of machzor 2008, the soldiers who began our unit's two years of training in November 2008, came bounding down from the dunes, dressed in all manner of bizarre costume and armed with everything from ox horns to rocket launchers. They transformed the last few kilometers into a frenzied dash, calling out random groups of soldiers ("Kol haKibbutznikim, Kadima!" All kibbutzniks to the front! Or: "Kulam eem Chaverot Yafot, Kadima" Everyone with a pretty girlfriend, to the front!) to race to the front of the march. The funniest moment came when a few of the 2008 soldiers realized who I was and with a shout called out, "Kol HaChesterim, Kadima!" All the Chesters, forward! The joke, one that has accompanied me through my training, lying in the bizarre coincidence that the only other lone soldiers serving in my unit is a fellow with the 2008 gang with my same surname.

Propelled by the soldiers of 2008, we arrived by the gates of our base. Yesterday these same gates had stood before me, barred and grim as my future in the unit was decided. Now they were opened wide in welcome. Beyond the entrance, the hundred plus soldiers whom serve my unit in non-combat roles stood in two lines. We ran between them, cheered and clapped like conquering heroes. No tekes kumta [beret ceremony] awaited us in the base. Instead the next hour played host to a mix of rave dancing and silly skits as each division of our unit introduced themselves, from the Krav Maga instructors to the mechanic and medical teams. We were introduced one by one, like a graduation ceremony, and then instructed to close our eyes. With cries of "November 2009 to the pool," unseen soldiers threw us over their shoulders and ran towards what, in my exhausted delirium, seemed to be a desired dunking. Instead they dropped us off at the nearby dining hall for a banquet of sorts that formally inaugurated our aliyah [ascent] to the unit.

Fate & Future at Stake: Va'ada

Backed into a corner, most anyone will fight to protect himself. That instinct served me well the morning of the fifth of May when my fate and future was decided. Following last week's sociometry, I was one of three members of my unit called in for interviews to decide if we would stay on or be sent packing. Known as a va'ada (or va'adot in the plural), the process is trauma incarnate. A senior officer took me apart for twenty minutes, grilling me on my faults and questioning whether I even deserved to remain as a combat soldier in the IDF.

I was the very last soldier to be interviewed. Before entering the sparse room, symbolically situated right outside the base I would never enter if I was kicked out, a few junior officers came by to offer some verbal encouragement. In the grim atmosphere, their passing words echoed scenes from Dante's Inferno, as friends and foes share messages with the wanderer on his journey through hell. My fellow soldiers' response to their interviews did little to dispel the gloom. Both emerged in tears. One was spared, the other told that his service within our special unit was over. Moments later our officer arrived to collect the dismissed boy's gun. The scene reminded me of the infamous sketching of Dreyfus, standing upright as his sword was broken by the gates of French military headquarters.

"Do you know why you are here?" was the first question I was asked. I answered in the affirmative and then for twenty minutes spoke as clearly and confidently as I ever have in Hebrew. I owned up to my failues, and added as well that my inability to communicate with my peers had often frustrated my ability to live up to my potential within the unit. The officer asking the questions was far from friendly, cutting me off and challenging my word throughout the interview. But when I answered the final question, "Why should we keep you on," without a trace of hesitation, I left the room composed. Whatever they would decide, I knew I had finally had my say.

Five minutes later I was called back in to hear their decision. Not guilty, your honor! Not guilty in that I would remain with my unit. However, they spared no words in insisting that I raise my level of soldiery, advising me that verbal challenges aside, I needed to let my actions speak louder than my words.

The next day I rejoined the rest of my unit. Everyone was in shock at the loss of the dismissed soldier (and, to be frank, that of the two of us, I had remained). He was one of the better athletes, best shots, a medic, and a kid as mature as he was sociable. The reason he was kicked out, ultimately, is that he could not own up to the faults the commanders saw in him. My own ability to do so, my desire to improve and my success at communicating that to my officers, is what got me through that harrowing Wednesday morning.

Judging Our Own: First Sociometry!

Our sergeant took leave of us this past week, remarking at the close of an exit discussion that nearly half his unit was dropped over the course of the two year training. "And the first three were dropped at this point in the training." The mood amongst my team could be summed up by one word: oy.

And so the next day, when we were asked to anonymously suggest which three guys least deserved to remain in the unit, the writing was on the wall. The harsh question came as part of the sociometry, a device used within elite military units--and Israeli society at large--to decide who makes it and who does not.

The questions on the sociometry asked us to grade our fellow soldiers on the following categories. I share them because there is no better way to grasp what the Israeli military expects of its top soldiers then by scanning these categories. Most important of all is professionalism. The rest of the categories are as follows: interpersonal success, involvement in group activities, commitment to assigned tasks, command in crisis, personal discipline, personal honesty, motivation, potential for officership, command ability, fitness to be a locham [fighter].

Filling out the sociometry is a harrowing process, all the more so because for the last six months camaraderie and teamwork have been rammed down our throats. Yet suddenly we are being asked to turn on each other, with as critical an eye as possible, and push three of our fellows into the abyss. It could not have been a coincidence that the sky had turned ashen gray with a cold rain, two hours after my peers and I had finished betraying the young men who were our everything for the last half year.