8740 HOURS IN THE ISRAELI ARMY; A MEMOIR
GORDON, MICHAEL
8740 hours IN THE ISRAELI ARMY: A MEMOIR MICHAEL GORDON Part I: In Passing Departure The bus lurched forward; my wife Shosh and I waved until defeated by a gradual but resolute curve in the...
...Pomp There is very little pomp and ceremony in IDF...
...The pattern of mechanical conformity was thus tightly set right from the outset...
...Even they made constant reference to "The Commander...
...But eyes and lungs soon cleared, and all that was left was the enduring lesson...
...and instead of replying, "H., you are absurd, oppressive, and possibly even insane," you stare back blankly and feebly mutter, "Yes, Sir...
...my wife Shosh and I waved until defeated by a gradual but resolute curve in the road...
...I took an extra-long time brushing my teeth—savoring the opportunity to preserve this civilian nicety for at least one out of the 364 nights that had to be faced...
...Religion The further one is removed from home, the more one seeks out and clings to the objects, routines and symbols of home...
...Captain H. was stern with us, yet understanding...
...It was a fascinating, frustrating, frightening day...
...The figure glided around the assembly in a silent circuit— thoroughly scanning each man and his equipment as he passed...
...You're Still in the Army Now Every morning at IDF's induction camp begins with what in army argot is known as the "slave market...
...For a few hours all was calm, even pleasant...
...Dirk, a Dutch Christian who had made an unplanned stopover in Israel on the way to the Far East and had wound up staying: Tuvia, who was awaiting new developments in his extradition case (two years ago in California he had tossed a molotov cocktail into the parked car of John Antukovitch, brother of and aid to ex-Nazi war criminal Andrei...
...Only on second thought does the title "Billy Budd" conjure up the ship and sea and the abused nobility of Melville's hero...
...The total mastery that his eyes and voice had established over our minds and bodies produced an immediate effect: we found ourselves marching rhythmically in place for ten solid minutes...
...Water was not always available here—hot water, never...
...The Fight for Home If we had some advanced warning, the shock might not have been so bad...
...There was one person who had to be made to understand: my wife Shosh...
...One can only wonder at the fact that the army—if it had already concerned itself with the issue and worked out a reasonable solution— should apply this solution only to men who announced they were religious, while the others were instructed to violate Jewish law...
...Test shoe sizes...
...In civilian life...
...This brief exercise caused more strain and tension than all the creeping, crawling, rumbling and tumbling put together...
...With the next bombardment, we braced ourselves for an immediate charge forwards...
...Stars, Mosquitoes, and Me In Only in America, Harry Golden recounts the following incident: one day in a restaurant he had ordered a side dish of peas, but was served beans by mistake...
...Besides, a new factor gradually appeared and divided us—educational and cultural backgrounds...
...But as Captain of the Captain's Inspection his countenance was awesome, even spectral...
...Captain H. probably did not cast a particularly striking image, with a bland face too small for the body—which itself was noticeably undersized...
...We then counted off until we reached the man with that number, who became loser number one...
...Trunks of vehicles were searched for suspicious-looking items...
...Language Language can be a weapon, but so can lack of language...
...Most cab and bus drivers who were asked to produce their licenses took the request as a personal affront, an unwarranted aspersion on the spotless reputations they had established by driving over the straight and narrow for so many years...
...The room was filled with a mild solution of noxious gas...
...Civilian activities, such as reading or writing, could be engaged in during army time, and before very long army life afforded more leisure hours for these "luxury" activities than civilian life had...
...It is true that the desert symbolizes primitive freedom, but an army framework ties neat knots on the infinitudes of sand and time...
...Once I got a hitch with two colonels...
...It's not even easy getting to a battle—much less fighting it...
...To wait in an enormous line in absolute silence for up to 45 minutes, to finally file in one by one and ingratiatingly extend mess tins for scoops of this and scoops of that—is enough to make you want to bite the hand that feeds you...
...a neighbor may have accidentally brushed by one's bed, knocking a bullet or shaving brush slightly askew...
...As soon as basic training ended, the cannons rolled in...
...Even now the ambushers had no problem disappearing into the myriad of nooks, crooks, and crevices along the sinuous alleyways which they knew so well...
...The canteen had to be dried so thoroughly that it looked thirsty...
...The Outing Conditions on our base seemed crude until we went on our first field maneuvers...
...When I think of Billy Budd...
...There, usually, only the two highest officers remain nameless...
...Then we were assembled for an oath of allegiance to the State and Army...
...Our inadequacy was their jubilation...
...This leveling, which continues at close quarters 24 hours a day, month after month, demands elasticity and adaptability...
...Gas masks do not fit snugly over whiskers, and for this reason all beards must be shorn in wartime...
...I was spared the burden of choice, as IDF wasn't shopping around for any English teachers...
...Today it was our turn...
...With morning, as we set to move out to our basic training camp, each man mentally prepared himself for new limits of hunger, sleepiness, exhaustion and filth...
...Three inseparable Indians and a Swede were thrown in for color, and the brew was spiced by a Danish convert getting a taste of his third army (after the Danish and the UN...
...missiles streak into the night...
...Conversely, home leaves were not free from work and responsibility...
...They could easily have made a movie out of "Budapest," the only base along the Suez which had held out throughout the Yom Kippur war...
...At 7 a.m...
...Golden, mosquitoes are even smaller than peas, but there are times when they're of more concern than all the celestial bodies in the universe combined...
...As for shower facilities—we had our canteens...
...After four hours of recuperation, I dressed in civilian clothes, and went to mingle with the Friday night congregation at the synagogue...
...The creatures here could never be made to understand the incredibly bizarre terms of a soldier's existence and sacrifice...
...On our first field maneuvers I stumbled across my commander defecating in a thicket...
...Roll up your sleeves for shots...
...The officer handling questions explained that according to statistics most of our tank losses in the last war were caused by hits from enemy tanks, and not from Saguers, which are carried on the backs of infantrymen...
...As we gaped at them through the windows, it hardly seemed possible that the hilarious variety of sizes, shapes and colors displayed before us would soon be molded into a solid khaki mass...
...Perhaps our overwrought minds were coloring our vision here, because never again in basic training did we see drills quite so dazzling...
...We became proficient at crawls through dirt, mud and thorns...
...Perhaps it was intended to be just that, a way of saying, "When Arab violence spreads, why should only Jews get annoyed...
...Hebrew tests were given, and the lowest scorers earmarked for month-long Hebrew courses at some later date...
...The images, ideas and impressions will take longer to pass...
...Sign out for travel clothes, beret, Bible, sewing kit, first aid manual, kit bag, shoes, socks, underclothes, towels, sweaters, toothbrush, shaving brush...
...We dropped down from our trucks, and within instants, before we had a chance to regain our equilibrium, we were transformed into Company C-3...
...Each squad was assigned a patrol route in or around "Cas-bah," Nablus' old market district—the focus of trouble...
...We encountered gangs of twenty or thirty, and then several well-coordinated mobs who surrounded us and attacked simultaneously...
...A movie screen was propped up, and "Decameron" made its Sinai premiere...
...He and his friends screamed, cursed and waved fists at the throwers—a couple of teenagers slinking off, some forty yards from us...
...What got recorded for Western viewers was armed Israeli forces storming bewildered youth in panicky flight...
...True, these gangs ultimately dispersed in the face of a charge, but the dangers were becoming critical and the loss of prestige appalling...
...Additional tracts of desert were to be turned over to the United Nations...
...A cameraman of one foreign network happened to be on the scene of the day's largest confrontation...
...As we set for our charge, the cameraman set for his newsreel...
...Tents "How goodly are thy tents, oh Jacob...
...Jewish tradition has meaning for me in civilian life, and army life pushed me that much closer to religion...
...The texture of our kit bags, helmets, knapsacks, ammunition belts, gas masks and blankets had to take on the aura of some fine fur...
...It was breathtaking topography, especially in light of the history...
...Gradually—as soldiers are released one by one, month by month, and new faces take their places—one begins to view his own period of service as only a small mark on a wheel constantly and inexorably in spin...
...In what was evidently a coordinated maneuver, an ally of his attacked the left ear, and a group of highly skilled reinforcements joined the fray...
...To ease the tension, we sang, hummed and whistled uproariously during the entire ride...
...The other companies, being composed of younger men, received even rougher treatment...
...A second number was chosen—and a second loser...
...life simmered down to a bearable routine of boredom and busywork...
...We were taken there on a "this might be your last chance to see it" guided tour...
...In fact, things were so peaceful that it was hard to figure out exactly what our continued presence was meant to accomplish...
...Coming to attention, marching, standing, sitting, rifle carrying and other miscellaneous drills are allotted a fair amount of time in basic training, but are forgotten soon afterwards...
...This seemed to be merely a procedural routine, because the trunk was the last place a terrorist with any savvy would hide something suspicious...
...Relations change in the regiments...
...Only occasionally were there special assignments—such as the one in Nablus...
...Stand in line . . . When does a civilian become a soldier...
...The Gates of the City Our next assignment, fortunately, proved far less thrilling...
...The results—like all the results that were to follow—were heartbreaking...
...A number of local seven-oreight-year-olds marched along with us for the fun of it...
...If that were so, then why were we now being asked to form a line in back of the last "beardee...
...Americans and other native English speakers predominated, followed by Russians, South Americans and Rumanians...
...Each soldier freezes into place beside his display bed and stares numbly straight ahead...
...After a few hours of rambling and rumbling along at forty miles per hour in the unit's chamber, we began to appreciate the relative silence and smoothness of a ride on a New York subway...
...The gas got to my eyes and lungs, and when at last I hit the ground outside, it seemed certain I'd be the first one to actually die from the effects...
...Nablus It was a day to remember—and a day we'll all try to forget...
...And thus perfect symmetry was achieved in the tent...
...These two men were selected through a game of chance...
...The crucial link in both the physical and psychological transformation is the act of suiting up...
...Following the evening's grand, outdoor ceremony to welcome the new recruits, we unwound with showers...
...One of the hardest things to swallow was the food line...
...If the human ingredients do not go well together, there's trouble...
...When a quarrel does arise, the cause is usually not a differential in education, culture or courtesy, but rather some inequitable distribution of garbage detail, kitchen duty, home leave...
...If you only knew how much harder I should be driving you in view of your slack, unsatisfactory performances, you would get down on your knees in gratitude and kiss my...
...Come and have a fling at Israeli troops, who will retaliate by treating you to a spirited game of hide and seek" was the message that spread through the town...
...In camouflage practice, each soldier became one part man, three parts tree...
...In the army, college graduates are mixed with men boasting no more than eight or ten years' schooling...
...In basic training the synagogue became a refuge from the depersonalization of the world outside...
...The waitress never was informed of her mistake...
...We were permitted to fire warning shots in the air with our rifles, but these shots soon lost their effect...
...All in all, the campaign acted as little more than an annoyance to the Arab population...
...The best assistance she could offer to most of the men would be to bring to the base hundreds of additional welfare sergeants...
...Officers have special living quarters and dining halls...
...The news was encouraging, because whether or not anything came out of these interviews, it meant that basic training— which was known to be good practice for life in hell—would be delayed for at least one more day...
...waves of dazzling yellow, red and blue mark the spot of each hit...
...He issued a solemn command: "Gordon, keep on moving...
...Stand in line...
...Take measurements for clothes fittings...
...We quickly took cover in building entrances...
...It was comforting to learn that IDF (Israel Defence Forces), shooting for homogeneity, was forming a special unit for us older immigrants...
...When riding over dirt paths, heavy layers of dust floated in freely through the open hatches...
...Golden, it works both ways...
...Michael Gordon is an English teacher who lives in Israel...
...It didn't help...
...Countless rows of fences with no visible start or finish had to be salvaged before the treaty was to take effect—the stakes uprooted and the barbed wire rolled into loops, piled, tied, and then loaded onto trucks...
...If so, an offer was made to let the soldier work in his special field, but only on condition that he sign on for extra time...
...This psychic gap between my army and civilian egos dwindled over the months...
...Once army authority was firmly established, the pressure eased up...
...Still, when people do adapt, the forced leveling in the army works not a few miracles...
...What lurked in the future remained a mystery...
...The commander explained: "You men will run in without masks, touch the far wall, and run back out...
...Any particularly unappealing order was met by us new immigrants in basic training with, "I'm only a little Hebrew...
...And the pressure diminished...
...And now Budapest was finally falling—to American pressure...
...The one daily inspection we had already gone through, with its shave, polish and rifle check by the corporals and sergeant, was child's play by comparison...
...In an anti-infiltration measure, we set up roadblocks at key intersections leading to the capital from the West Bank— stopped busses, taxis and private cars—and inspected the passengers' identity papers...
...Our every wink and whimper was observed and criticized...
...They are officially entitled to move to the front of army hitch-hike lines and telephone lines...
...One member of our squad was hit, and limping...
...Suddenly several chunks of rock crashed into the store-fronts beside us...
...Israeli troops were being sent down in an attempt to cool off tempers and preserve order...
...On my base, the two ranking officers were also the only ones greeted with salutes...
...The night was spent preparing for the following day's Captain's Inspection...
...As he lined us up in rows of three (the standard inspection formation), his eyes roamed methodically back and forth over the group and shot out impulses that neutralized everything in their field...
...Moti Ashkenazi's cutoff unit had repulsed repeated amphibious attacks from two sides, as well as land attacks from the several-mile strip leading to the city of Suez...
...The Strange Land Although I'd been inducted only a few days before, my return to Jerusalem produced the sensation of crash-landing on an unfamiliar, ethereal planet...
...How much goodlier are thy barracks...
...Not even Kafka could have improved on the proceedings of Thursday night, our second in camp...
...Sinai Vast stretches of the Sinai were about to be returned to Egypt as part of the accord derived through Kissinger diplomacy...
...And one concludes that life itself is like a period of service...
...I found more comfort in the fact that it was now already two days down, and only 363 to go...
...Shimon, who had led an activist group in Kiev for many years...
...The agent of this transformation was a tawny, diminutive sergeant, with a huge, crimson scar across his right cheek (since it disappeared within weeks, I assume it must really have been only a rash...
...Fortunately, my very appearance proved to be message enough, and she immediately began to nurse me back to physical and mental vigor...
...We were divided into squads of six or seven men, one of whom was a border patrolman with a walkie-talkie...
...You put on not only a uniform, but a uniformity, a new external identity, and to some extent a new internal one...
...Our five-week artillery course included elements of mechanics, ballistics, general artillery strategy, and periscope operation...
...Never did it occur to us that we presented the identical appearance...
...One often absorbs a book in a single sitting and in a singular setting...
...This gives the book some peculiar associations...
...blares out the soldier next to the tent opening, putting his all into the last syllable...
...There was meticulous choral repetition of all material learned...
...Arrival A number of busloads arrived at the induction camp simultaneously, and the other fledgling warriors pulled up alongside us...
...Everyone is facing the same dangers, duties, deprivations and disciplines, and stuck-up noses get yanked down hard, and the (formerly) underprivileged find a new equality...
...But at least we'd be safe from any demonstrations...
...Each man doubled up as he reached the outside, coughing and choking in what looked like his death agony...
...Questions from the audience followed the film, and the first one asked was the most piercing of all: "How do we cope with their Saguers...
...We had spent seven hours feverishly preparing for this inspection—and yet, somehow, nothing had turned out right...
...When the ground cooled, toward evening, we broke the sandy monotony with barefoot soccer...
...There were enough of these to ensure that no one would be going to sleep for the next several hours...
...My basic training company, which consisted of new immigrants only, was as motley a gathering as anyone could have concocted...
...After being pushed to the brink physically, they'd often be tongue-lashed like this: "So you think I'm running you hard, do you...
...It was a comfort to look up to God as the highest-ranking officer...
...Sense of Rotation At first one's period of service seems endless...
...The sergeant went through a second dry run at 7 a.m.—only half an hour before the actual Visitation of the Captain...
...In the second place, she assists in solving personal problems...
...None of the men succeeded in undoing the mask and fleeing the room without breathing in some of it...
...That evening we were shown a well-done movie on the Sinai tank battles of the Yom Kippur War: cannons roar...
...Whereas the 18-year-old "youngsters" were heading in for the standard three-year stint, I (age 27) would be doing the one-year service required of new immigrants between ages 19 and 29 (single men in this age bracket do more time, while men with children do less...
...Army bases in these territories had to be demolished, and soldiers were being sent down at the end of their basic training to provide the needed manpower...
...This was in compliance with the Biblical injunction to reduce sworn oaths to a minimum (although occasionally they are necessary, as in certain legal cases...
...Speak a little louder, I'm a cannoneer" goes a popular quip...
...One small, ill-guided sphere struck one of the nearby merchants on the skull...
...The final few minutes in such a situation are frenzied...
...Looking at me, one might almost have thought that I belonged to the same civilization...
...Moving Out Soldiers, we quickly discovered, have an easier time picking up hitches than even young ladies wearing t-shirts and shorts do...
...Passing In this way, the year passed...
...Several minutes later there was another barrage of rocks—this time the size of softballs, and anyone hit by the pitch would be hurting by the time he reached his base...
...our tanks advance over precipitous sand dunes with the agility of cats on the hunt...
...Our tactics would obviously have to be changed, and fast...
...The physical demands are somewhat less stringent than they are elsewhere in IDF, and so older soldiers fit into these units more easily...
...Take your pictures...
...Their menu is the same as the other soldiers', but the arrangement more elaborate and appetizing...
...the "please and thank you" men with those whose manners and sensibilities have never received much polishing...
...The Men on Top In basic training, even a corporal is viewed as a demigod, and must be addressed by a private as "The Commander...
...A devious speck of dirt may have settled on the boots one has just finished polishing...
...Attention...
...We went in when they finished, and read aloud the same pledge, but with one difference: we were told to orally substitute the word "commitment" for the word "oath" in the written text...
...Potential disasters are infinite, but alas, time runs out...
...For the first time, we were glad to return to our base...
...Our first task—filling up sand bags with which we would weigh down our tent flaps—felt like a breath of freedom, since at least it wasn't rhythmic, silent or in place...
...This is the name of the portable anti-tank missile said to make tanks as vulnerable as tin ducks in a carnival attraction...
...This is his first appearance in moment...
...Protesting the Israeli occupation, Nablus high school students had for several days been refusing to attend school, and were now inciting store-owners to initiate a general strike...
...Peripheral vision catches the outlines of the Captain, who now looms in front of the tent...
...Playing the part of Captain was our sergeant, who pointed out any dust molecules, smudges or other imperfections that had yet to be eliminated...
...We were among them...
...Again we dashed for cover, and again the culprits fled by the time we regrouped...
...During a war, the cannon erupts around three times a minute, 24 hours a day...
...We bearded men were told to stand aside, while the others were provided gas masks and instructions: One at a time they were to dash into a chamber some ten yards long, inhale through the mask, remove the mask, and scamper out...
...Only with the other men in uniform, whom 1 spotted here and there, could I hope for some sort of silent communion...
...The effects subsided within minutes, but those minutes were enough to make indelible impressions on victim and witness alike...
...This was, after all, only our first Captain's Inspection...
...Everyone's fork formed exactly the same angle with the mess tin as everyone else's, and was the same number of millimeters from his shovel...
...A field kitchen cannot compete with a permanent one...
...We stood in standard formation, and one man was asked to read off the last two digits of his rifle's serial number...
...Like most of the other older soldiers not being channeled into an academic stream, I got assigned to the artillery forces...
...With this in mind, he gave approval for our first home leave—from that Friday afternoon until Sunday morning...
...We turned the Sinai into nature's largest conveyor belt...
...Stand in line...
...The treatment included rest in a real bed, bath in a real tub (my filth rose with the vapors, and formed a solid black coating along the ceiling and walls), prodigious helpings of food on real plates—and her...
...The walking sticks we ported were totally ineffectual against rock assaults from forty or fifty yards away...
...Here the melting pot almost cracked...
...We bearded soldiers looked on aghast, and yet smug...
...Stand in line...
...Stand in line...
...Not until an official manual was produced did he grinningly concede that a soldier in IDF always comes to attention with the left foot...
...His 20-year-old face had the grimness of the Sphinx...
...All recruits are corralled together, then divided and subdivided, with some groups moving out and others staying behind until the next day's market...
...The pants I wound up with would have been a perfect fit for me at my bar mitzvah, and we taller men did some quick swapping with the others...
...Using a variety of run-fall-shoot combinations, we practiced charging and massacring dummy targets...
...At one point, a buddy and I stopped to figure out how many days we'd already spent at the basic training camp...
...Once, while bored on guard duty, I commenced the venerable undertaking of fathoming the fathomless skies...
...With such lofty concepts in mind, did it really matter whether it was peas or beans...
...Although language-linked cliques were never broken, the common predicament, the constant pressure, and the intangible bond between Jews who had come home to serve, were enough to mold a fairly compatible unit...
...From the base's large, sturdy tents and spring beds, we were reduced to pup tents for two on the good earth...
...The physical demands were not as taxing as the psychological...
...These attackers took unprecedented courage, and began closing in at a rapid pace, pummelling rocks and the like all the while...
...And cliques often form along class lines...
...But the ride, unfortunately, ended...
...A "dry run" was enacted at I a.m...
...The Captain, after all, was an Officer, and so this time we had to shine unto a glisten the following items: mess tins, silverware, ammunition magazine, toiletry supplies, shovel, and every one of the rifle's multiple parts...
...The beds were arranged in straight lines...
...Associations Free time and "borrowed time" (time spent standing on guard duty, or waiting on line, or just waiting) are not lacking in the army...
...Outside, the groups merged...
...Cannoneers Even a soldier has to specialize...
...There were war games on mountains, ambush formations at night, fox-hole digging (after which each soldier nestled into the hole he'd dug), and shoulder-carries over rough terrain...
...Although some of the equipment and construction in land passing into UN hands was to be left intact and sold, no trace of materiel was to remain in land going to Egypt...
...In the first place, she is female...
...Three of our squads had converged at an intersection, and we suddenly found ourselves trapped in by massive throngs on all four sides...
...From the reportage, one would have thought that tires set aflame here and there on the streets was the worst of the Arab protest—while in reality the tires were innocuous beside the nightmarish rock showers...
...The toughest part of basic training was now behind us—with some exceptions, exceptions like . . . Gas Masks To impress upon soldiers the gravity of gas warfare, the army conducts demonstrations with live subjects: the soldiers themselves...
...Alright, Gordon, hold your breath," I said to myself when my turn came...
...As he was about to reprimand the waitress, his thoughts drifted off to the profusion of celestial bodies in the universe, and the infinitude of space...
...Whatever the activity—whether a session in riflery or a lecture on the value of first aid—we had two minutes to dash over (anyone late repeated the dash) and then waited for at least fifteen minutes for the activity to begin, maintaining perfect stillness all the while...
...Living conditions improved vastly once we entered our permanent regiments...
...In my room alone there were "representatives" of eight different nations: Yoseph, who had left Lebanon just months before the fighting had broken out there...
...In other words, it was still a fair fight, and the best tank crew won...
...Our kits were arrayed on our beds in identical patterns...
...Suddenly came forth a Spoken Word: "Shapiro, empty the contents of your knapsack onto the bed...
...The time came for testing our mastery of the mobile fighting unit, which consists of cannon and armored.chamber, and roughly resembles a tank...
...The Melting Pot IDF is more a pressure cooker than a melting pot...
...Shopkeepers were talking quietly in front of their still-unopened stores...
...After appraising the situation, we donned our helmets and moved into the street and toward the youths, who immediately scampered away...
...The result of our calculation seemed hardly credible: we'd been there for no more than twenty-six hours...
...Just then a mosquito bit me on the back of the neck...
...We learned to prefer the boredom and busywork back at the base to special assignments...
...Impatience, frustration, and humiliation singed the psyche...
...Beni from Rumania, Shraga from Brazil, Yaacov from England and Jean-Paul, whose Hebrew sounded much more like French...
...On arrival the next morning at the academic placement center, each man was called in to see if the army was interested in utilizing his previous training...
...The barrages started to come more regularly...
...Officers even use separate toilets...
...From among the crowd of teenagers enjoying the brief transition between parental discipline and military discipline, I discerned a number of older, more settled faces...
...Basic Training Fully equipped soldiers on a nearby field were drilling furiously, charging back and forth at full speed, rifles held high, each charge climaxing in a very professional-looking crouch...
...Thousands of mines, already deactivated, also had to be loaded...
...the most recent straightening of one's beret may have tipped it off-center...
...No man would dare be caught out of step...
...Those of us professing to be religious were told to wait outside while the others entered a building for the oath...
...we started on our rounds...
...Foreign news media that day showed strong-armed Israeli repression of harmless protest...
...The real moment of truth, the real sign of a soldier's having accepted the discipline, comes when Captain H. stares you in the face and asks you, "Shapiro, don't you think you could have scraped this rust off your shovel just a bit more...
...One yank on a small cable sets the chamber rocking and the ear drum quivering...
...You're in the Army Now Stand in line...
...The Jerusalem mission came at a time when vandalism and violence in the West Bank were at a peak...
...At one official ceremony late in my service, our regiment commander was spotted coming to attention with the wrong foot...
...But we were already dressed and ready to head home for leave by the time word came that two men would have to be left behind over the weekend for guard duty...
...the Canal is crossed, Ismailia taken...
...But still I lived for leaves...
...The women on base will consort and sport only with the bars and the stars...
...Reveille, as usual, was at 5 a.m...
...Part II: Impressions Welfare The welfare sergeant is not a bit less welcome than are food, sleep and showers...
...By plodding back and forth over fixed routes, we had provided tantalizing, almost irresistible targets for the bored high-schoolers on strike...
...I see a soldier sprawling out on a patch of grass and reeds—chest (hidden from observation and regulation by the reeds) open to the salutory sun— with twelve numbers to go before his turn in the dentist chair and plenty of time for reading Melville...
...Each man with an academic degree was told he would be given a placement interview outside the camp on the following day...
...Thus a pattern was set for the remainder of the day: we would get pelted by rocks, cans, broken bottles or anything else hard and sharp—and then gallop off in futile pursuit of figures that vanished within moments...
Vol. 4 • November 1979 • No. 10
