Lunar Bach: Week Zero

After a relaxing free weekend, I was dressed in my Madim Aleph (dress uniform) and on the bus to base for the first time. Given a meeting time of 9:00 A.M. in the south of Israel, I had to spend Saturday night at my mashakit's home. Nonetheless, I made it just on time.

Again, to the bus station in uniform. This time, however, it was a very different experience. On Sunday mornings, the busses are almost exclusively used by soldiers. Each bus packed to capacity by those in uniform struggling to make it to their bases on time, you almost forget you're using public transportation.

 

When I finally arrived at the meeting point for Tzanchanim, I met with my temporary mefaked (commander) and machlakah (company), before boarding yet another bus and headed to the base.

Though I've seen pictures of Bach Tzanchanim in the past, driving into the gates for the first time was a truly surreal experience. The red wings at the entrance, the stone buildings and walkways, here I was at the base I had always dreamed about. Nicknamed Lunar Bach because of it's unusually high standards relative to other army bases, Bach Tzanchanim is an American built base which looks almost more like a college campus from the outside.

After setting our gear down in our temporary rooms (Tzanchanim have the privilege of sleeping indoors during training), we proceeded off to have lunch, unusually good as far as the army goes, and began our week of Trom Tironut (orientation to basic training).

 
Trom Tironut, also known as Shavuah Efes (week zero), is the week leading up to Tironut (basic training). Included in the week are talks by main officers of the base detailing everything from rules of conduct, how to get dressed, to life as a soldier in Tzanchanim.

Among the most exciting of these typically mundane speeches came on the first night, with the head of the entire base giving a speech about friendship. He informed us that we haven't known friendship like the kind we'll see at the base, in our units, where we will become brothers with those we fight with. A short video about the upcoming few months followed, and my excitement for what to come was at an all-time high. 

We filled out forms, including our preferences of Gdud (battalion), something I'll discuss more in detail in the next week or two, and underwent routine tasks such as medical checks and paperwork before the gibbush the following night.

As I've mentioned in the past, each infantry unit has three specialized branches attached to it: anti-tank experts Orev, reconnaissance experts Palsar, and explosives experts Palchan. Anyone within the brigade can attend an optional gibbush to the aforementioned units. Unique to Tzanchanim are two other units attached to the gibbush: Maglan and Duvduvan (a unit you need to be specifically invited to try out for).

I've always maintained a desire to be in the gdud (regular battalion) of Tzanchanim for a number of reasons. The lifestyle and spirit of the gdud is something unique, often not found in more specialized units. The Tzanchanim gdud is given the privilege of jump school, something usually only afforded to specialized units in other infantry brigades. Joining a specialized unit would mean signing on an extra six months right now, something I'm certainly in no place to do at the moment given that I've just begun my service, and I've already fulfilled my dream by earning a spot in Tzanchanim. For all of those reasons, I elected not to participate in the gibbush.

Along with the others who chose not to participate, as well as the hundreds who dropped from the tryout, I proceeded to do tedious labor around the base for my first week. 

While the only thing I'm really trained in at this point is painting walls from beginning to end (hole sealant, sanding down, applying paint thinner, etcetera), I've also become used to the lifestyle of a soldier. Waking up at 5:30 A.M. and having seven minutes to be dressed and outside in a chet has become secondhand knowledge to me, as has speaking to superiors and running from place to place.

The week certainly had its difficulties, but not the usual ones you'd associate with being in the army. The language barrier was beyond difficult for the first few days, given that everything (including speech) is much faster in the army and I've never learned specific army terms which are used on a daily basis. Therefore, establishing connections with the other guys in the first few days was difficult, making the beginning of the soldier life that much more trying.

However, after a few days, I began to connect with the guys I was with on a new level after opening up to them and doing my best to speak. Every soldier I met gave me his name followed by a “Kol Hakavod” (all the respect) for doing what I'm doing, as well as an invitation to Shabbat dinner at his home.

While the first few days were tough, my freedom as a civilian being traded in for the structure of life as a soldier, things improved drastically over the week. By the time I got home on my second hamshush (leaving on a Thursday, a very rare treat), I was excited and ready to go back to base this coming Sunday.

In the coming week, I'll be placed into my gdud and my group of ten guys who I will be training with for the next eight months. I'll begin the real training of the army in my more permanent home on the base. I'm excited for what's to come, and look forward to filling everyone in on my next open weekend.

-Brett