Imun and Injury

Hours into a now routine walk through the shetach, I begin to limp once more. The familiar weight of gear on my back digs deeply into my shoulders, pressing down on the injured right foot and gradually slowing me. It's not long before I'm separated from the rest of my machlaka. Within the night, the doctor orders me back to base. For my health, I cannot finish the targad.

As we arrived in imun kayitz (summer training), excitement was in the air. We were all finally lochemim (warriors) of Tzanchanim and despite being loaded with all of the less-than-glamorous jobs due to our status of Plugat Maslool, we had “arrived.”

As I touched upon briefly, the imun is basically many weeks of shetach, a refreshment course in the basics of war. The weeks, like on the bach, begin small with a simple week of excercises in the kita, before building up to the notorious and dreaded Targad, essentially a war week involving the entire brigade of 202.

To rewind just a little bit, the masa kumta pushed everyone to the point of injury in some form or another, whether it be muscle strains or something more severe. A few days after the masa, I found that I was taking longer than most of my peers to recover, a nagging injury in my right foot being the culprit.

The injury was not new to me, being one I hadn't been entirely forthcoming about before from fear of missing the masa. What had changed was the pain, which was certainly worse now than it had ever been. With all that in mind, I decided to see the doctor before the imun and was told that I was suffering from a stress fracture in the foot and that only time would heal it. I was placed on bettim (army ordered exemptions from strenuous activity) until further notice.

And now to fast forward back to the imun:

Being on bettim, my days in the beginning of the imun were fairly monotonous. Charged with watching equipment while the rest of the soldiers were off training got very old fairly quickly. After about three weeks of rest, I began to feel deeply shavuz. Seeing your friends return from the shetach, despite being battered, bruised, and tired, while knowing you weren't there to take the beating with them and further bond with them can really affect you as a soldier. I was shocked by actually WANTING to go back to the shetach.

Feeling left out and mostly useless, I decided to give up on my bettim and hope for the best. I returned to regular activity despite not really knowing if my foot had healed or not. The first few weeks back were difficult, to say the least. Constantly thinking and worrying about my foot drove me insane. I went through odd phases of shvizut, due to the fact that I was still not healthy and most likely further injuring myself, though knowing that the alternative would be sitting on the side, a glorified security guard.

A depression truly came some time into the imun upon hearing the news that a good friend from the Garin was rushed to the hospital from the army in very serious condition. Times like these in the army are the most trying, when you wish you could be anywhere but where you are at that very moment. When you wish you could be there by the side of your loved ones. The sacrifices we make to be here are often harsh, and this was another clear sign of that.

Never one to argue with superiors or army authority, the circumstances had brought a totally different side out of me. For two weeks, I fought with commanders who refused to let me out to be by the side of a best friend. Trying times can bring upon our darkest of states and this was certainly true for me. The reason behind the rules keeping me on base just were not so reasonable to me. I became familiar with a side of me I had never known.

I've mentioned it before and I'll no doubt mention it many a time in the future; The biggest thing you gain from the army is seeing yourself in a thousand lights you've never been able to look at before. Thankfully, to their credit, the commanders understood that it was mostly brought on by distress and frustration and they were very patient with me.

Thankfully, after two of the roughest weeks I've ever had, the news came down that my absolute warrior of a friend made a miraculous recovery. Feeling blessed and motivated, my spirits were lifted and it was back to work.

Everything seemed to be sorting out health-wise until the dreaded targad finally arrived. The targad is essentially the most expensive week for an infantry batallion, with the gdud usually exercising every resource at hand to make the week an authentic simulation of war. Known to be harder than most “War Weeks” in many cases, the targad surely lives up to the reputation.

Walking close to thirty kilometers per day, the difficulty of the task at hand was gargantuan. After thirty-six hours, I was fully certain that my injury was back and with a vengeance at that. At the end of each walk, I found myself at least a kilometer behind, struggling to carry along the equipment with all the weight on one foot. Letting nothing in his sight go unnoticed, my officer sent me immediately along to the doctor.

He glanced at my face, his eyes quickly recognizing me. The discussion was short before soliciting the response, “If you want to give yourself a decent chance of staying in this unit as a fighter and being able to have normal use of the foot again in your life, I'm ordering you to leave the targad right now.” And that was it. That was the end of my imun.

With a month-long visit home approved for the following week (more on that later), I crossed my fingers that over thirty days of rest would allow me to heal fully and return stronger than ever (spoiler alert: this story has a happy ending).

I understand this isn't exactly a post about the imun. One can only write about the same weeks of shetach so many times before the topic gets a bit jaded. Rather, this is a post about injury and the struggles that can come along in the army when you least expect them. Things aren't always as we plan them to be, but we play the cards we're dealt.

More posts to come.

-Brett

Life After The Bach

I would like to preface this post with a quick apology:

As my army service progresses, I have found myself busier and busier each step of the way. The increased pressure on time, especially during those precious weekends off from the daily grind, can often cause a bit of procrastination (or a lot in my case). I've certainly fallen victim to this, having not posted in over a few months. For that, I apologize, and hope to be quickly forgiven by all my readers. The blog holds a very special place in my heart and I will be working on updating it more often throughout the next phases of my life in the army.

Without further ado, back into it!

After completing the grueling masa kumta, the lone soldiers of Tzanchanim were invited back to the training base for a two week ulpan. With no complaints over the two weeks of relative calm and relaxation after our insane eight months, we arrived back on the bach, the red berets displayed proudly on our shoulders.

It's a bit strange to explain the first time walking on the training base with the beret. Shedding blood, sweat, and tears for the eight long months ahead, the one thing that always kept us motivated throughout our time as trainees was looking in awe at the red fabric on our commanders' shoulders. I constantly looked so desperately into the future, thinking just how long it would be until I had one of my very own. Arriving onto the base to the longing eyes of the current trainees as you walk by, after knowing that you were giving that very look so soon before is simply an unreal feeling.

The two weeks of jokes and laughs (and also a bit of Hebrew!) flew by and before long, we were reunited with our unit on a base in the north to begin “Imun Kayitz,” summer training. Yes, right after our basic and advanced training, we were taken with the rest of the Paratroopers Brigade to yet another training regimen.

The detailed explanation of our imun will be dedicated to the next post. In this post, I'd like to give a detailed explanation of how life works after the bach:

Within each gdud of the brigade, there are four different plugot (companies) which each have a different specialty in combat. The draft ascending from the bach is the plugat maslool, or training company. Being the only company without a specialty, the job of the plugat maslool is essentially to put to use everything learned on the training base for the first time on the kav, sort of an on-the-job training.

The entire draft stays together during this period, including most of the commanders and officers. After a period of three to four months, after the end of our maslool in the army, the plugat maslool is broken up into the vatikot, or older, specialized companies. The company a soldier is absorbed into becomes his home for the rest of his service, with an entirely new group of commanders and officers unique to that company. The three possible companies are the Palchod, Mesayat, and Mivtzayit companies, each with a different specialty, though that's not entirely important for now.

Based on the draft being released from the army at the same time as mine being absorbed into the vatikot, the two possible destinations for me were the Palchod or the Mesayat, but more on that later.

Now, moving on to what the companies actually DO during the service.

Infantry units, Tzanchanim included, serve the borders of Israel in rotation. Each deployment on the border can last anywhere from four to nine months. Between each border is a specialized training regimen specific to the upcoming assignment and lasting anywhere between one and three months.

Having just finished up a six month deployment on the Gazan border, Tzanchanim would be heading into a three month imun for our next assignment, the northern borders. The imun is very much like many of the weeks of advanced training are. The schedule is loaded with time in the shetach, working in kita, the machlakah, and even “War Week”. More dreaded than “War Week” is the targad, basically a war week for all of the companies of 202. As you can imagine, I was less than pleased to be hearing that after eight months of training, we'd be headed right back into it.

Having explained all the small details, the next few posts will detail life in the imun and beyond.

Keep reading!

-Brett