Tuesday, May 10, 2011

I’ve received a couple of emails asking me if I’ve stopped writing my travelogues – the answer is no: I plan on continuing them for as long as I travel, and I plan on traveling for as long as I live.

Part of traveling is experiencing the local populations as they live their lives (or to get as close to it as you possibly can). It means putting aside your personal comfort zone, it means trying food that you would never let near your mouth even if it was your best friend handing it to you on a bar bet (…actually, especially if it was your best friend handing it to you on a bar bet). Being a traveler means doing your best to laugh when you find yourself standing in a downpour, soaked, with miles to go before you’ll be warm again.

Sometimes, journeys don’t always go as planned: part of being a successful traveler is knowing that there is going to be a time in the journey (at least once) where you’re going to find yourself washing dishes in some backwater snack shack, working as a rodeo clown, or doing some street performing because someone ran off with your wallet…or you and your friends would really like to splurge and right now you’re all craving some kind of meal that doesn’t require ‘creative acquisition.’

Sometimes it’s standing and looking at utter destruction when all of your equipment is destroyed in a freak monsoon…a freak monsoon that managed to pour on your tent only…a freak monsoon that might have in fact been caused by a kid mysteriously holding a now empty bucket, dressed as Harry Potter, looking rather guilty who is now skulking away from your tent…and breaking into a sprint rapidly as his eyes make contact with yours…

This, at the end of the day, adds a certain flavor (sometimes, admittedly, pungent) to the story…it makes for all the best travel stories and while it isn’t a lifestyle for everyone, it is certainly the one I find most fulfilling…it’s about experiencing every individual flavor of human being, it’s about hearing new music and seeing the explosion of beauty that the world has to offer you, often in the places where you would least expect it and laughing and rejoicing when it all goes to hell.

Sadly, the past eleven months have not been at the higher level of travel, they’ve been exhausting beyond belief. It’s hard to explain what it’s really like to be a soldier to someone who has never gone through basic training. It’s hard to explain the constant and total lack of energy, the need and desire to pass out, the adrenaline rush (and eventual crash), the total abundance of camaraderie and the dichotomous isolation, the love for – and the rejection of – the army that one serves and all of the cognitive dissonance one feels and the mental gymnastics one goes through to get through the day.

When we last left off I was preparing to head to the United States for my friend’s wedding…

June 27, 2010

On June 27, 2010 I boarded a plane from Tel Aviv heading for New York.

The Friends of the IDF generously paid for my plane ticket, handed me a gift card to get a book for the ride (to make sure that I wasn’t bored on the flight) and told me to enjoy my trip.

I landed on June 28, 2010 early in the morning and made my way with my parents to one of our favorite destinations “Camp Kokomo” our friend’s South Carolina, Myrtle Beach retreat.

Few things conjure up ‘Americana’ in my head as much as the Redneck Riviera.

It’s a trip I look forward to, a trip where the hardest questions are whether I should go to the pool before – or after – the beach…that, and what we should we drink: beer or mixed drinks? It’s a trip where I quite literally don’t have a care in the world.

Every soldier has a place they escape to when they’re standing in a guard tower at two in the morning as their hands are freezing, and they want to go to sleep, and the night has only just begun: Camp Kokomo has been one of those places for me throughout my service…all choices should be as complicated as deciding whether or not beer comes before, after or with a trip to the beach.

 

July 4, 2010

July 4, 2010 was spent on the beach watching fireworks explode in the air and hearing the echo of songs that enumerate just how passionately every thread of American feels about their country…every kind of American: tired, poor, meek, sophisticated, strong, wealthy, educated, simple and so many more…all of whom somehow manage to combine and come together in what forms a colorful patchwork quilt of humanity.

The longer I’m in uniform (even though the uniform I wear is not that of the United States Army) the more I can relate to, respect, honor and emotionally appreciate just what amazing documents the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution truly are…and the closer I come to truly understanding the sacrifice of generations before me who have stood in the line of fire to protect the ideals that those two documents lay out, what every American at the end of the day is really striving for: ”…to form a more perfect union.”

Right now, from a distance, America looks greatly divided…but the one unifying factor is that everyone cares.

The reality is that the situation in the United States would be so much bleaker, so much more monolithic if instead of feeling passion Americans felt nothing but apathy instead.

 

Camping in Buffalo

Early on the morning of July 5, 2010 I began my trip up north, leaving Myrtle Beach for Buffalo, New York.

Buffalo is a city that will forever hold a special place in my heart. Buffalo is a city of firsts for me, a city where I came into my own. Every time I return I’m glad that I find the same comfort in her city limits that I felt there as an undergraduate student at the University at Buffalo.

After a short layover in Atlanta we touched down early (and they made a point of reminding us that since this flight came in early, to keep that on tab for when our next flight comes in late).

Grabbing my bag from overhead (I try to fly carry-on as much as possible) I met up with Alice at the airport and we hugged a hug that can only be shared by two friends who don’t need words to catch up.

Arriving at Alice & Tim’s apartment I met the rest of the wedding party. While we were divided down traditional lines of bride’s side and groom’s side, the reality is that most of us were already friends to begin with, and those who were not already acquainted with one another became fast friends.

I had packed and prepared for what I thought was going to be a slightly more…camp like…camping trip. Tim having requested that his Bachelor party be camping (and manly…very, very manly) I had prepared for trekking. In retrospect, I could have left at least 95% of my gear at home.

However, between miniature golf, beer (…lots of beer) and the rugged wilderness of indoor plumbing (very manly indoor plumbing) it was certainly a bachelor party to be remembered…Vegas rules, of course being invoked on the way to the campsite, prohibit me from discussing anything further…but if you weren’t there, you missed out.

 

The Wedding

July 10, 2010 marked the wedding of two of the most amazing people I know.

I’m normally not a ‘wedding’ person…actually; I’m not a ceremony person in general. I skipped out of my graduation at both high school and university, and the only reason I went to any of my army ceremonies is because my commanders had rifles and said I had to…and even I don’t argue with someone carrying an M16…okay…I don’t argue with them often. However, when two people who are so clearly in love with being in love with each other get married, it’s impossible to not get caught up in it and feel that maybe – just maybe – you’ve been sucked inside a soon-to-be-released Disney Feature Film…yeah…they are that cute together.

The night was spent tearing up the dance floor with good friends, new friends and our collective extended families. The next morning after brunch I saw my parents off to the airport (my parents, being Alice’s adoptive Jewish parents, were also in attendance at the wedding).

As the wedding drew to a close, it was sad moment for the wedding party…we sort of felt like we were all back at summer camp…having all just become friends it was hard to end what was an amazing time together.

I took the rest of the week to catch up with friends in Buffalo, visiting with my extended Buffalo family, friends, professors and hanging out at the university and remembering how much I love to be on a campus while enjoying the one month of terrible sledding that Buffalo offers in July.

 

Home

Home for me is a funny word (or at least one that as I linguist I find interesting). Semantically it’s the  word I use to refer to wherever my family is; not to where I live.

When I head out of base for the day in Israel I say “I’m going to my apartment” but when I refer to a trip to visit my family I say “I’m going home.”

So I headed home from Buffalo to spend time with my parents, my aunts, uncles (biological and adopted) and my cousins. I also got to spend time with my friends who call Long Island there home and who I’ve missed terribly over these past few months.

I also took my friend Christine up on her offer to stay at her Bed & Breakfast in New Jersey.

Christine’s B&B has become so popular, and so inundated with people trying to make reservations, that it’s now invite by referral only. Most reservations need to be booked a year in advance to be guaranteed a spot, so I considered myself incredibly lucky to be given the opportunity to stay over for a little rest and relaxation.

Time moves incredibly fast and there’s a reason dog tags have their moniker. Before I knew it a high pitch whistle could be heard coming in loud and clear from the Middle East, so I once again packed my bags and headed back 9,000 miles to report in at Camp Bar-Lev, the base that houses the IDF Ground Forces Command and the Foreign Relations Branch.

 

Parents’ Visit

A week before I was preparing to head to another Hebrew course it was becoming increasingly obvious to me, that due to certain elements within the IDF, I was not going to be able to achieve my dream of attending the Officer Candidate School.

Certain elements in the army wanted to steal me away immediately (and I wanted them to steal me). Certain elements wanted me to remain firmly planted in the Foreign Relations Branch and only to leave for the Officers Candidate School once they retired (because the thought of losing me for six months to become an officer was too great, and the thought of losing me to a different corps was totally, and one-hundred-percent out of the question).

I also didn’t like the prospect of being offered a position and job title for one thing (Deputy Commander of the Overseas Office) while being asked at the same time to handle all of that work and to do another thing that I wouldn’t get credit for (handling all of the linguistics for the Ground Forces Command).

It came to the point where even my direct commanding officer was telling me to look at the writing on the wall, as we would both sigh over our morning coffee. She knew it was coming, I knew it was coming – it was only a matter of when.

Not only wouldn’t I get any of the things I had been fighting to build for the past two years (a fully functional linguistics department: no funding and therefore denied, the rank of academic officer: approved, but with no funding eventually denied), but even if I did eventually become an officer, it would be too late for me to rise high enough in the ranks to receive any of the commands I wanted (I’d be leaving the OCS as a thirty year old lieutenant…which is something that just isn’t done in the IDF where the average age of lieutenant is nineteen and a half).

When you don’t like the solution the only other option is to change the equation. I walked down to my direct commander’s office after another night of trying to make the numbers work, and told her that I decided against signing keva (contract) and that I would be finishing out my service on June 19, 2011.

She came up to me and gave me a huge hug and wished me luck…and told me that I was making the right decision…and that she was glad I made it, because she was ready to hit me.

On December 17, 2010 I locked up my office and grabbed my bag and headed out to meet my parents at the airport in Tel Aviv. They were coming for a visit and, really, there are no words – in any language I speak – to describe the feeling of seeing loved ones after an incredibly long amount of time has passed…what could I possibly compare it to? What emotion could I try and conjure that hasn’t become trite?

Having learned – what I am given to understand is ‘tact’ – I decided to practice ‘being tactful’ so I waited until my parents had their luggage on their beds before I told them of my latest army revelation.

When I asked them how they felt about it later in the day,  my father said that he was just in a little bit of shock…which I found odd…because after coming out of the closet, bumming down to Washington, D.C. repeatedly, leading protest movements in various parts of the globe, and then moving to the other side of the world and joining a foreign army that doesn’t speak English while living a kilometer from the Gaza Strip you’d think that there couldn’t possibly be anything left to shock him with.

While it took me a few weeks to plan everything out (since I had originally been planning to spend another three years, at least, in the army) I have managed to make some headway as to what my future will hold for me in what is now a matter of days.

 

Graduate School

The Open University of Israel is the largest university (student wise) in Israel. It functions as both a physical university (with multiple campuses spread throughout the country) where students attend classes regularly as they would do at any other university. It also serves as a campus where students do ‘half and half,’ and combine distance/self-study with in-class lessons and, finally, as a fully functional distance education university (for Hebrew speakers around the world as well as both Arabs and Jews in the Israeli prison system).

What first attracted me to the Open University was the fact that they believe in giving everyone the opportunity to work towards a B.A. – anyone who has graduated high school is allowed admission. The flip side is that the GPA that they must maintain to graduate is astronomically higher when compared to any other university (including my Alma mater, the University at Buffalo). Students must maintain, at a minimum, 85% to be considered passing.

Their M.A. program is more selective and equally as challenging. I submitted my application to their M.A. program in Cultural Studies (focusing on Middle Eastern culture and literature) on February 15, 2011. On March 28, 2011 I heard back from OU that it was their distinct pleasure to welcome me to their graduate program.

I begin my qualifying course this October.

While I plan to redirect my future Ph.D. studies back to linguistics and Hebrew, this M.A. program gives me the cultural base that I am lacking, and that I need to understand the Hebrew language more deeply, and will no doubt be an incredible asset to my research in the future.

 

Long Island in the Fall

I had also decided to take six months after the army to re-adjust to civilian life.

As part of my job I have to explain the unexplainable, I have to translate things at a moment’s notice or an entire mission will fail. I have to wake up in the middle of the night to try and get an officer who’s stuck in a snowstorm, who is confused, who is having an emergency from the situation he’s in to a situation where he can complete his mission and return safely to Israel…and I have to be able to do that for any officer I’ve sent abroad in any country around the world at any hour of the day by telephone…and that’s what I do during peace time. My job during times where peace is, shall we say lacking, is a lot more complicated.

After three years (mostly in some kind of position with responsibility and/or authority) I need to move from giving orders, constantly being intense, being on call and ready to be sent on a mission 24/7/365 to asking instead of telling and using words like please and thank you.

The IDF Psychology branch recommends three months to reintegrate into civilian life, and I could think of no other place than my parents’ house to do so. While I had, admittedly, thought about heading home for longer period of time (a couple of years) I realized that this was part of the emotional process of ending my army service, and one that all soldiers – especially Lone Soldiers – go through.

Most soldiers take a trip around the world for a few months immediately upon finishing their army service for the same reason I was thinking of heading back for a couple of years: much like a breakup or a divorce, sometimes one just needs a little bit of distance from the country that they have faithfully served, in order to re-center themselves.

As much as I miss my family and my friends, I have only just begun to taste Hebrew at an academic level, to unlock the secrets of the language, the poetry, the passion, and the mystery of our ancient documents…and the reality is that there is an abundance of work here in Israel and I can work in any of the fields that I have experience in (linguistics, teaching, education) whereas my present opportunities in the U.S. are virtually non-existent if I want to work in something that will further my future opportunities in my field. That, however, is on the practical level.

On a personal level, I cannot imagine being away from the city walls of Jerusalem for longer than a few months at a time. I love New York, but Jerusalem is where my heart lives.

 

Traveling Around the Country

From December 17, 2010 through January 1, 2011 I traveled with my parents around Israel, sharing with them the country that I continue to fall in love with daily. The tour we planned together took us from the mystical beauty of the south to the rolling hills of the north, and almost everywhere in between.

They were treated to receptions on my base, as well as to Shabbat dinners at my friends’ houses. We explored the Necropolis (yes, Israel has one!), walked the ramparts of, and explored the markets of the Old City of Jerusalem and enjoyed all of the sights that my country has to offer.

On January 2, 2011 we said our goodbyes and I prepared to head to what would be my final army course: Ulpanit Gimmel.

 

The Ulpan

Ulpanim (translated as: studios) in Israel are the way that the nation teaches Hebrew to immigrants. They go from Alef (beginner) and Bet (basic) to Gimmel (advanced) and Dalet (highly advanced).

The soldiers and officers of The Education & Youth Corps Branch at the IDF Ground Forces Command are amazing people…they are also my friends and as a present and favor for me, they opened up a Hebrew Ulpan at my level before I finished my army service.

From January 2, 2011 through January 20, 2011 six other students (including one combat soldier who was in my crew at Mehve Alon during my first three months in the army, and another who was with me at Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael) spent eight hours a day together in a small classroom on base, studying Hebrew, debating finer grammar points, arguing with each other, singing songs and studying together.

On January 20, 2011 we took our final exam. The entire class passed with a score high enough to officially move us all to level Dalet (highly advanced). We are now studying at the highest level Hebrew that Israel has to offer outside of advanced degrees in the language itself.

It was an incredible amount of work, and it was worth it.

 

March 11, 2011

I love the early morning travel on Shabbat, especially if it’s to head into outskirts of Jerusalem from my base down south. I know it sounds weird, but the air just seems fresher, I am less bothered by crowds and lines and chutzpanim (rude people)…because it’s almost time for Shabbat!

Shabbat is the time in our week when we divide what is holy from what is profane, the time in our week when everything comes to a halt so our souls can rest. The time in our week where sweet smells come curling down through the old stone streets of Jerusalem just calling to us to knock on a strangers door and say “well…we were just in the neighborhood…” and know that not only is that okay, but that we’ll get a cup of coffee out of it too! As a point of fact, no one has ever starved in Israel – and I mean that seriously. People however have been threatened with a stern talking to for not eating enough.

As I take the bus into Jerusalem I like to press my head close to the windows so I can see the landscaping sweeping past us, the thousand variations of earth tones that create a divine pallet painted on the canvas of the desert that leads up to Jerusalem, the diamond of the Middle East.

This weekend I was heading to my friend Shirah’s apartment for Shabbat with her family. I appreciate the travel time to Jerusalem and from the Central Bus Station to Ma’aleh Adumim where her parents’ apartment is. It’s how I switch out of “soldier” mode and move into “sort-of-a-civilian” mode.

As the sun set, the candles were lit and while we prayed together; calling in Shabbat and greeting her radiant and restful beauty our voices joined those coming over the hills, our songs warming each other with a blanket that was comprised of thousands of families and the glimmer and flicker of lights that dot the hills of Jerusalem.

As our lights flickered, two people approached a fence in the West Bank settlement of Ittamar.

While my friend and I sipped coffee and enjoyed homemade food and treats we caught up with each other, talking about the past week and our respective positions within the security echelon.

As her mother got up to make everyone some more coffee, two people were preparing to climb a fence that’s difficult to climb in the West Bank settlement of Ittamar.

While we enjoyed a late night game, laughing at each other, two people were preparing to commit a sinister act.

While we got our beds ready for the night and setup the laptop to watch “just one more episode” of one of our favorite TV shows, two people butchered Udi Fogel, 36, Ruth Fogel, 35, and their children Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and three-month-old Hadas to death.

As we crawled into bed, early (oh why don’t children like to take naps or go to bed early, what a treat!) their daughter arrived home from her youth group to find her family, and her world, destroyed, save for her two brothers who were miraculously passed over.

While we woke up in the morning to the horrible news of a terror attack, the nation was further stunned and shell shocked at the international silence that accompanied it. I found it hard to get to sleep for nights after…not because I was worried I myself was going to be attacked, but because I was worried that we would find ourselves having to escalate the situation to levels that no one wanted them to be raised to.

I was grateful that, for now, cooler heads seemed to have prevailed.

 

That’s Staff Sergeant Schwartz To You

On March 16, 2011 at 11:00am my friend Itai and I headed to what was going to be our last rank ceremony: we were to be receiving the rank of Staff Sergeant. What I didn’t know was that we were going to have some special visitors at the ceremony.

When it came time for them to put the rank on my uniform I received the proscribed number of punches from my commander (as I explained to one of the majors there who thought it was…perhaps…to much) “you don’t have to work with me…they only get to hit me once a rank…”

My commander then asked everyone to direct their attention to his laptop where a video message from my family was waiting. Without my knowledge, he contacted my parents and asked them to record a video message to me.

It was incredibly moving, since none of my parents’ visits have been able to be coordinated with one of my promotions.

Later that day, we had another, private, ceremony in our section where I was given two certificates. One formal on the honor of being promoted and another, handmade with crayons and markers, by the other non-commissioned officers in my section listing all of the positions that they think I occupy in the branch, including (but not limited to): NCO, head of office, babysitter, head of branch, friend, information security officer and the list went on for a good two lines.

Both have a framed place of honor on my wall.

This rank also marked the official ‘beginning of the end’. As far as the army was concerned, it was now on my branch and the IDF to formally begin preparations for my departure this June.

 

Piguah, March 23, 2011

One of my students in the army was finishing his army service. He’s a lieutenant colonel who has had a very special place in my heart throughout my service. His officers approached me and asked me if I would be willing to be a part of the tour that they were planning for him. Their plan was to take a tour of Jerusalem, and at each stop have someone who is part of Zohar’s life step out and say something about him.

On March 23, 2011 I made my way to Jerusalem and at the bus station ran into an army friend of mine who I’m particularly fond of. We hugged and made plans to meet up later in the week – what luck that we ran into each other!

Originally it was my plan to give my presentation and then head to my friend’s apartment in Ma’aleh Adumim (a settlement of Jerusalem) or to return to Tel Aviv and work from our satellite office at Headquarters (I was preparing to launch a number of international missions and I’m a firm believer in getting work done ahead of time).

My stop on the tour was Yad Sarah.

Yad Sarah is a medical services provider who cares after the elderly. Their slogan is “Everything from the heart” which can be used just as well to describe Zohar and his incredible family, who have visited me on guard duty throughout the country and who have brought groceries over when I’ve been under the weather, and in general have always taken time out of their day to make sure that I was taken care of during the later years of my army service whenever I needed any level of assistance.

That morning I took a bus into Jerusalem and met up with one of Zohar’s officers at Yad Sarah and found a place to hide out while I waited for the group to arrive. After a few minutes I received my cue that the group was there, so I stepped out from where I had been hiding to give my speech.

Instead of the five or so people I was expecting, there was forty or so officers there from the Education & Youth Corps and a number of commanders.

I gave my speech and was glad to hear that I did well presenting in Hebrew…especially since some of the commanders from my last Hebrew course were there…and their commander was sitting next to them.

Having finished, Zohar’s deputy commander came up to me and asked me if what she heard was correct, that I was even beginning to possibly, potentially think about not continuing on the tour with them and instead return to work …I gulped and said “No Ma’am” knowing full well to never- ever- argue with a Jewish mother…especially one that was about to be promoted to lieutenant colonel herself.

Fate was with me, because just before I gave my speech, I decided to call my friend and tell her that I was going to opt to work from Headquarters instead of coming over for a visit and moments after my speech, having seen how many friends of mine were there (many of whom I hadn’t seen for a while) I decided to call my commander and let him know that I wouldn’t be heading to Headquarters either and that, instead, I’d be continuing along with the rest of the group, touring Jerusalem…my day was open, the weather was beautiful, and everything was a go.

It turned out to be one of those life changing moments…like if you miss your bus and meet your spouse, or the elevator lets you off on the wrong floor and the person standing there asks you off the cuff if you’re looking for a job and you start a new career.

You see, as we continued walking on our tour we felt an explosion rock the city of Jerusalem, literally shaking our bodies…I remember feeling the wind rush by my body, though I’m sure that didn’t actually happen.

Someone had planted a bomb by the Center Bus Station…and at the stop I would have been at if I had been dropped off by the bus to return to headquarters. It’s also the same stop I would have been waiting at to head to Ma’aleh Adumim…at the same time I would have been there for either trip.

I was spared flying shrapnel, amputation, full body burns…others were not so lucky…many were wounded, some critically and one was murdered.

In the army, the first job of anyone is to report, the second is to lend a hand if you are able to do so. The initial reports coming in indicated to us that the bomb exploded inside of the Central Bus Station and my heart was racing.

As I began trying to call my friend (the network was overloaded) I found myself suppressing the images that came racing to the forefront of my mind, terrible, terrible images…because that’s what a non-commissioned officer in Foreign Relations learns how to do: deal with and explain the unexplainable.

The cell phone lines were jammed because too many people were trying to call. However, finally I managed to get through and I heard his voice: he was okay and he told me that the bomb actually exploded outside of the station. I went down the list calling my friends who were near the Central Bus Station at the time: everyone was okay and alive.

I also called my commander: one of my other ‘first jobs’ was to report where I was, what was going on, and to give a SITREP in case it became relevant to us (what if an attaché was there and was hurt?). My commander wasn’t there so I called the next person on the emergency contact list, a Lieutenant and an incredibly close friend of mine, Netta.

Netta is one of the most dynamic commanders I have ever known. She was the operations officer in a war room as part of her service (something everyone who wants to become an NCO in Foreign Relations must also qualify for, and pass). “Listen and listen good: explosion, Jerusalem, front of the bus station, I’m okay, with officers, we have chain of command, conserving battery, will check in” “Received, be safe” came back as the answer and we hung up – I am positive that we could boil down and recite Shakespeare in thirty seconds or less.

Our next mission, having no medical supplies on hand and realizing that we would be more in the way than a help, was to get out of the center of the city: first and foremost, for safety – we weren’t sure if there were going to be more detonations. The second, though most important reason for me as someone who works in foreign relations, was that it looks really, really bad to be on a tour after a terrorist attack while others are handling the situation (not that there was anything we could do to help, but civilians don’t know that, they don’t differentiate and they do comment on news articles very vocally).

We immediately began taking side-streets, avoiding both civilians and tourists as we moved at a lightning pace to what was supposed to be our final destination. We called in buses as we went, getting them ready to meet us there as soon as they could get into the city so that we could escort and disperse soldiers and officers back to areas of Israel that we knew were safe, not densely populated, and where they would be able to get home from.

The rest of the night was eerily quiet.

Momma Look Sharp

On May 8, 2011 as I was taking the bus home from base heading to the Soldiers House in Jerusalem where I moved to a few months ago, the bus pulled over to the side of the road at a few minutes to eight.

Everyone stood up for what was sixty seconds of absolute silence – no one moved. The roads throughout the country were at an absolute standstill. We were now beginning the annual process of honoring those who have died in the line of duty: remembering our fallen soldiers.

The next morning, May 9, 2011, I was standing with my fellow soldiers at a memorial ceremony. After the master sergeant officially welcomed the officer who would be commanding the ceremony, we stood at attention…waiting…and as it began to break through the silence, officers and warrant officers saluted…

The wail of the siren shakes through your body…it comes up through Europe and around Gaza as it runs through the streets of Tel Aviv, shrieking, up through the beaches and hills, it wraps around the Golan Heights and shoots through Lebanon…it comes back to us from the past. It is, in its very nature, primordial…it is a siren that calls out from the depths of the soul: it is the siren that haunts me in my sleep.

This is a siren that is comprised of the screams of little boys and girls, teenagers, heroes, screaming out of the depths “REMEMBER ME!! Remember me! I had plans…I had a mother…I had a father…I had brothers and sisters…I had someone who I loved…I, too, had a life, a chance, an opportunity, a soul breathed into my body!”

It is the siren of a thousand and more tears that parents have cried over the graves of their children, it is the siren comprised of the tears that families have cried for their mothers, fathers, nieces, nephews, cousins and other’s children who they have buried as a village comes together with absolutely no words…in an utter silence that is so loud that the shock waves that it emits break glass.

It is the siren of countless marriages that will never happen, it is the wail that accompanies the ending of entire worlds – it is a noise that punches directly through your chest and chokes you with your own heartstrings.

The two minutes that it lasts are incredibly painful, almost too much to bear…but you do, and you stand, leaning on your friends as your legs give out as the combined screams of generations come and pulse through you as you take on the burden of the collective memory of our people “I REMEMBER! I REMEMBER YOU!”

And the siren dies down across Israel…and we are left there, standing in formation on base, tears streaking down our faces as we keep their memories. This is incredibly powerful for everyone. For us, for Lone Soldiers, we are left with the burden and with the honor of remembering those soldiers who have no family here to remember them.

 

Yom Ha’atzmaut

The history of the Jewish people is that of bitter sweetness, and we operate on a lunar calendar, so as night fell and tears were wiped away they were replaced with joyous laughter as we welcomed Yom Ha’atzmaut – our Independence Day!

A night where HaTikvah – The Hope – our national anthem, can be heard beating throughout the country, where dance clubs were packed with people wearing our colors of blue and white, where beaches were filled with the sound of children’s laughter and parties broke out spontaneously throughout the country, where Israelis of all backgrounds were singing “Ain Li Aretz Acheret” – I have no other country! And soldiers and youth chanted throughout the streets and in between breaks in the music at the clubs and trances and raves “Am Yisrael Chai!” The People of Israel LIVE!”

All of Jerusalem last night was a street party.

I started off my evening yesterday at a roof party held in the city overlooking two firework shows and eventually made my way to meet up with my friends at the shook (the Middle Eastern market) which was converted into a free rave, where we danced the night away…Israelis of every color and background moving together in a celebration of our freedom, earned by those who we were mourning just hours earlier and their families who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the State of Israel.

 

Atid

From today I have 40 actual days (which amounts to 28 work days) until I finish out my army service. I will be flying out of Tel Aviv to New York (through Budapest) on July 2, 2011. I’ll be in the United States from July 3, 2011 through January 27, 2012, at which point I’ll be returning to Israel to continue my adventure, my journey, my studies, and my research

 

From Jerusalem,

Peace, Love & Hummus,

- M