In the Army Now

private peled of the 202nd (viper) battalion of the airborne brigade. (or something like that, i dont know how to translate israeli military terms into english) I've finally been poked, prodded and sorted to my final destination. no one calls you private here though, its kind of disappointing. They just call you by your name, or whatever nickname you end up getting (everyone ends up with a nickname) i have a feeling mine will be california. 

I think i should have put more forethought into the title of this blog. Now that im actually in the army, i've been assigned a unit, i even know where im going to be stationed in 7 months when im done training (i dont think im allowed to post that here) the title seems a bit dated. Although in another respect the title is extremely fitting because even though im finally in the army (no more fake goodbye parties only to return 2 months later...) , it doesn't feel like im in the army. I guess its like that with everything. You spend all this time imagining what something is going to be like and building it up in your head, so much so that when you finally come to experience it for real it feels fake in some way because its not what you imagined. 

ive learned something important about the army over the past week of basic training. Basic training is 5% combat training, 95% custodial training. I might be exaggerating a bit, but only a bit. I get the feeling that at the end of 7 months of training their going to send us out to the field with brooms strapped to our backs instead of m16's and brillo pads where my clips should be. When i heard the term sweep a house i used to imagine large guys with guns and night vision goggles breaking down doors and going room to room looking for wanted men, now i imagine guys with brooms and mops moving furniture to get the hard to reach corners, guys yelling "DUCK" and dodging dust balls flying overhead. 

ok so maybe im taking this too far, its just the first week, things are going to get MUCH much MUCH harder and im going to look back at this post and laugh, and cry, and lay my head in my hands and wonder why i got on that plane from JFK to Tel Aviv (or was it Newark? i cant even remember now, ive been here for 4 months, can you believe it?). Its just that when your scrubbing a bathroom floor for the umpteenth time that day to try to clean off dirt that everyone knows full well is impossible to clean off you find yourself wondering, if only for a moment, how the hell you ended up here. I cant help think of the time i gave a security guard my berkeley ID when i was picking up a package in ny. The guard looked at me, looked down at my ID, looked back at me, and asked what the fuck i was doing delivering packages on a bike with a degree from berkeley. I get a perverse pleasure from situations like that. i like the surprised look i get from people when they find out im almost 23 and have a college degree. its a little bit of wow mixed with a lot of what the fuck? i have a friend with a 26 year old former wall street stock broker in his unit, can you imagine that guy on his hands and knees scrubbing toilet bowls because a 20 year old kid told him to? its absurd but its also great in some way.

But enough about the army, lets talk about my burgeoning social life. well thats a bit of an overstatement, but i do have more of a life now than i did 4 months ago, which is nice. This weekend i got home around 9am on friday, did a bit of grocery shopping if you can call chocolate milk, chocolate croissants, 4 cans of tuna and a few bags of Bisli groceries, and then went to brunch with my roommate and her brother's gf. we went to a 24 hour breakfast place near my house that would fit right in in the trendiest parts of LA or NY. Then i went to sleep till about 7pm, had dinner in the house with my other roommate and some of her friends, then i went to a friends house to shave my head, have a few drinks, and go to a bar. my california ID plus the im a volunteer paratrooper line works wonders here, me and my 24 year old friend managed to get an 18 year old into a bar for ages 27 and up. 

anyways, im off to jerusalem for the night, i have a field trip in jerusalem with the army in the morning. 4 years ago i ran into my friend from elementary school doing the very same field trip with his unit while i was on birthright, i feel like ive come full circle. im actually planning to have a reunion with a few friends from elementary school soon, ill let you know how that goes. 

till next week...