So anyways, its been a while since my last post, which seems to be the case with every one of my posts. I guess im just not cut out for the fast paced world of personal web diaries. I think i would do better with monthly hand written letters that i could stain with wine, oil, and wax and claim to have written under candle light in the trenches of southern lebanon. But alas those times are past and we are now in the digital age of 24 hour news cycles. No one has the time or patience to read anything in a format that doesn't allow for toggling between at least 3 other windows on their screen at any given time. In consideration of our ever narrowing attention spans, i will write this post in sections with clearly labeled Headers so that you can scroll to that which interests you most while you flip back and forth between gchat, ichat, facebook chat, and the nytimes (yea...right...).
Jump School
Short summary of what its like to jump out of a perfectly functioning plane at 1200 ft.
"fuck! im gonna die, im gonna die, im gonna die!"
JUMP!
Whoosh
::look up:: parachute opened
"WOHOO! this is amazing, so beautiful, this was totally worth eating shit for 6 months"
"shit, i hope none of these bozos floating really close to me knocks in to me and we both plunge to our deaths...TURN THE OTHER WAY MAN! YOUR OTHER LEFT!!!"
"uh oh...i forgot to release the 20 lbs sack of equipment strapped to my leg..."
::click, click:: sack drops.
"fuck, the ground is coming fast, im gonna break my leg, im gonna break my leg, im gonna break my fucking leg!!"
::get in the brace position::
BOOM
::jump to my feet::
"Holy fuck! i cant believe i didn't break my leg!! that was nuts! glad i got that out of my system. I don't think i ever need to do that again... Wait, 4 more jumps you say??? Fuck! im gonna die..."
It's amazing how much can go through your mind in 50 seconds.
So that was jump school. The constant fear of death or massive bodily injury interrupted by brief moments of complete and utter euphoria.
Well, actually, that was the second week of jump school, where we did the actual jumping. The first week of jump school involved jumping from different contraptions that when filmed look and sound exactly like men being hung, and when experienced in first person, combines the whiplash of a high speed auto accident with the ball crushing force of an atomic wedgie. Good times all around.
Thoughts that went through my mind on the climb to 1200 ft:
"Thoughts before jumping out of a plane is a perfect category for a top 10 list"
"Top Ten Thoughts Before Jumping Out of a Functioning Airplane:
1. Why??
2. I guess if my friends jumped off of a bridge i would follow them...
3. This harness is killing my balls
4. It would be kind of exciting to have to pull a reserve chute
5. Im an idiot
6. Its really warm in here, it seems windy outside, i don't wanna...
7. ::Quick melodramatic montage of people i love and will miss if i die::
8. Wow, its almost my turn, i can't believe i'm really doing this, and with chutes packed by the same army that hasn't figured out a way to transport a refrigerator out of my room in 4 months no less.
9. Remember: count 21, 22, 23, look up, no chute? PULL RESERVE
10. ::at the door:: mind goes completely blank... JUMP!!!
War Week
Hail sounds a lot like hell. Turns out thats not a coincidence. If i were to sum up war week in a word it would be, hail. Why? Because in addition to sleeping 3 or 4 non consecutive hours a day, eating one "meal" a day, and walking endless miles with about 80 lbs on my back, it fucking hailed. To say it hailed doesn't really do the situation justice, because if it was only the hail it wouldn't have been so bad. First it hailed, then it rained, for hours, and it took hours before the higher ups could make up their minds about what to do with us, so we sat in the rain while everything we touched turned to mud. Eventually we got moved to a semi enclosed building in a fake arab village thats being built for training purposes. We stacked about 60 guys into this place. Bodies covered the entire floor, equipment was stacked to the ceiling, and the rain kept coming in through the open windows. It was quite a cozy evening. In the middle of the night the commanders decided we had rested too much so they tried taking us out to conquer some hills, but mother nature wouldn't cooperate. The rain became a torrential downpour, so they stacked us into these random storage sheds they found in the field, hoping the rain would calm down. It didn't. After a couple of hypothermic hours in the shed we picked up all our muddy, soaking wet equipment and went back to our village to wait out the storm.
In the morning, we gathered our muddy selves, packed on our muddy equipment, and were delighted to discover that our equipment, much like a girl in her freshman year of college, had put on some "water weight". We got in formation and began marching in the rain towards our next unknown destination. Prior to this point we had already spent entire nights walking with 80 lbs bags on our backs and open stretchers on top of them, so we thought we had seen the worst of it, but of course, we were wrong. This march nearly killed me. At one point early on we had to cross a river that was created by the prior night's downpour, and since we didn't have any engineers around, we just walked right through the water like mules. You can imagine that soaking wet socks made the remaining 9 km we were to walk that day pure joy.
The worst thing about this march wasn't the socks though, it was the uncertainty. Every time we would get close to where we thought we were supposed to end up, the target would move. People went crazy, some guys would fall on the spot during our rare breaks and start crying. I was cursing my commanders, god, my parents for giving birth to me, and myself for volunteering for this torture. I would have shed tears but i was too dehydrated. By the time we reached our destination it was afternoon and we hadn't eaten in nearly 24 hours. We rested for a few minutes and then immediately began an exercise. Priceless.
Im not really doing the week justice though. There were some positive aspects. Towards the end we got transported by blackhawk helicopter, which saved us a 17km hike, and gave us a pretty sweet view and some much needed rest. We also got a pretty unbeatable sense of accomplishment when we ran up the final hill with open stretchers on our shoulders, smoke grenades flying all around, and some solid israeli music blasting from the stereos where the grand finale celebration was being held.
Well that about does it i guess. Im sure a lot more has happened in the past month and a half, but i tried to stick to the highlights. My mom has also been in town for the past few weeks, my dad got in today. Always a happy reunion... ::cough cough:: They're here for my ceremony on thursday where i get my red beret. All thats left is to walk 70k between wed and thursday and ill be a fully trained paratrooper.
Wish me luck and kiss my feet goodbye.
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