Three Hundred and Sixty Five

The outlier. Thats what I am. From my friends in the army, to my friends back home- I am somehow singled out. Whether its the way i look, the way i talk, the way i dress. who I am. where i come from? where I live. I cant be sure if i was an outlier my whole life, but as far back as i can remember i always felt a little different than most of my friends and other people in general.

My close friends flatter me with words of admiration and my acquaintances pelter me with questions about what i will do AFTER the army. On some level i can understand this question, how can i possibly expect them to understand what my life consists of, or what it is based on at this point. I find myself wondering that almost every day.

I feel lonely. Not because i am lonely, but because i allow my situation dictate my feelings. There is some truth in my loneliness, i am across the word from my mom, dad and the rest of my family. In a different country, with a different life and path, but as so many people love to remind me, that is what i chose. I respond by saying, "your right." "but i didn't choose to be alone ." Now, before i continue i must say i can already here my mom mumbling that I make these decisions for myself everyday. Let me explain.

When i wake up in the morning whether its out of a 30 year old sleeping bag on the floor of the Judean Desert or at home in my bed at the kibbutz, i make a decision. How will i start this day, what feeling will i let overcome me with this sunrise? will it be a simple feeling of cold, or a more comprehensive feeling like sadness or loneliness. As i described i can envision my mom saying, " its your decision how you wake up in the morning, how you want to start and proceed with each day." Do you want to take that day by the horns and make it your day, or do you want to let other influences make that decision for you.

If its cold, im cold. If its early, im tired. These are the natural responses to these stimulations. but there is still that decision. Or so she(my mom) says? I have struggled lately to make these more simple decisions. I dream about waking up with a smile on my face. Excited to start each day. I realize that achieving that in the system i am serving in is challenging, but i am determined to make a go at it.

People's questions of what i will do after the army test me. Not because i have no idea what i will do, ( I really have no idea) but because i am already struggling so much that confronting my life in the future is more than i want to deal with. I want people to delve into my life as it stands now, to be interested, to strive for knowledge and understanding of what i'm doing, but just as with many of my expectations in life, im shooting high. I suppose this makes me my own outlier in some way, i make myself standout. For this exclusiveness i also pay a price.

In every one of the last 365 days i have made my life different in some way, i feel like im making headway in life as difficult as it is to progress at some points. I don't think i'm an outlier all 365 days, but on most of the days that i am i realize it. SO i guess that is the price that I pay in the end, to achieve these goals and dreams of mine i must, at some points be alone.

when that thought sits on my mind, i am okay with it. If this is the price for this dream of mine, then thats what ill pay.

Andrew

PS i know this post is a bit stranger than the norm, but take it for what it is. I just thought i would share what is going through my head on the Saturday night before i head back into the movie that is my life.

Winter in Israel

Its winter in Israel. November the 12^th. There has been a few rainy days and the temperatures at night and in the early mornings have dropped to sweatshirt and beanie weather. It’s that sort of climate that you find in San Francisco in the fall-- breezy and crisp.

My teammates and I are just about one year in training. Six months to go. As far as the end seems, I know it will in some way creep up on me; and then instead of complaining about not being done yet I will be worried about not being ready to hold others people’s lives in my hands everyday. Our team is starting to come together; we are at Jump School for two weeks learning how to hurl ourselves out of perfectly good airplanes. It’s the type of thing that causes a lot of laughing because we spend the whole day learning how to fall on the ground. (Imagine singing strange commands and then launching yourself off a 15 foot platform all day for all your friends to watch as you hit the ground, face first and get yelled at by the instructor saying that your landing was poor.) A perfect bonding experience if I don’t say so myself.

It feels to me now that we are on the point on a climb where your hands hurt, the last two pitches look and ARE the most difficult and you know that there is cold beer waiting in the car. We have made it almost a year through training, probably the most trying period of any of our lives and yet the lack of satisfaction is astounding. It strikes me on a daily basis that on the day-to-day I am not very satisfied. Now, being the thinker that I am, that has bothered me greatly. But after thinking it through and talking to my “O so wise” roommate I have come to understand that what I do here every day isn’t about satisfaction or at least immediate satisfaction that is. No one ever say it would be fun, satisfying or enjoyable. On the contrary, people warned me that it would be like this.

One of the things that most frustrates me is that fact that we are, by product of the training and other elements, essentially treated like kids. They insist on complete secrecy on whatever we are doing so we never know what is to come or when it will end. Our lives are mysteries to us and our families. Our families and friends knowing far less than we do even. We have no contact with the outside world during the week, no phone; no news, we live in a hole Saturday night through Friday morning. Cut off from family, friends, girlfriends and apart from the people in the unit, humanity. Now that is not to say that I don’t understand why it is that way it is. Its perfectly logical if you are trying to form the greatest and most highly trained soldiers, that taking all their connections to anything but what we do everyday makes the list of distractions very short. There are sacrifices to this approach however, friends on the outside drift away, girlfriends seem distant at times and even when we do have contact it is limited to 24 hours. This is attacking the base of our support systems. Our families and our friends, the things we know about in our lives are taken from. I think this is a conscious decision on the part of our officers to test us at the highest level, when only ourselves and our teammates are there to live through it together. They need to know that even if you don’t have the support of anyone else except your teammates that you will not give up that that they can count on you 100%.

Now your either saying, “gees that sucks” or some of my more assertive friends might be saying, “suck it up, you know why your there.” Now usually that comforts me to know that I did choose this life for myself and this is part of the price that needs to be paid to accomplish my goal. But I have plateaued recently, not particularly sure on what, but I am sure that I need a sharp kick in the butt so I can stick it out through the end. I know the fire in me is still burning bright, I have just let it get away from me-- the flame disappearing behind the curtains. However as I write this post I start to remember why I wanted to have this challenge—to get to a point where I wanted to say, “okay that’s enough for me” and show myself that I could stick it out. Now not to get confused I don’t seriously think about quitting but I do think sometimes, “boy what have I gotten myself into.”

I know the next six months will hold some of the hardest challenges of my life but I know that it will also hold some of the most important pinnacles of achievement not only in training but for myself. I am positive that there will be a few moments that I can feel as though I am on top of the world and say to myself, “you did it.” This is the finish line and your standing on it.

I know this post was relatively brief but I just wanted to check in with everyone, tell them what I was up to and let them know that no matter what, I am gonna give this thing everything I got until I have nothing else to give, and then keep giving.

On a less serious note I hope this note finds everyone happy, healthy, and smiling—because no matter what at the end of the day a smile and a laugh cures it all.

May god bless you with love, life and happiness.

Andrew

One Year In Israel

Yesterday was one year in Israel. Not one year ever. One year since I made Aliyah, and came to live and serve in this country as a soldier of the IDF. I know everyone (my Mom particularly) will be shocked that I have actually posted a blog, but I figured an anniversary is quite a milestone and a perfect opportunity to look back and see where I started this year and where I find myself now.

Lets start with the location: Israel, Beit Haemek. Now lets get to what I have accomplished since then. ONE: I am in the army. (I started October 10, 2010), TWO. I am in the IAF’s Elite Unit 669, THREE. I have short hair(okay that one was just for kicks).

In the past 365 years of my life, I have learned what it is to be a soldier in this country. A country of war and (as my commander puts it) preparation for war. I have suffered unimaginably, been to unbelievable downs, that in my prior life I thought not possible. I have been at the point in which I thought all was lost; That I had reached my point of quitting, and wanted to give up more than anything in the world. But I didn’t, not because I didn’t want to, because I couldn’t. I still haven’t been able to place what it is exactly that keeps me from giving up, but I have something in me that no matter the suffering I seem to find myself at the end of the road.

I learned to be a Field and In-Flight Combat Medic, How to fight with a team of 4,6, and 12 people and take over mountains in the field. I learned what it means to sprint with a stretcher on your shoulder and what it is to carry someone on your back for a full kilometer in the middle of the night after the hardest week your body has ever suffered through. I learned to cable wounded soldiers/people up and down hovering helicopters and soon I will be learning how to scuba dive to further expertise my abilities to rescue people in the ocean.

One year ago I was civilian just like everyone else fresh out of my first year of college and already planning to intern in Manhattan over the summer. Now I find myself doing 18 hour days…everyday, exercising 4+ hours a day and spending the rest of the day learning how to be an elite soldier in one of the world most expert evacuation and rescue units. I used to talk about calculus and which party I was going to after Hillel on Friday nights and now I talk about how to cable rescue pilots behind enemy lines after a crash. How much has my life changed? Drastically. How much have I changed? I don’t know. I still feel like me, but I think I stand taller. Not out of arrogance, but out of pride for myself and my teammates. I think I have matured and become a bit tougher, for better or for worse.

I have an unbelievable amount of satisfaction at the end of most of my weeks, something that I never before experienced in my life apart from days I spent climbing the mountains and cliffs of the Sierra Nevada’s. (There is no better satisfaction than that, but this is getting pretty close.)

The past year has flown by, which I am sure everyone’s has but I think for me it is a little different because since the first day in the army my team mates and I have been looking forward to “sof maslool” (being done with training, ergo: to be operational), to being a Lochem(warrior) and being able to be on call for active operations. I’m not saying I’m anywhere near that, but it feels so much closer than it did in December and just by the training we are doing I can tell in my mind that I have come a long way. I still remember my first visit to an army base that lasted about 3 hours. I sat in an unbearably hot auditorium still in use from the British control of the Mandate ,almost assuredly, and read brochures about the army’s elite units, of course day dreaming about being in 669, day dreaming about doing the things that I am now training to do. Because of the nature of the unit I cant talk too much about what were doing especially the details of it, but its safe to say that its not walking in two straight lines to the lunch room anymore.

I think that I cannot fully understand where I am and what I am doing because I am in it. I live it and breathe it 24 hours a day and there is not ever time to really zoom back and see my life from above and over time, like one would have to understand who I am, where I came from and where I am now. It was always my dream to save people out of the ocean and the thought that I am getting somewhat close to that(closer than 99.99 percent of the people in the world) I am on the whole very satisfied with where I am. However that is not to say that I cruise at all or that it is easy at all for me, I struggle most days with one thing or another but I believe that this is how we got stronger, if your not struggling your not getting stronger. So I guess, just so everyone is clear I am having a very difficult time, but in a good way I think. I feel that I am stressing things that could use some stretching and learning things that can only help me to learn and become a more enriched and enlightened individual, two things that interest me greatly.

One of my greatest friends left me a voicemail yesterday that motivated me at the deepest and greatest level to pick myself off the ground and propel myself to the end of this thing. She told me not forget that even if I am not proud of myself, that she is and there are so many people that are, and are praying for me everyday and only wishing for my success. I think one thing that HAS happened in the last 12 months is that I have lost touch with where I came from and why exactly I came here in the first place and why I find myself in the unit that I am in. I believe it has to do with idealism but I think it also has to do with humanity, wanting to contribute, to help. “So that others may live” (U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers) this is my favorite quote and describes what I want to do. I came here to serve and this is the kind of service that I want to do. I want to reach down and get that victim that no one else can get, that no one is fast enough or strong enough to get, I want to reach down and get them.(The Guardian) To rescue someone from near or sure death and bring them back to their families, to me, in my mind, that is the ultimate mitzvah.

I’m sure if you are reading this, you have read either some or all of my previous posts so you might or might not remember the story about the kids in Haifa from the nursery, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I still think about those kids; and I think if one of them was in trouble or hurt I would want to be the one that came to help, and that is why I choose to make the choices I make. To take the consequences of being in this unit, being disconnected from my friends and family, not using my full rights as lone soldier (going home for a month every year), not going to the opening ceremony of the next Garin Tzabar year because I am busy doing training that will help me get to that end game.

I have a thousand stories I could probably share about the time between when I last wrote, but the most important thing that needs to be heard and expressed is what I have just addressed, so for now I will leave it at that. But know that I will keep on trucking and that all your thoughts, prayers and love are helping me enormously and giving me a lot of strength—so keep sending them.

May god bless you and keep you safe,

Shabbat shalom from Israel.

Always,

אנדרו

Some Forward Progress

Its march third today, this means two things to me. First and for most this is the month of my birthday (22nd) and much to my disbelief I will be turning twenty-one years old. Secondly, and also to my disbelief I have been in the Israeli army three months now, and finished basic training. This past week I have been on a week-long break from the army, which has been incredible. I have had time to reflect on the last few months and come to a few conclusions on how I want to continue. Although before I get to that I will share a little of what I have been up to on my time off. I surfed in the rain with my buddy Daniel at Hasharon Beach in Herzaliyya, had a trip with all the guys from my unit in the Golan—filled with a river walk, hummus, BBQ and beer drinking; it was a great time. I also had some great nights in Tel Aviv with some friends and a couple days at the kibbutz just having some personal time and really relaxing. Now to the “blog worthy” stuff.

The past three months have been by far the toughest of my life, not so much physically (also) but mentally. It’s a different world being in basic training, someone controlling every aspect of your life. Asking permission to use the bathroom, being told when to sleep, eat and every other action in your life. It is not really something that you get used to, but you make your peace with it after a while. Now that I have finished basic I feel that I have turned a corner, however small as it may be, I feel I have accomplished something. I now call my commanders by their first names and don’t have to salute them every time I see them. Nonetheless at the end of the day they are still my commanders and they still order me around and what not, but there is something really good about being treated as somewhat of an equal. Being able to call them by their first name puts you on a similar level with them, maybe not an equal one but at least it’s a big step up.

I start Sunday at combat medic’s course. It is a two and a half to three month course that teaches you to basically to be a doctor in the field. It will be refreshing to finally learn something that is specific to my unit and more than that do something that is without a doubt progress in the right direction.

Its funny when I started this post I thought I would have gobs to say and write about but funnily enough I think I have covered most of it. To conclude ill say this, the weather here is starting to warm up, and everything is green throughout the entire country which makes it breathtaking. I hope that everyone back home is surviving the real winter, especially those that find themselves in Michigan and Nevada.

Much love to everyone and be in touch,

אנדרו

One a Half Months in the Army

Firstly, I apologize to all the readers for the lack of posts, I vastly overestimated how much free time I would have to write a blog during my army service. But I guess that’s not the only thing I underestimated.

During this first month and a half in basic training I have experienced the shock of being in the army, but also started to understand what it is to be a soldier in this country. It has been a hard month and half, but also a rewarding one. I have crawled though the thorns and rocks in the middle of the night with a full pack on, learned what happens if I don’t shave well enough in the morning, but best of all I have learned the feeling of finishing a full week in the army and having the incredible satisfaction of getting on the bus home on Friday morning SO ready for a restful Shabbat.

I have learned a lot of life lessons and things about myself, just in these first six weeks. I think one of the most important things I have learned has been that the army has a lot of ups and downs. When you are sprinting and crawling and being woken up four times a night from sleeping in your hole with no sleeping bag or anything to keep you warm, you feel like you have hit rock bottom. But when you finish that week and wake up Friday morning and put on your dress uniform on to go home, there is no better feeling in the world.

I don’t have a whole lot of time to really go into detail about how these few weeks have been and like I think I have posted before, I cant talk in any detail about anything that is going on so I will just give a bit of an insight of how it is going for me personally.

It has been hard both mentally and physically, but when each day is over you have some sort of satisfaction. One of the hardest things is never knowing what is to come. When you are in college or really most other places in everyday life there is some sort of schedule; classes that you know you have to go to, meetings that you have to keep. For us it pretty much up in the air, you wake up every morning having no idea what to expect. Apart from that there are amazing things as well. When you pray for the first time in the field, still in your sweaty smelly uniform, gun hanging down next to your hip, it is an amazing feeling. You really feel like you are where you dreamt you would be, doing what you dreamt was right for you.

In a week and half I have my Tekes Hashbaah, (swearing in ceremony) in which we take our guns home for the first time and are presented with a copy of the Tanakh along with our unit tags. Is is a big ceremony at the Kotel in Jerusalem and should prove to be quite a scene. It is looked upon here as one of the milestones in the army so I cannot honestly believe I have already made it to this point. I can still clearly remember the say I started the army and how nervous/excited I was getting on the first bus to the base.

One thing I realized this week, which has helped me dramatically is that I have so much support in this journey. Not just my friends, family and my garin, but all the people that you meet and learn of your story and your life. This last Thursday I was on a “Yom Kef” (fun day) for Lone Soldiers, (this was instead of parent day for the rest of the soldiers) and at the end of the tour the tour guide, who we had spent probably one and half hours with, invited every single soldier on the bus to Shabbat at her home in Jerusalem and read out her mobile phone to everyone and said if they ever needed anything not to hesitate to call. That was my lesson for the week, when it is hard for me and when I want to quit or not be there, remember all the amazing people that are behind me, who care, support and are so proud of me. That thought, and those people will be what I use to get through my future challenges—now to all of you reading this post: you are a part of that strength and support so for that I want to say thank and remind you that you are doing a Mitzvah helping me though this time of learning and hardship.

I pray that everyone has a restful, safe and relaxing Shabbat.

Shabbat shalom and much love, strength and prayers from Israel.

אנדרו