First days in the army

// I'm sorry, but this post will be without pictures, we weren't allowed to carry cellphones with us.

To tell honestly, those days seemed just a waste of time for most of us. We didn't do anything useful almost, just moving around most of the time as formation or standing on one place for half an hour. I understand that they want to teach us discipline. The basics. To be always in time. That's why it's called only a preparation for "tiranut" - the course, which each soldier has to pass (its difficulty depends on where he is going to be in the army, our primary "tiranut" course lasts 4 months) in the beginning of his service in IDF. All we did there was always limited by time . Most of us have watch on our hands, so if a commander tells us to build a formation in 30 seconds behind some building, everyone knows exactly when the time runs out. Also, we have to count each second loudly when it comes under 30 (i hate this part...), and then a guy called a "Hantar" has to greet commanders, and we all answer him together loudly, too. I'm sorry all i tell you here are random remembrances, each time i write something i recognize smth else, the time went up very slowly in the camp, it seems like i was there much longer, than 3 days already. Let's start from morning. Each private has to sleep 6 hours a day, so you can know exactly when they are going to wake you up by looking at your watch at the moment you go to sleep. After everyone woke up, he has 10 minutes (later it will be 7 minutes) to wear his field uniform. Then we also received very limited time to brush teeth, to shave ourselves and to clean our boots. Each soldier also has to fill up his drinking bottle (we receive it from army, made of rubber) and to carry it with him all day long (filling it up again when it runs over). Although i drank a lot and had a hat on my head, i had headaches first 2 days. It was just too hot outside, there are no clouds on the sky at all, and all you can do is to bear it. I'm actually not usual for such weather, not usual for heat...but let's go on.
Each soldier has to eat 3 times a day, and the times also depend on when the first meal was taken. As many of you know, soldiers eat kosher in Tzahal, so there must be an interval of 6 hours between meat and milk meals. Commanders give us a "2-2-2" command, which means, that we have to wash up 2 hands in 2 minutes and build up 2 straight lines near the entrance. Each of us passes through little containers with food and puts whatever he wants on his plate. The food was affluent, it also tasted good, although some pussies whined about its quality. After each one enters and sits on his place, we have 20 minutes to finish our meal and 5 more minutes to arrange all dirty dishes and build a formation outside.
Sometimes we also have lessons, and if i'm not mistaken, we had already 5 of them. Some were very boring, like the one with rabbi, mostly because i'm not religious at all, secondly because he didn't stop talking and it stimulated my willingness to sleep. But we weren't allowed to sleep. Each one who felt he is going to fall asleep has to stand near the wall so he doesn't close his eyes. Ahaha, they are so nice.
In the evening everyone has to wash himself in bathrooms and to call his parents - this is the first time we are allowed to enter our rooms since morning. For all this we have 1 hour, and everyone enjoys this time, cuz there is no another one. After that we get our last instructions, whether they regard our next day or smth else and have 1 minute to go to our barracks and fall asleep.
Also each group of ca.10 people got their private commander, which everyone can ask something or apply for smth. Our group was lucky - we got very nice commander, much nicer, than most of others...
And this is the moment i forgot to tell the most important part. In our division there are 85 people, and around 30 of them are girls. Yes, girls also serve with us, most of them also want to become combat units. I find it very positive, many of them are pretty cute and they raise our moral too :D

That's pretty much for this time. Next time i come home for shabbat i tell you more about what next we are going to do. I will also try to explain more about what type of forces we are going to be. Some of us are going to be in artillery, some of us with smth connected to MLRS etc. I hope you enjoyed, my friends, feel free to comment! :)