The recruitment day

Welcome back, friends!

In this post i will tell you about my recruitment day. Not only mine, there were many of us. I'm also sure other divisions have it same way we had. I will also accompany all this with pictures, which were taken on the base we were recruited (until it was forbidden to capture pics). I've arrived too early, there still was no one there except of me and some guys with vuvuzela, who came to support their friend who also recruited.

Oh, wait, yes, i forgot to mention, i was recruited as combat artillery unit. I have no idea why, my "preference" of becoming an artillery unit was 1 from 5 in the questionnaire i was asked to fill up by the army. Seems like my profile (which is highest, 97) is more important, than my excellect math, english, physics and programming grades. I am very disappointed i got there. I expected something more for myself. Now there is very few i can do with it. But let's continue. After the appointed hour came, the gate opened and everyone came to the inner yard in front of the base itself. There were artillery soldiers greeting newcomers and answering some questions, as well as allotting leaflets with brief information. On the left side near the entrance into the base (by the way, this is exactly the base where i was on my "Tzav rishon" - first order) you can see a panel with name, last name and ID of the people, who need to get on the bus to take them to the army. The bus stood on the other side of the yard waiting for newcomers. Most of draftees came with someone, who accompanied them, so all those people remained standing near the bus, sending their sons and daughters (or friends...) to "better life".  Those pics should give you better idea of how everything went up there (i'm sorry pics aren't arranged good, it's the best i could do with this editor):

greetings for joining the artillery forces

the entrance to the base

the bus is waiting for you, my friend!

the panel where my name appeared

The flag you can see on some of the pics (red-black) is the flag of Artillery Forces. But let's go on! So we are on the bus, we start moving. The bus goes smth like 200 meters and stops. And we are all told to get out, ahah. One of commanders came to us, built kind of formation and told us to put our bags we brought with us to the depot (we all knew we were going to stay in the base at least until the closest shabbat - Saturday). After that everyone arrived into a building, where first of all we were identified, whether those are we or not. Then some medical tests came, brief interviews, blood test, some injections, interview with another commander. This one asked people if they are happy or not, what they want to do here etc. I've honestly told him, that there must be some mistake, i shouldn't be here, i don't wanna, but he told me, that my profile is 97 and my country needs me and there is no way back for now. Everyone also received his army ID card - every soldier should have it every time he isn't in his base, it identifies you as soldiers and gives you a lot of privileges, as well as free public transportation. After that there was a way downstairs to another depot, where everyone received most of his primary army stuff and could try it on him in the cloakrooms right next to it. If something doesn't fit, he could easily change it. Some of the basic stuff each soldier gets: a huge bag, a jacket, a uniform, T-shirts, socks, 2 pairs of boots, many other stuff, a packet with tools for shaving - each soldier must shave himself every morning, a brush for cleaning boots...can't recognize everything now. Then each soldier got a gift - a little bag with some snacks, coffee and other stuff. No one really ate from there, the whole day we weren't in our rooms and finally, when we were allowed to enter, no one wanted to eat anymore :D (more about this in the next post). So now everyone waited for other guys to pass all the stations and then another bus took all the stuff and us to the base, which was placed in a far away galaxy....i mean desert, on the south of Israel, not far away from border with Egypt. So the bus came and we were divides into groups of 6 people in each room, the baracks weren't really that big, we barely had place to stand there all together.

But more on this in my next post. I hope you enjoyed. :)