Out With A Bang

I guess the night we went in is the best place to start...no, wait, I'll start with the night before. My entire pluga (platoon) does an exercise drill in the fields outside the base to take care of some "in the event of's". We pack up all our gear onto our backs. For me that consists of: Ceramic Body Armor vest -7 kilo; Tactical combat assault vest with 11 loaded magazines - 6 kilo; kevlar helmet - 2 kilo; M4A1 assault rifle with Aquila night vision scope - 4.5 kilo; 3.5 liters of water - 3.5 kilo, break-in tools - 15 kilo; 8 bricks of plastic explosive + detonators and a reel of fuse - 5 kilo. Add all that shit up and I am lumbering around with 46 kilo (a little over 100 pounds) of gear on my back.

So we head out, walking for a bit, crouching in place for 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there, killer on my knees. Suddenly someone yells out "MITAN!" (IED! - to simulate an ambush) we all get down and start calling off our numbers to confirm that everyone is ok. My second-in-command officer comes up to me and my commander (he was my partner, we travel in two columns and every one has a "zug barzel" (iron partner) or official partner who is parallel with him in the other column) and says "pol patzuah" or "fallen, wounded". So when they reach our numbers we simply do not answer. Also I flop onto my back to relax a bit from the weight. Then I hear "MEDIC!" and two medics and two stretchers show up from somewhere down the line while everyone else in the platoon positions themselves 360 degrees around our bodies in prone position, keeping an open eye. They take off my pack and vest, the medic gives a run-through and claims these two are badly injured and have to be airlifted out. They now have two minutes to load us up on the stretchers and get us to the rendezvous point where the "choppers" will be touching down. They lift me onto the stretcher, put my legs through the arm holes of my combat vest, and rest my extra pack across my thighs. Of course with me and my shit adding and extra 265 pounds to the empty stretcher it takes some time to get me up on their shoulders. Then when they start running, one kid balks and me and my gear go tumbling. Being as I'm strapped into the stretcher, all I can do is put my arms out, shut my eyes, and pray that the explosives don’t detonate from the impact. I land on all fours (hands and feet, no knees) like a cat, and I’m stuck in 'push up' position until they roll me back over. We go for a second try and make it to the chopper one minute late - one minute TOO late. The chopper can only touch down for a short time to minimize exposure, and had this been the real thing, I woulda missed my flight. Better luck next time.
We pack up all our stuff and get back into formation. More walking, and crouching, and walking, and crouching when again suddenly "ENAMY CONTACT, FRONT!" We all drop and start charging the source of "fire" (a sergeant in the trees screaming "AISH! AISH! AISH!" or "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!") and execute the drill in good form. Anyways we continue drills and formations for a total of 6 hours and get back to the base at 0200 hours, exhausted, and my left shoulder is burning because the pack (the 44 pound one) was not sitting right on my back the whole time. I shorten some straps here, lengthen some straps there, and pass out for the night.

I wake up the next afternoon, hang out a bit, shower, check, double check, and triple check all my gear, and wait around for our briefing. Briefing starts early evening and we are told that we will be going into Lebanon later that night, and instead of marching in like we were originally told, we would be going in on "Defenderim" (a battery powered and therefore virtually silent modified Range Rover Defender like vehicle/dune buggy). We are also told that there is only enough room to take in 50 guys so that they had to drop a few guys from each platoon from the mission. All officers, commanders, radio men, medics, machine gunners, and sharpshooters stayed. I was good to go.

At 2000 hours we load up the bus with all the gear and start driving up north. We bathe our faces in camouflage paint, make jokes, and generally have a good time. We arrive at the settlement of Margoliyot near the Lebanese border at 2130 and have prepackaged dinners. Not to be confused with army rations, this was actual food. Company Commander, Captain Rotem gets on the bus and says we will be moving out at 0300. By now it's 2215 and we all take naps on the busses. The date passes from Wednesday, August 9, 2006 to Thursday, August 10, 2006 and we are awoken at 0230, unload our gear and wait down by the road. At exactly 0300 the Defenderim roll up, we put on all our gear, load our guns, cock the first bullet into the chamber, keep a thumb on the safety, load into the vehicles and head out. 0330!

At 0351 we reach the border via dirt path through heavily wooded area and drive onto Lebanese soil through a hole cut into the border fence. As we pass abandoned village after abandoned village, I'm noticing all the tanks and shelled out buildings giving off a weird, eerie glow on this completely silent, full moon lit night. "Holy shit," I finally think to myself, "this is an actual war!" The Defendirim come to a stop in a valley and we all jump out and line up in formation ready to move on, 0423. I gotta say 200 plus Israeli kids all between the ages of 18 and 22, marching their way through terrorist grounds is quite a sight in the moonlight. We walk for an hour and change and then stop and crouch down on either side of the road next to a convoy of tanks. The sky starts getting light so we head into an olive tree grove and take cover for the day. We split up, four people per tree, and do guard shifts of four hours on/four hours off with two people guarding at once. Guarding was done in full gear, sleeping was done in only the body armor vests. I guarded from 0600 - 1000, passed out, woke up for lunch consisting of four bread rolls and a can of tuna split four-way, and went back to sleep. I woke up again at 1400 for guard duty. At 1530 I am snapped out of a daze by a loud, whizzing, fizzing, whistling sound and look up to see an RPG rip through the skies 10 feet above the tree line. (Olive trees are only so tall...) Our Platoon Commander, Lieutenant Niv, orders everyone to put their helmets on, guarding or not. At 1800 I wake up my friend to guard and I go back to sleep. "Dinner" was "served" at 1900 this time with a single salami hot dog for the four of us in addition to the four rolls and the one can of tuna. Niv comes by and tells us to bury the garbage. We dig a small hole, throw in the empty tuna can and cover it back up. My friend looks at me and says, "tomorrow there's gonna be a tuna tree here."
"Only if it rains tonight" I said. So we look at each other, smile, and we both spit and the mound of dirt.

At 1930 I fall back asleep but Niv wakes me up at 2000 and tells me and the rest of my squadron (consisting of two other soldiers and Stricts, my commander) to gear up and wait outside in formation. By now it had been getting dark and, when I got there I saw only another handful of soldiers. "What’s going on?" I asked. Stricts comes over and tells me that they had received some intel about a small group of Hezbollah on the next hilltop and that we were going to "take them out". The seriousness of the situation starts to sink in as we are waiting for the 'green light'. We end up waiting for an hour and change, before we are told the mission is cancelled, but hey, at least we squeezed a 45 minute nap in there. At 2130 the entire company lines up and, again, we wait to move out. An hour of doze time later we are woken up and start moving. 2300.

That night's walk was very long, and very interesting. Over the next 5 hours we heard non-stop air strikes in the distance, and an exchange of tank shells and RPGs in the not-so-distance. Let me describe the air strikes. First we would see a flash of orange-white light many miles ahead, which would light up the sky like a bolt of lightening. Complete silence. About 30 seconds later we would hear the roar of a low flying jet RIPPING through the air and a ground shaking BOOM! When I say "ripping", I actually mean a ripping, tearing sound, like a piece of cloth, only with much more bass, and when I say ground shaking, I mean, the dirt around our feet actually jumped around. Do the math and those explosions were about 6 miles away.

We finally get to Kfar Qantara (another small village) and wait a couple hundred meters out before marching in. We wait another hour or so and then get up and start the move. Our mission: Reach a certain house, occupy it, and use it as a home base from which to send patrols and outlooks over the rest of the village. Enemy presence: Probable.
We march through the village and it is dark, quiet and abandoned. The entire village is built down one long dirt road. A kilometer in, the two columns of soldiers merge into a single line, and we crouch in waiting on the side of the road. My Lieutenant, his radio man Or, his sharpshooter Yoni, and his machine gunner Dor, move on up ahead with Captain Rotem, his radioman Viesel, his Assistant Elad, and Elad's radio man Tomer, and disappear over a low hill. About 10 minutes later Stricts gets some radio chatter, tells me to get up, and we start moving in the direction of the officers who had left earlier. Half a kilometer down the road we reach the Mosque, across from which lies a simple grey cement house built on a down-slope. 0430.

I get to the front door and Lieutenant Niv is waiting for me there and tells me to take off my pack. There are 12 of us here at this house. Me, Stricts, Rotem, Viesel, Elad, Tomer, Niv, Or, Yoni, Dor, The Samgad (Sgan Mifaked Gdud, or Second-In-Command 932nd Battalion, Granite Battalion, my battalion) and his radioman Motti. Niv takes out the tools to pry open doors (shit that firemen use), gives me back the bag, and tells me to wait around on the side of the house. I round the corner and find myself on the Mirpeset (terrace) with Stricts, Elad, Yoni, Dor, Viesel and Tomer. We crouch down against the wall of the house with barred up windows on either side of my head. I hear Niv tinkering with the metal, and the Samgad saying "just open it already you pussy." A snap, the sound of metal hitting the concrete floor, and the slow creak of a door being nudged open. This time, no one had a chance to scream "mitan." BOOOOOM!!!!!! That orange-white flash spotted with chunks of concrete, twisted metal, and shattered glass fills my entire field of vision. I am thrown to the ground from the force of the explosion and sense a slight pain in my right shoulder I get up on my knees and see from around the corner of the house a mess of blood in the front yard, and a couple bodies scattered on the concrete floor. I do that knee walk over to the wall of the mirpeset where the other six guys already were, scanning the yard for Hezbollah. I ask the other guys if they’re all OK but hear my voice only in my head as there is a loud ringing noise in my ears. A few seconds later the ringing dies down a bit and I hear the muffled screams of Rotem and the Samgad coming from the front of the house. Screams for medics fill the air and all we can do is sit there. Scanning.

RATATATATATATATATATAT! The distinct sound of an AK47 amplifies itself from within the concrete house. We all DIVE back to the wall to take cover. POP! I fall to my side and let out a scream that drowns out the AK47. I run out of air in my lungs, take a huge breath and let out another scream. The initial pain of my separated shoulder goes away after a few seconds, but that doesn’t make things any better. I try grabbing my arm and popping it back in but I almost pass out. I try leaning it hard into the concrete wall to shove it back in place, but I almost blacked out a second time. So I just lie there in pain making unnatural noises as a raging battle wages on 6 inches behind my head, with only a concrete wall separating us. Grenade after grenade after grenade explodes in the house, each blast shooting more debris out the windows covering those of us on the mirpeset with powdered concrete and glass. Each blast, resonating through the walls and my shoulder, sending jolts of pain through my entire body. This goes on for 20 minutes, unable to move my arm, unable to get my sprawled out body closer to the wall for protection, and unable to know what happened to those who went into the house, and whose bodies I saw in the front...

Then some soldiers from a different platoon poke their heads up through a hole blown out in the side wall of the mirpeset, and ask who’s up here. Yoni screams out "7 soldiers, 1 injured." It was only then that I realized, that I was, in fact, injured, and might not be able to fight for a while. "OK" they said, "let's get you guys outta here". Stricts and Elad try to jolt me to my feet from my one good arm but the second my right shoulder moved, I screamed and he put me back down. They then jumped off the side of the mirpeset and went to go get a medic. RATATATATATATAT! The shooting started up again. Why is this motherfucker not dying?!?!?!?!?!
Another 20 minutes of grenades, bullets, and pain, and everything was quiet. The soldiers came again from the side of the mirpeset and said that we had to move! Now! Why did they keep popping up like that? Dor took my gun, and then he and Yoni both helped me up. I rounded the corner and the bobble head soldiers said "stop! come this way, it's not safe to cross the front door!" So I get to the hole in the wall and look down at a five foot drop to the yard. SHIT. I grab my bad arm with my good one, bite my lip and jump. . . . . . . . The drop seemed to last forever, and when it finally did end, after a complete millisecond, I was ready to scream again from the pain. Then I had to run and climb up this other 10 foot embankment to the road where the rest of my platoon was waiting. I reach them, completely devoid of energy and just stand there in front of my sergeant, awkwardly, with my right arm hanging about four inches lower than my left. He rips off my helmet, bag, combat vest, and bulletproof vest and tells me to get into the tank that was waiting there for us. I painfully crawl through the tiny latch hole in the back of the tank, and as I'm the last one in, they latch the door shut behind me and start speeding back to the Israeli border at 30 mph, enemy fire ricocheting off the sides of the tank the entire way back.

Cramped in a metal tank with a dislocated shoulder on bumpy dirt roads going 30 mph is not the most comfortable ride in the world. But I looked around the tank and realized I had the least amount of problems. On my right was Motti, his left pant leg torn to shreds, and his leg swollen to almost double the size. Behind me was Or, the lower half of his right pant leg actually dripping blood. On my left was Rotem, a wet, red stained gauze over his eyes, and at my feet was the Samgad, wrapped up in a blanket, already hooked up to an IV, and falling in and out of consciousness.

15 minutes later we pass back through the hole in the fence where I came in through only 27 hours earlier, and the tank stops and we get out, waiting for the army ambulances to arrive. It was a pleasant morning, not too hot, far from cold, but my teeth start chattering from the pain. They help us all out of the tank and lay us down on the road. A medic comes over and gives me a bottle of water which I take with my left hand and thank him. So he gets up and walks away. Then it hits me. I call out for anybody with two usable hands and the same medic comes running back. He asks what I need, and I ask him to light me a cigarette from the pack in my right pocket. By the time I finish my cigarette the "Fordbulance" as they are called rolls up. Two of them. Or, Motti, and myself are put into one, while Rotem and the Samgad were put in the other. The doctors go through the procedure of asking us our names, ID numbers, rank, and positions, and then what’s wrong with us. I was sitting at the time and I told them I dislocated my shoulder They made me lay down on a stretcher and tied my arm down to my side. That one...hurt like a bitch, and I vocally expressed that so they gave me a nice little one called Morphine. Finally. A couple minutes later the pain subsided enough for the teeth chattering to stop and we drove on for about 10 minutes or so. Then we stop. "There is no way we reached a hospital yet" I think as they open the doors. Then I heard the blades of a helicopter chopping through the air and I couldn't help but smile. "Oh, fun" I said to the Air force guy who loaded me up into the helicopter. He smiled back at me and said he was glad I was in a good mood. As they secured the stretcher onto the floor, Or climbed in next to me and the chopper starting climbing. Then I got my IV. Now I'm not sure what was in it, but I wasn't about to ask because whatever it was, you definitely can’t buy that shit at Rite Aid. During the ride they asked me if I felt pain anywhere else on my body aside from the shoulder. I said no, but just to check they cut off my shirt, pants, boots and socks anyways. I was ready for my bath. 40 or so minutes later, after another stop to pick up another wounded soldier from God knows where, we land on a landing dock that seemed to suddenly come up from the Mediterranean. We reached Rambam Medical Center, on the shores of Haifa. They took me out of the helicopter, into a normal ambulance, and drove to the hospital entrance. Then they unloaded me again, reeled me into the hospital put me on one of those wheely beds and took me to the emergency room. I asked one of the doctors what time it was. "8:30 AM" he answered. "Oh, good morning."

They X-Rayed my shoulder and chest, gave me an oxygen breather, two shots of Novocain in the shoulder and wrapped a rope around my chest. "Now you're gonna feel a pop in your shoulder" he said, "but it’s not gonna hurt." "OK" the morphine and Wonder IV answered. With that, one doctor grabbed the rope, and pulled my body to the left, while the other one grabbed my now numb arm, and pulled it to the right. "Pop." Haha, it didn't hurt at all. Then they bed wheeled me back to the X-Ray room, took more X-Rays of my newly realigned shoulder and chest, and then to the Ultrasound lab and said it was gonna be a boy. "Huh?" I said. "No, we're just playing, we have to check your organs for internal damage. By now I really, really, REALLY had to pee from the IV and as they're checking my organs the ultrasound machine put some pressure on my bladder and I thought I was gonna pop. "Wow, you really have to pee" the doctor said noticing the picture on the screen. Yup. So they let me pee, made me call my family to let them know I was OK, and let me pass out finally, from physical exhaustion, hunger, lack of sleep, and those drugs you cant get at Rite Aid.

All in all, I'm upset to have to have left my boys back in Lebanon, but I’m very thankful that it was just a dislocated shoulder. My arm should be almost good as new in no time and then we can all party, and have a good time, and if I don’t feel like talking about it, I apologize now.

This blog will not end on a funny note like the others...sorry.