back down to the desert

This week has been a mix of some amazing and fun times and some not so great stuff. Overall though I had a blast and within the week I had one of the best nights in the army so far. Now that our unit is not on the border, we are spending our time doing practice drills and simulations for if there was ever to be a war. So this past week we took a trip back down to the south of israel for some practice drills. I guess our commanders thought we haven't had enough of the heat and sand in the desert so we just needed some more of it for the next few weeks. the base we were heading to has a fake arab village in it that is used for training drills sucj as what we would be performing.

As we arrive at the base all of on the bus are really excited because it looks like a nice base with nice facilities. And then we keep on driving, and we finally arrive at this old base that has no one there and looks like it has not been used for at least 20 years. This ghost town of a base would be our living quarters for the next couple of weeks. Now we have to go through the process of trying to find cleaning supplies to actually clean the inch of dust off the floor so that we can sleep somewhere and try to find some electricity and running water. To arrive at a base that has no one feels a little eerie. I walk around the base and look in the rooms and still see boxes and things left behind and think why is this stuff here, or why is there no one on the base, and lastly how did we end up at this base?

This first day we had lessons about various different topics from different officers within the unit. and then the second day we went out on a practice drill. the drill did not start until 7 pm. but we spent the day preparing the armored vehicles and resting up for the long night ahead. then at 7pm we made our way to the vehicles and organized all our gear double checked the equipment and set off to 50 meters outside the base. then we sat there for another few hours. finally at 11pm we took off for real. we drove for a while and the whole time we had on bullet-proof vest and helmet. we finally arrived at the fake arab town which was now "gaza" we set up base inbetween some sand dunes and started guarding. we then started getting "attacked" and the fun began. the medical unit started treating fake injuries and we were working under the cover of night like we were really in a war. the adrenaline from this practice was enough to keep us up all night and into the next day. we worked hard and had fun when things were quiet. Finally after about 14 hours we headed back and were finished. we unloaded and had time to relax.

wednesday evening we had a barbeque and it was the first time since sunday morning that I had any real food since we had been eating army rations and there was nothing vegetarian in them besides peanuts. so having a BBQ and hanging out with the unit watching a movie was fun.

the next few months are going to be sort of like this past week was. I really enjoyed the past week so i am look forward to it. the excitement and energy that you get from the whole group makes it fun and it really brings the unit together to work and have fun together.

Hope everyone has a good week!
Love,
Roxanne

the excitment of two weeks

Hi to everyone,

The past two weeks have been pretty exciting. After I returned from my weekend off two weeks ago we had another attack where palestinians shot and injured two jews on sunday and on monday we had rocks thrown at a public bus near our base. We weren't allowed to leave the base and were going out to run more security throughout the jewish settlements around the area and more checkpoints to try and catch the terrorists. It was a week where we didn't sleep much and we on and off the base a lot for false alarms of running checkpoints.

Then this week we moved off of the border to one of our training bases. the whole gadsar unit have 3 months of training. Starting sunday we packed up all of the base. that includes all of the computers and desks and everything. It was a lot of work and took three days to pack everything up. at the same time we were still guarding checkpoints and arresting suspected terrorists at night. which meant not a lot of sleep. On wednesday we moved officially to the training base. we then spent wednesday night setting up the clinic and organizing our medications and medical supplies. I then had to organize my room which had nothing in it when i arrived. that meant searching for a bed mattress and a locker.

Thursday we had a fun day for the whole unit. so all of us soldiers went to a water park. it was pretty fun. they reserved the water park just for us. we had free range of all the slides and pools and it was a lot of fun to just hang out and relax after working so hard on the border guarding and not knowing what might come next.

These next three months are going to be tough even though we are not on the border. We are going to be in the wilderness a lot and there is going to be a lot of intense physical training. I am really excited to see what these next three months bring and to have a chance to bond even more with my friends and the boys that I work with in the clinic.

I hope that everyone is doing well. for those in school, i hope that it is going well. the weather here has been well, I hope that in the US it is nice as well. Keep in touch. I love hearing from you and it means a lot to read your comments.

Love,
Roxanne