The Beginning

A few days ago I began the first real live interactions with the army that I will be joining in the next couple of months. The purpose of these interactions was to acquaint both parties - myself and the Israeli army - with each other so that I can be matched up with a position that is appropriate for me based on my intelligence, propensity for tolerance of people different from me, social skills, linguistic abilities, education, profession pre-army, health and a range of other smaller factors. This process is aptly called "tsav rishon" - first order.

The day of my "first order", I woke up at the crack of 5:15am, fresh off the 2 hours of sleep that my still jet-lagged body was kind enough to permit me. The recruitment office - Lishkat HaGius - had ordered me through a letter to be at the Tel HaShomer base about 30 minutes outside of Tel Aviv at 7:30am sharp - although many Israelis said that I could arrive whenever. I guess the official beginning of my army career was to be that day, as I had agreed to heed to any further orders from the army, be they to draft earlier or to show up anywhere in the country upon the government's request. And it sure did begin like how most people describe the army, waking up extremely early and reporting to a base - albeit on this day I did wake up about 45 minutes later than most soldiers in uniform.

After scarfing a bowl of cereal and making some instant coffee, I was off into the still jet black night, walking toward the bus that would bring me to Tel HaShomer. About thirty minutes later, I arrived at the terminal for that bus line in Tel HaShomer; and, as I had received no instructions on how to get to the recruitment office, I just walked up to an entrance of the base, my heart beating fast, trying not to fuck this up with my nervous-early morning Hebrew. I asked the soldier guarding the entrance to the base if this was where Lishkat HaGuis was, he just rolled his eyes and said in barely intelligible, lazy Hebrew that it was not in fact there that I could access the recruitment office, but rather on the opposite side of the base.

Shit. It was already 7:25 and I really didn't want to be late. So I asked some soldiers around there how to get to Lishkat HaGius and they told me just to take the #2 bus. 15 minutes later, I had arrived at the recruitment center. Just inside the complex was a courtyard filled with families and young kids, presumably about to be shipped off on their first day of the army. I wondered how it would feel for me when my time comes to say goodbye to civilian life and step on to that bus with a 19 year old sargeant yelling at me. I also wondered how it would be with no family to say goodbye to. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that that's what I've managed to do for 9 months - to survive without the comforts of family and familiarity. At least that's what I was telling myself.

So after I managed to navigate through this gigantic crowd of well-wishers, I arrived at another portal to the base and gave my identification card to some soldiers guarding it. They told me to go to the first floor, scan the barcode that they gave me and present it to the yellow computer, where I'd be interviewed... And this is exactly where all of the waiting began.

I scanned my barcode and sat with the other younger people waiting for their turn to interview. For most Israelis, this "tsav rishon" takes place about a year before one turns 18. So it's just me, a relatively old guy with the ripe age of 24, surrounded by, presumably, 17 year old high school kids. Nice. This waiting continues for about an hour before a relatively nice looking woman walks into the lobby and calls "יהושע" - "Yehoshua", my official Hebrew name, which no one actually uses because it is such a "high hebrew" biblical name. I stand up and walk toward the woman, nervous about what is about to happen to me. I, like every other kid waiting in that room, was just about to take a Hebrew test. And I, unlike every other kid waiting in the room, was nervous about how well I would do.

The first thing the woman says to me is in frighteningly fast Hebrew. I tell her I didn't hear her. She repeats more slowly, and I realize that she is asking if this is the first or second time that I'm doing this. First OR second?? There are two times. Shit. Well, this is my first, I tell her.

"Ok great, follow me to my desk".

As she leads me across a massive room full of about 100 soldiers and 100 draftees, I feel like this is the first time that I'm in the thick of it. Surrounded by soldiers and conducting official army business. We sit down across from each other, and she starts asking me some basic questions about my familial situation, when I became a citizen, what I did before the army, how I make a living, etc. All of the basics. We kind of just shoot the shit about why I came to Israel and what I'm doing in Tel Aviv, and if I like it. I figure this is the Hebrew test that everyone has to go through.

And, then, of course, she tells me: "Ok great, now I'm just going to test your Hebrew. Don't worry, even the Israelis have to go through this test".

Oh great, that makes me feel so much better that I'm taking the same friggen test that people who are obviously fluent in Hebrew take. She starts off by giving me some written sentences from a huge binder full of laminated pages. She asks me to read them and tell her what they mean. I start to get nervous as I realize I only understand about 10% of each sentence. I did recognize one sentence was something about an eagle soaring through the afternoon calm or something like that, and my interviewer's head nods. Great. One down, but I have no idea what the other sentences mean.

"Don't be nervous, just tell me anything that you understand from the sentence. Everyone has to do this", she assures me.

But I don't understand most of the sentences. So I respond, "this is really high Hebrew isn't it?".

"Yes, extremely high and complex. I'm surprised you understood the verb 'soar'".

Relief.

We continue through some other exercises that are exponentially simpler - completing sentences like "The people wanted to go to the beach, so they can _____" or "Getting up in the morning is _____. So I always _______". All of a sudden I feel like a genius in Hebrew.

We conclude the interview by her telling me that since I have "such good Hebrew", she won't send me to any army Hebrew courses or immigrant courses - exactly what I wanted to avoid. She also told me that I'd probably be called up in the next three or four months, depending on other factors like how my health checks out, my qualifications for certain positions, and the needs of the army. She then sends me to the second floor to have my physical.

I scan my barcode into the computer on the second floor and the machine tells me to find a cup to piss in and give it to the woman sitting in a window to my left. Hmm ok. Thanks computer.

After taking care of that business, I sit in a long blue hallway full of half-awake Israelis waiting to do the same thing that I'm doing.

Two hours go by.

I ask where I am in line.

"You're first. Just wait a little longer".

And hour goes by. And about 80% of the people waiting in the hall have been checked by the doctor.

"Ya man, you're still first"

Another hour goes by.

"Ok, let me check on your file. Yep, you're first. No worries."

Finally, I get called and walk into the office, where I'm told to sit in some closet and take off my shoes. The closet is full of drawings of dicks, asses, shit, vulgar words in Hebrew and all sorts of female body parts. As quickly as I take off my shoes, the soldier that escorted me in there tells me the doctors are going on a break. Nice.

An hour goes by.

The woman doctor who is about to check me, walks by, just off her break. She has gigantic boobs and is attractive. The Israeli guy next to me and I look at each other. The sides of his mouth curl up and he tells me "may you have something nice to show her, man".

"Ok come in", she tells me.

After height and weight measurements, blood pressure, vision and *ehem* other tests, I'm outta there and sent to the first floor again to undergo some psychometric tests.

I only had to wait an hour for this one... by this time I was starting to feel the effects of my 2 hour night's sleep. But what was interesting about the wait was that a soldier was asking me which language I'd like to take the test in. Naturally, I say English because I don't want to screw myself by not understanding the questions. She tells me that if I take the test in English, I might lower my profile and upward mobility in the army.

"So, let me get this straight - if I take the test in English, I will probably do better and will, therefore, have more options available to me, but will be discounted because it will seem as if I was too scared to take the Hebrew test. And if I take it in Hebrew it will look better, but I will probably screw it up somehow."

"Yes"

"So, that's a catch 22."

"Catch 22?"

"Nevermind."

I ended up taking it in English because I'm serving for 6 months - I will not need anything to help my "upward mobility" in the army.

So after a long day of tests, and no sleep the night before, I commuted home through rush hour traffic in a bus full of orthodox families. Great. The beginning of the army.





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