When I started writing this blog all that time ago in the middle of the night in my room in New Jersey I never thought it would turn out like this. I was laying in bed, unable to sleep, thinking about all the fucked up things that had happened to me over the past 18-years of my life. All the shit I had to put up with and how I had this little fantasy that maybe joining the IDF would somehow rescue me from the horror and despair I felt inside of myself. I didn't know how to sort out the wave of new emotions I was feeling. Suddenly, I start thinking up a narrative in my head and furiously typed out the first draft of my the first post I ever put up that's linked to on the right hand side. After drafting it and revising it I figured it would be a great way to set the mood for a blog that tried to take a different angle from all the other "foreigner in the IDF" blogs. They all seemed sort of the same, detailing what it was like before and during the army in dry detail with descriptions of how great it feels, it's hard but fun at the same time, dreams really can come true. Eh, boring, let's hear about pain and suffering and how not everything has a happy ending.
I didn't make Aliyah to live the dream, I made Aliyah to get the as far away from New Jersey as possible. If the moon was a country and it had an army, I would have enlisted there. I wanted to put as much space, physical and mental, between me and the place where I was raised. The people as well, I didn't want to have to deal with them their selfishness and dysfunction anymore. I knew that if I stayed with them, I would end up being like them whether I liked it or not.
When I got to Israel I wasn't happy or excited, I was in a daze. As time went on, I started to relish my freedom. The general feeling was one of relief. I struggled a lot with the Hebrew and because I couldn't learn it and pull of an authentic Israeli accent, to this day it still prevents me from really feeling like I've assimilated into Israeli society.
My draft dates kept getting put off for various reasons and I was scared that I was never really going to do it and that one day I would go back to America with my tail between my legs all my family members who that I was crazy would point and laugh and say "toldyaso."
When I moved onto my kibbutz with garin tzabar, that's when I started to get serious. I started to really learn about the units, started training really hard, and had my eyes set on shayetet, the navy seals. I went to the try out and didn't make it. Didn't even come close. So then I kept training with hopes of doing the gibush for tzanchanim. They didn't even let me do it. "Request denied." I didn't even get a chance to try out. This already started to devastate me a little, but there's still Golani and maybe Givati or Nachal. But nope, the army decided that wasn't for me either. They decided that "field intelligence" is for me (and by the way, the official name of this unit as per posters made by the IDF is actually "field collecting" but I'll be god damned if I go around for the rest of my life telling people I was in the prestigious "field collecting" unit, what is this, a fucking scavenger hunt?)
I requested to transfer right away before I drafted, but was told to wait until I get to the bakum and try to transfer there. During the time before I drafted I looked into FI and spoke with people from the unit, and thought it sounded kind of cool. As such, I got very confused and started second guessing the dream I'd had for a year-and-half already, which was being in the infantry. The katzin miun actually gave us a chance to change, but I didn't take it. I thought that I'd never forgive myself if I hated the infantry and one day found out that field intelligence was actually a great opportunity that I missed out on.
Within a month of being in my new unit I already started filing my transfer papers. With all due respect, this is not what I came for. I sat down and explained it to my M"P, and he said he would support me. All the officers from him on up recommended the transfer but in spite of all that it was eventually denied. I remember that day and how my spirits were crushed. I didn't sign up to suffer for three years thinking about what a big mistake I made, how the army fucked me and I'm also partially responsible for ruining my own dream. All that training, all that dreaming, all the shit I went through in this country, for nothing.
That was nine months ago. I finished all the brutal training they put us through, earned my position as a "negevist," and the respect of my commanders. In spite of this, I still like I'm doing something that I wasn't meant to do. It consumes my thoughts on a daily basis. On the bad days, I wake up some mornings with a black hole in my chest. I can't stand telling people where I am in the army and hearing comments like "oh, you guys basically just walk a lot," or "tazpitanim b'shetach." I gave up everything to be in this army and been made to feel like a chump for it. That's essentially why I've stopped writing this blog, because after all that I went through, the day I got shipped to FI was the day that a small part of me died-- the part that would pump out these blog entries. I have nothing to say anymore.
I know that the army is the army and that I need to be where they need me, but still, I can't go on like this. I made a crucial mistake and am going to spend the next two years of my army service paying for it (almost one full year is done). I believe in the state of Israel, but everyday I think about how dumb I am for letting this happen to me. I don't know what to say, but I feel like I owe an explanation to my readers, who probably never come back here anymore, and with good reason. In addition to that, I also had to get this off my chest, which this blog has always been great for.
I don't know if I have the balls to call this a "farewell post." I have a lot more time in the army and I'm sure in that time I'll feel the need to write more entries, but for now, I want to at least let those who read my blog know what happened, and that for the time being I am incapable of coming out with things to write about on a regular basis, which has been pretty obvious anyway due to my lack of posting.
