Aah September. The time of year filled with stationary shopping, neatly packing school supplies into brightly coloured backpacks, and filling out a decoratively labelled planner, promising yourself that this year, you’ll actually get all your work finished in time.
Unless you’re me that is, or one of the 3,000+ ‘lone soldiers’ in the Israeli Defence Forces, who’ve moved away from our home countries to stumble around Israel, haphazardly donating two-plus years of our life to the army.
These days, I’ve swapped my school shoes for heavy leather work boots, and the preppy button down blouses for worn out olive green, and over the past nine months I’ve learnt that now days, it’s less of a choice to get my work done in time, and definitely much more an order.
So, how did I get here?
After graduating from Hasmonean High School in 2016, I did what so many other 18 year olds do, and embarked on my gap year to Israel. I spent nine months travelling, learning, and seeing a side of my heritage that I’d never explored before. And at the end of the year when it was time to come home and take up my place in university alongside my peers, I realised I wasn’t quite done yet.
So, after some soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that it didn’t feel right to be that person who uses Israel as a glorified holiday home, but doesn’t pay the rent. How could I spend nine months travelling the country, taking, and taking, and taking, without ever giving back?
And with that, I decided that the answer was simple. I would volunteer to the Israeli army, with a minimum service time of 18 months.
And now, here I am, nine months into my service, a year from my return to Israel to begin the process of drafting, taking a moment to share my experiences (the good, the bad, and the ugly) with all of you.
I currently serve on the Egyptian Border, in the role of a Tatzpitanit. Tatzpitaniot make up half of the Field Intelligence Unit, and serve as the eyes of the country.
Tatzpitaniot spend endless hours monitoring cameras stationed at sensitive areas of Israel’s borders. My job trained me to read screens that can detect even the slightest movement in the wind, and to then report threats or dangers to the soldiers currently in the field. Because of the speed at which something can move, Tatzpitaniot are forbidden from looking away from our screens, for even a second.
I’m a long way from Golders Green.
But, as easy as this might sound, I can assure you that the process and journey I took to arrive to this stage, was anything but.
If I’d been able to see myself standing in Ben Gurion Airport the day I arrived, I’m sure I would have wondered what someone like me was doing there.
There I was, short and roundish and entirely out of place. Faded red hair dye streaking formerly brown curls, hands twisting nervously as they tried to balance three suitcases, one on top of the other, on top of the other.
I found myself wondering, what was I doing, standing in a foreign country, whose language I’d spent five years of high school not learning as I slept in the back of the classroom, ready to begin the process to draft to their army?
However, they didn’t and I didn’t, and ten days later I began the seemingly endless process of drafting to the IDF.
A first interview was followed by another interview, followed by a month of a government approved pre-army preparation, followed by tests and interviews, and a final last tiyul as a civilian. And then suddenly, just a few short months later, 11 December 2017, I found myself standing in Bakum, the army enlistment base, no longer a civilian, but the newest and most incompetent soldier in the Israeli Army.
Because of my low level of Hebrew the army was placing me in Michve Alon, a base run by the Education Corp for new immigrants. The three-month course incorporated the lowest level of basic training (02) with two months of an intensive Hebrew course.
It’s almost impossible to describe how it feels to have a commander yelling at you, giving you orders, and you don’t understand a word they’re saying. Let’s just say it’s an uncomfortable feeling, and one I have felt many times since the day of my draft, until now, 265 days later.
However, I can say with confidence that I’ve come a long way from those first weeks, where I learnt how to take apart an M16 entirely through mime.
After finishing my Hebrew course in March 2018, I received what I thought at the time would be my permanent placement until the end of my service.
From the beginning of my draft process until the day I received my placement, I had been confident that I would receive what I thought was my dream job, ‘combat search and rescue’.
So I was more than a bit upset when I received the news that I would be continuing my service in the Artillery Corp. Not exactly what I had in mind.
However, never one to back down from a challenge, I headed off there, shiny new boots and all.
Less than a month later, after much trial and error, I found myself back at the enlistment offices, to request to transfer out of combat and into the training course for Tatzpitaniot.
Five months after that, including two months of a basic training course, and another two months of intensive training for my job on the Egyptian border, I can look back with confidence and say I have no regrets about the path I took.
I have accomplished what I thought I would and beyond, even if it wasn’t in the combat setting I had dreamed about when I knew less but thought I knew more.
I’ve met people I never would have met, had my life taken in directions I wouldn’t have expected, and have had everything I thought I knew about myself thrown under a spotlight to be examined and picked apart, not just by me, but by Israelis who see no problem with being honestly, brutally, blunt.
And I’ve learnt to never look back, only forwards. Especially when I’m staring at my screens.
Shira Silkoff is a 20 year-old Lone Soldier in the IDF. She grew up in Golders Green
