by Izzy Ezagui
How do they convince their people to die so willingly for their cause? To mow down women and children? “They dope them up with a cocktail of wicked drugs,” says Kobi. Whereas we're shivering and exhausted, they will feel invincible.
So far, nothing has come of it. Nothing but blue lips, stiff joints, and the shivers. Belly-down in the dirt, we feel only the distant reverberations of the “operation” (This is NOT a goddamn WAR!) coming from just beyond the fence. We don't know yet what's happening to Rosner's unit.
Now our lieutenant, Fuks—his real name—has relayed the order from whoever that our platoon is to pull a 180. We're heading back to base. So we stand, stretch our muscles, and direct our frozen posteriors so they face the Gaza border. It's time to march even farther away from the conflict.
The formation begins fanning out as a pocket of icy air rattles the electronic fence between the two turbulent territories. Wearied and frozen as I am, I can't help but feeling as though I'm running away from the war. Aren't the enemies of freedom dug in the other way? Of course, in heading deeper into Israel, I'm just following orders. But marching this way, in battle formation, yet away from the frontline, toward my own ranks…It's as though we're going to war with ourselves. But isn't that where we fight all our real battles, all our significant wars? I don't know. Maybe I'm too exhausted to think straight. All I know is, before I came here, I didn't feel certain who I was or where I was going. The good thing about the army, I guess, is that they tell you exactly who you are, and exactly where to go. There's a comfort in that.
A gust rustles an ocean of crops on the Israeli side of the perimeter, deeper into which we advance. I can't decipher what grows here. At this stage of growth, the plants don't reveal the fruit of their labor. I feel like that, too. I don't know who I'll be. I spent so much of my young life as a couch potato, a fiction reader, and a passive witness to life. Is it possible I'll bloom into something more colorful, perhaps even deadlier? A cherry? Cherry is the name and symbol of Israel's elite undercover unit, Duvdevan, the spearhead of counterterrorism in the region. I'd give my right arm to be a Cherry.
Why do I keep looking back across the border? What's to see inside Gaza? Nothing but blacked-out windows, like sunken, gouged eye sockets.
The wind soon dies down enough for me to hear our boots slogging through the mud. I have a habit of looking down at my feet when I walk. Or watching the soles of the soldiers marching in front of me. Helps pass the time. Works as a hypnotic. I'm engaged in that as usual, limping on my bad ankle—remnants of a months-old injury, about which the less considered right now, the better—when the stench of tobacco hits me. Smoking is a big “hell no” in the field. That kind of cherry—the one on a lit cigarette—produces a target for a sniper working at night.
Cigarettes aren't my poison. Not my temptation. What I crave as we forge ahead is a phone call home. Rules govern those, too. No talk of locations, actions, maneuvers. Blah-blah-blah, I know. I just want an update. How's Dad doing lately? Is prison taking its toll on him? Is my sister recording Smallville and Entourage? Mom, please help the war effort, send more Mike and Ikes.
Our formation has become unkempt. The wind keeps at our back, harassing us as we plod away from Gaza. Even when it's cold, we don't wear jackets. This is to avoid overheating when we're drawn into a firefight. Behind me, a gunner's untucked shirt flaps rapidly in protest. A couple of paces farther back, our medic, Chen, grapples with the cold by stringing together tirades of creative curse words: “Kus emek…”
The shirt-flapping, boot-thumping rhythm accompanied by Chen's swearing creates a hybrid rap: “Kus-mahrt-ahbuk, Kus-mahrt-ahbuk…” Not that I enjoy thinking of the anatomical anomalies of my comrades’ mothers. I just find the rhythm of the language strangely pleasing. Out here, you take what you can get.
This pleasure is short-lived. A blast of biting air strikes me butt-on, warps my grin into a cringe. My asshole shrinks into oblivion. Every soldier looks as though he's giving birth to quadruplets.
I'm about to invent a few curses of my own when my gaze hits Amir, my counterpart at the head of our small formation's “backward wedge.” As expected, Amir, our light machine gunner, evinces zero reaction to the freezing gale. Amir is what we in the military call a goddamn ninja. The guy's always in beast mode. It's not that he's insensitive or taking things casually. On the contrary, he's a model soldier, always focused, ever attentive.
On the march, Amir never stares down at his boots, rather, at the task ahead. And his eyes never betray the burden of his pack, even though he lugs the same load we all do—minus the Mike and Ikes. With his chin he motions from Lieutenant Fuks, who shadows us about ten meters behind, to the center of the wedge. He's reminding me what we're here for: Amir and I are tasked with securing Fuks so he can focus on command. He's a hulking guy, our lieutenant, 6´3˝ and 230 lbs., with a big, balding head, and huge paws. That last part is consistent with his first name, Kfir, which means “lion cub” in Hebrew.
So Amir's silent message to me is Keep it together, dude. Or, more likely: Stop being a pussy.
As if to punctuate that reminder, my ankle throbs. I still haven't dealt with my leg. I know I'll have to eventually. Here's all I know right now: It would never occur to Amir to do such a thing to himself.
My string of verbal diarrhea stumbles to a halt. Amir and I might be counterparts in the field—the two soldiers responsible for returning fire at first enemy contact—but we are drastically different in almost every other way. It's not just that we're “cut from a different cloth.” It's that someone sewed our fabrics in completely different factories. Amir is a bona fide badass—silent but deadly. Not to say he's anything like a fart. That association suits me far better. Like post-Chipotle gas released in a light Miami breeze, I tend to whine unpleasantly, and my surroundings waft me wherever they please. Right now they prefer to nudge me toward my distant cot. But Amir is more like an armored personnel carrier. Once his traction's dug into the dirt, nothing can knock him off that track, and he'll carry the whole unit with him.
ICY FINGERS UP AND DOWN MY SPINE
Slivers of chill slip down my collar despite how tightly it straddles my neck. Something about the wind feels malevolent. In this moment in the dark, in the boot-sucking mud, the pall grips my whole spine with a message more than meteorological. This is no good, Izzy. Bad stuff goes down, my friend. It doesn't feel like momentary paranoia. Bad things really do happen to people who wander this part of the world when the sun has yet to rise. If it's not some coked-up guerrilla chugging through a hole in the fence on a Vespa, strapped with C-4, it's something far more terrifying: the danger you don't see coming. I guess you could call this overwhelming dread I feel a premonition. A phantom menace.
In a few hours, during our brief time back at base, before our deployment into Gaza proper, I'll find myself scrambling toward the decrepit trailer bathroom to let slip the dogs of war (to drop a pre-battle deuce). I'll take my cell phone with me. Talking about the (not-) war will violate a couple regulations. Phone calls about troop movements in particular are strictly forbidden for obvious reasons, but I will feel compelled to call my friend Jonny. Not my family, after all, but my Canadian buddy, a fellow soldier I met while patrolling the bars of Jerusalem a few months before basic training. He was so laid-back that hanging out with him felt like popping a Percocet. Except while he helped me train, which included intense sprints up and down Jerusalem's hilly streets. And whenever he watched one of the war films he and his roommates kept playing on a continuous loop. It's hard be laid-back when Platoon's on. Or Full Metal Jacket. I've already asked Jonny, in general, to console my parents should anything go wrong. Now I'm suffering a distinct foreboding about this mission, which will continue until I make that call. And I don't even believe in that kind of bunk. It's the sort of shtick they do in bad movies. Protagonist has a feeling “somethin’ ain't right.”
Meantime, the wind presses its way from the border into the Land of Milk and Contention. As do
we. Despite my tender ankle, we're flooring it. Whenever Fuks is in command, nothing happens slowly, nothing lazily. Fuks is a bald and blue-eyed golem. In Hebrew, “Fuks” means “a stroke of good luck.” But as a commander, if you get on his bad side, he really Fuks up your day.
The only soldiers who remain unfrozen are those crafty enough and with enough foresight to have packed their thick, olive-green sleeping bags for the stakeout. Bastards. Why didn't I think of that? Better yet, why can't I be more like Fuks? Like Amir? Anyone besides myself.
Just a pinkish inkling of sun on the horizon directly in front of us to the east. A mile of marching to go before we can sleep. I allow my M4 and its magnified scope to dangle freely by the strap around my neck. It, too, provides a gentle rhythm to accompany the painful walk.
The more my ankle hurts, the more it feels like a walk of shame. Amir's soooo right about you, friend. You're a big sloppy puss.
The sun shoots shards of orange out in front of us, and I await a hint of warmth. And wait. Nothing. Though by the constant clenching and releasing of my hands I experience a quantum of thawing. Amir motions with a nod to the upcoming sun. I nod back, huff. Daylight—good. I welcome the sun after so long and dark a night.
But with daylight comes rockets. Lots of rockets. Suddenly, I long for that now-fading darkness. This pretty much sums up the experience of being a non-Amir-esque soldier: Proceeding reluctantly from one lousy state to another, then suddenly pining for the prior state, which you cursed for the previous ten hours. Rockets versus frostbite, though? That's a no-brainer. But no ambassador from Hamas has crossed the border to conduct a survey inquiring of my opinion on such matters. Fingers crossed.
FINGER ON THE BUTTON
Wernher von Braun, the pioneer rocket researcher (who, not incidentally, began his career in Nazi Germany) was said to have quipped, “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department.” If you move in Israeli circles, you'll understand when I say: Fuck that guy. For two months, beginning in November 2008, enterprising terrorists have been firing a constant barrage of deadly projectiles—sometimes precise instruments, and sometimes messy homemade contraptions—into populated areas of Israel. As a result, civilians in the south have spent a good part of every day trembling in their bomb shelters, trying to calm their children, attempting to explain to them the genesis of so much hate. But how do you explain?
The vast majority of Americans, myself included, have no idea. Imagine that instead of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, it's Jersey City and Toledo staring down the daily business end of rockets, missiles, and mortars. Topeka. Akron. Albany. And we're not talking about an occasional scattershot offensive, either. Israel sustained 2,378 rocket attacks in the first half of 2008. Israel had finally had enough. So they called in the cavalry. Well, sort of. They called us.
Now we, too, have had enough.
Don't get me wrong. There's nothing particularly militaristic about me. If you met me randomly at a Starbucks, you'd assume I was a fairly mellow dude. I am. Almost everyone I know or have known in the IDF is, too. I very rarely see any of that John Wayne, gung-ho, let's-lock-and-load type of behavior that's stereotypical of soldiers elsewhere, at least in the movies. Not even Amir or Fuks behave that way. But for all my self-criticism, I do possess a preponderance of valuable training in the arena of euthanizing terrorists. Phew! Phew!
Why did I choose the Israeli military over the US armed forces? Because they're on the same frontline of the war against terror, but Israel's closer. Because Israel's people are in grave danger—today and every day—of losing their way of life, losing their very lives. We might have “lone wolves” in America, those few fanatics who seek to destroy us in novel permutations. But Israel must contend with huge swaths of its neighbors—as close as Hoboken is to New York—who want to obliterate it, men, women, and children alike. I made the decision to come here because I couldn't handle sitting on the sidelines. That's it. My entire rationale.
So here I am. Hour eleven. Barely on my feet. Base still ten minutes east. Yes, I'm afraid. And yes, part of me would love to be sitting in a café, eating biscotti and chatting up girls (as if that would ever happen), instead of traversing frozen fields, lugging a rifle and a heavy pack. But I have it in my head to send some villains to Valhalla.
You know how the expression goes: Man plans, and God…fucks his shit up with rockets. Surely that must be the expression.
WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE TO DROP
Late December 2008. Hurry up and wait. Our company of rookies arrives at the border by way of a green city bus at the start of Operation Cast Lead. “You guys aren't going in with the rest of the ground forces,” Fuks informs us, and sixty helmeted foreheads dip to the ground in disappointment. He sounds bummed out, too.
Yes, no one wants to stick his neck out while rockets and bullets rain down—but neither does anyone want to sit around feeling useless and hamstrung while other guys get dirty. It's as devastating a blow as I've ever experienced thus far. “I signed up to make a difference, Amir. To fight.”
“Chill out, bro,” says Amir as he heaves his rucksack onto a cot a half hour later. “Don't go looking for trouble. If they hand you a dangerous job, do it, but don't ask for the beating.”
“I know.” He's right. There are no small parts, only small actors. Truck drivers need to motor field rations and water to the front; intelligence officers need to slouch behind their desks in Tel Aviv, feeding data to the commanders on the ground; politicians need to head off biased pressure from the United Nations with various lines of bull; and some unlucky schmuck has to dump chemicals into the latrines once a day, or else real war descends on camp. Or else “We're in the shit” takes on a literal meaning.
Amir puts his headband on. “Besides, it's not like we're just going to sit on our thumbs here. We're—”
“RED ALERT!” interrupts a robotic female voice (think of the climax of Alien). “RED ALERT!” The chilling siren that follows will become the background music of our lives for the next several weeks. And the explosions. Let's not forget the explosions.
TOES-UP
We've been at the forward base for two weeks. We're not inside Gaza, where the bulk of the fighting has been taking place, but we've faced our fair share of close scrapes already. We've spent every day since our arrival near the border, either patrolling it endlessly—or running like hell for the bomb shelter in our camp.
No one has scraped closer than a Jeep driver named Bogary, a perpetual samal—sergeant, with a penchant for peanut butter and double-dipping. Bogary is short, dark, and aloof. One day, he left the crowded bunker to check on a fellow driver during a Red Alert. You obviously don't leave the shelter, for any reason, during a Red Alert. “That's why they call it a goddamn Red Alert.” This is Fuks scolding all of us, after the incident. Bogary was afraid his friend, some other even-lumpier sergeant, might have been asleep at the wheel—literally—and wanted to drag his lazy bum inside.
The moment Bogary slipped out between the concrete blocks that stood at the entrance, we took a hit. The thirty-odd soldiers crammed inside the shelter all tried to pile outside as a single, olive-green organism. We were going to collect Bogary, I guess. However many pieces of him we'd find. But Fuks single-handedly held back the tide until the explosion and aftershocks abated. He ordered us to stay inside the safe zone—now filled with the noxious fumes of burning gunpowder—and put himself at risk to go after Bogary. We'd have expected nothing less.
We heard later that Fuks found Bogary crouching outside the shelter door. His hands were covering his ears like a “hear-no-evil” monkey. He was shouting. The mortar had hit just seven feet away—we counted the steps. Bogary was lucky all he sacrificed was partial hearing, and only for a day or so. As if to punctuate the absurdity of the whole event, the other driver—the guy Bogary was trying to “rescue”—wasn't out there at all. He'd never stirred from his cot in an unprotected tent nearby. He'd slept through the entire ordeal. We found, in his t
ent, a military-grade helmet that shrapnel had split in two.
It must sound crazy to the vast majority of people, but there are those who prefer sleep above safety, hands down. Well, sleep is a kind of safety, isn't it? The bliss of ignorance. Even when the sirens are blasting and the sky's collapsing, these soldiers will not budge from bed. I envy them.
Living with the uninterrupted threat of dying in super-unpleasant ways—disemboweled by sizzling shrapnel, decapitated, suffocating under tons of sand in a collapsed tunnel—kind of makes my thumping ankle, annoying as that is, seem pretty paltry. Some soldiers, maybe the more pensive ones, or the ones more prone to philosophy, begin to grapple with the bigger questions. What little philosophy I've read refers to these as the “existential questions.” Questions I suppose men and women have asked ever since either God, evolutionary adaptation, or some drunk wizard put us on Earth: Why is there pain? How fragile is our terrestrial tenure? Why do terrible things (e.g., beheading in front of a televised audience of millions) happen to good people? How do we know who the good people are? If all we do is trust our instincts, then half of us are apt to disagree with the other half, and then the killing begins. In the final analysis, what does it all mean? I have heard people wonder that, and sometimes people ask me what I think.
I don't think. Not about that kind of stuff. I think, “I should've brought a sleeping bag on that stakeout, man.” Or, “I kinda wish green Mike and Ikes didn't exist, bro.” The safest—and sanest—zone to occupy in a muddle is somewhere exactly between Nietzsche's atheist-free foxhole, and the guy who snores through Armageddon.
STAY ON YOUR TOES
I keep flexing my frozen fingers as we trudge toward base. I can smell myself even through the cold and my various layers. A shower would be nice. Important bits are starting to decay, or at least chafe.
