i would never make it as a soldier in the IDF

one of the more startling things about wandering around in Israel is the extreme military presence that is everywhere you go. Soldiers carry their huge automatic weapons everywhere - into restaurants, around on the streets, shopping... they're huge guns that the little 19 year old girl soldiers have slung over their shoulders like purses.

Then there are the more elite soldiers who guard sites and people who literally keep their finger on the trigger at all times.

The IDF (Israeli defense force) is for real. They are a huge military power and they are fierce. I was talking to a friend at home that said the US should adopt a military style like Israels because there would be no invade and occupy, it would be burn this to the ground and claim it as our own (i'm not sure i'm advocating that position... it's certainly effective for Israel though).

There has been a major war in this country for every decade since it claimed independence in the 1940s. One of the more horrifying wars was in 1973 - here it is known as the Yom Kippour war.

Yom Kippour is the most holy of all Jewish holy days... there is NO work done, no cars are driven, televisions and radios stay off, people barely leave their houses. So it was on this day in 1973 that Syria decided to cross the Northern Israeli boarder to try and take back their disputed territory, the Golan Heights.

The IDF has a huge outpost up on a volcanic cone in this region where they have extremely strategically placed tanks and bunkers. So even on this most holy of days where nobody was meant to work, let alone fight, the IDF held the line in the northeastern most part of the country and even pushed Syrian troops all the way back to Damascus while the rest of the country had no idea what was happening because their radios were all off.

We went and visited one of these bunkers yesterday. We happened to go during a major rain/thunder storm. We raced through the parking lot and down underground into where this bunker was. It was so cool - tiny and metal and wet and dark, these soldiers are bad a for living down there for weeks at a time. Because of the storm, thunder kept clapping above us and the doors were slamming open and shut with the wind. I screamed outloud everytime this happened which brought the boys I was traveling with a lot of joy in the form of hilarious laughter. They thought it was even funnier to turn all their flashlights off and stay silent and in hiding. it was horrifying. like a scary military haunted house.

I wouldn't cut it as a soldier...