Sar-El: One week in the IDF

Me & my roommate, Lindsey

For our Hanukkah break we were given the opportunity to volunteer on an Israeli army base for one week. Of course I signed up! Our group of 14 people went to a base East of Jerusalem. It was an armour and battle tanks base, in other words: TANKS EVERYWHERE! As soon as we got there we were assigned our bunks and given our uniforms. Or should I say given someone else’s uniform! I could definitely fit two of me in those pants. Even with the belt they wouldn’t stay up, I must have had a “plumber butt” all day long! Haha, so the next day I got ‘smaller’ pants, which were still 5 sizes too big. If there’s one thing to say about the uniform, it’s pretty damn comfortable and makes you feel kind of badass. I liked it.

Battle Tanks: A common site on the base

The Schedule: Everyone is on a schedule, here was ours for the week:

Breakfast – 7:30

Flag Raising – 8:40

Work – 8:45

Lunch – 12:00

Work – 13:00 – 17:00

Dinner – 18:30

Evening Activity – 19:30

Some work in the warehouse

The Work: We emptied out warehouses and organized them, cleaned out tanks and guns, and finally worked in the kitchen… as a “Master Chef”!! For some strange reason my favourite days were the two days working in the kitchen. I got to make salads, make schnitzel, talk with the soldiers (in Hebrew!) and basically got to see everything that went down in the kitchen. Israeli’s definitely don’t waste ANYTHING!

Emptying out warehouses was not my forte. The work was repetitive and all the manual labour in the uniform, in the dust and in the hot sun was not fun. In the end, we were there to help where they needed help… so I definitely felt good about what I was doing.


Enough schnitzel to feed an army... literally!

The Army Food: Let me tell you a secret, the food in the army is not so bad! Granted I only had to eat it for one week, but it’s pretty decent. Some sort of egg is served at every meal, there’s always a ton of salads and veggies, rice or couscous, and some kind of protein. If all else fails there’s always bread and hummus! Breakfast and Dinner were always dairy and lunch always had some kind of meat. Lunch always seemed to be the best meal of the day, I would always leave full! BUT… what I loved the most about breakfast and dinner was the pudding and the chocolate milk in a bag! These two things became my addiction for the week… now I’m in withdrawal.

All in all the food was good, it was edible, and I never left hungry!

My 3 best friends for the week: Souvganiot, pudding & chocolate milk in a bag!

The training, drills and evening activities: Our two madrichot (counsellors) for the week were these two young soldiers, Michelle and Smadar. These girls were absolutely adorable and amazing people. They’re so mature for their age, the army forces them to grow up… fast! Every morning we did the flag raising. One person was assigned to raise the flag and salute it, the rest of us stood in lines of three. We also had to “accept our commander” every time we met with Michelle and Smadar. We called this the Hakshev. We did it so many times each day that by the end of the week I knew these lines by heart. We named our group the Kalbot Meshugaot (in English: Crazy Bitches).

Madrichot: Smadar and Michelle

One evening 4 combat soldiers who fight in Gaza came in to give us a lesson on guns. We learned about the different types of guns and their uses, the parts of the gun and how to load it, and the 3 different shooting positions. After all these demonstrations we then got to practice for ourselves. My favourite was when you had to fall from standing position onto your stomach while holding the gun straight… not so easy! I came away with a few bruises from that one.

Also, the next evening we had a soldier come in and do some boot camp drills with us. One of the drills was to crawl on our stomachs in the dust and gravel. Again, a few more bumps and bruises for all of us. Even with those little “boo-boos”, I actually really enjoyed the army’s boot camp, so where can I sign up?!

Boot camp drill: Crawling on the gravel

It was good to come home on Thursday, not to have to put on the smelly, dusty and dirty uniform once again. Not to have to sleep in squeaky bunks. Not to shower under a thin stream of water… oh boy do I miss it! Don’t get me wrong, I loved my week in the army, but I was damn glad to get home. Would I do it again? 100%. It gave me such appreciation and respect for all the soldiers that do this daily for their country. Thank you to them!

Here are some additional fun stuff from the week:

Our first morning waking up on the base was to a beautiful rainbow!

I had to share this: A note from one of our many evening activities

Gotta love self-timer photos!