Oi, Gloom

[Snuffkin]

How's it been rendering service unto your fatherland? I know a few Israelis and when I ask them how they enjoy(ed) serving in the IDF, the responses tend to be rather mixed. Most are somewhat proud, some get ludicrously throbbing, circumcised nationalistic boners, and an equal amount of those to the last group described feel that it wasn't really too proud or shameful a period in their life, but that they probably didn't do much more than blow up a few debatably dangerous sandniggers. Hell, one guy actually seemed remorseful.

Still though, I don't simply want to hear what your impression of the military colossus has been, I want to hear you addressing your experiences as a whole. That is, if you would do me the pleasure.

[Gloom]

If you'd spoken to IDF soldiers before as you say, than perhaps you can understand at least to a degree just how monumental a task it would be for me to truly give a comprehensive and truthful answer to your question, well phrased as it might be. IDF culture is absolutely inseparable from Israeli culture, and like the later, probably has to be grown into in order to truly understand. It's many things in many ways to many people.

I'm also technically not allowed to talk about it as is on the internet, but I like you, so I will. Do forgive me for not being as thorough as I might (and by all means, should, given that I already am talking), since I'd like to be able to finish writing this post at some point, [s]preferably on the same date in which I'd started.[/s] Alas, I have failed.

First and foremost, it is crucial to understand that I am not a combatant in the IDF – in fact, I'm about as far as you could get from one. In IDF slang, I'm what is commonly known as a "ג'ובניק" ("Jobnik", from the English word), thus called because for me "The Service" (you'll often hear Israelis speaking of military service as "The Service" ["השירות"], with a capital "The", just as you would hear them speaking of Israel as "The Land" ["הארץ"]) is in many ways just a regular office "job", except with uniforms instead of suits and harsher punishments for people who don't salute properly when the right over-glorified executive enters the room. Since it encompasses almost literally everyone and everything in Israel, IDF culture is a massive thing (far more so than military culture in almost any other country), so it's important to note that the "stereotypes", so to speak, associated with the "jobnikim" are massively different from those associated with, for example, frontline grunts, which are themselves very different from those associated with elite soldiers, and from those of "office workers" with positions that are actually important (like weapons systems designers, intelligence specialists and cyberwarfare operatives), for example.

In my specific case, without going into too much detail, my job involves acting as a middleman between new recruits with various problems and complaints and the people who can actually help them - think of me as that saccharinely polite person who answers when you call tech-support and passes you on to the actual tech-support, except with more official letter writing. We're cogs in the bureaucratic machine through and through (one of the reasons the IDF sometimes appears to be managed by retards is that nearly the entire sprawling bureaucracy, an extremely vital part of any army, is for the most part ran by 18 years olds who didn't qualify for any better position), coming to work at a cubicle with a computer 7 AM and leaving at 6 PM with a coffee break and a lunch in the middle. Our "customers" (the new recruits, in this case) hate us for being "deliberately" unhelpful and obstructive (not realizing that their request is one of a hundred thousand, all of them equally unimportant and uninteresting and that we aren't going to bend or break the rules just because they of all people really need us to), the combatants look down on us as a bunch of cowardly, unpatriotic sissies (forgetting that it's a tiny mistake on our part that could get them stranded for a week in the middle of enemy territory with no water and the wrong type of ammo) and the higher ups get angry at us for being inefficient and lazy (despite not having any idea what it is that we're actually doing and coming to us for help when they need the littlest thing to happen). The only times we hold weapons are when we are forced into guard duty out of pure procedure (nobody actually thinks we'd contribute anything to base defense in case something happens).

Stereotypically, us jobniks are a bitter and cynical bunch (because nobody would become a jobnik out of choice - it's all people who wanted to do other things but couldn't, or so it goes) who frankly couldn't care less about anything happening outside their office walls and are constantly busy scheming and scamming each other and the entire system in order to squeeze every last bit of comfort out of our gloomy lot (the stereotypical jobnik is always on the lookout for easy ways to get injured so that he can fall into a crying heap and get a day-off, or even better, claim permanent disability and maybe get a delicious, much-sought-after exemption from guard duty, the holy grail of "jobnikism"). Some of us are pro-Israeli, some are anti-Zionist, some cheer for the Palestinians and most just want to play Solitaire when their officers aren't looking but for the most part the underlying spirit is of one great Not Giving A Fuck, with a side of Just Waiting For Those Stupid Three Years To End So I Can Go On With My Life.

In this sense, I'm a stereotypical jobnik. The ones in positions of actual importance tend to be cynical (because their higher clearance levels mean they know exactly how bad things are), but patriotic and full of a sense of true duty. The elites add a dash of nihilism and a sort of insane "Who's gonna stop me?" cockiness (a friend of mine who serves in one of the most decorated and infamous special forces units in the IDF tells of how his captain walks around the base with an honest to God ninjato strapped to his back, and how they sometimes "say goodbye" when they leave a base by breaking into the armory overnight, taking all the crucial supplies out and placing them on the roof of a nearby building). Frontline grunts are what is called in our slang "מורעלים" (A play on words in Hebrew that could mean both "poisoned" and "filled with fighting spirit"), instilled and drilled with an artificial yet extremely powerful zeal and fervor (even if they weren't into "Tearing all those fucking sand-niggers a new one" before, by the end of basic training the sergeants make sure they will be, because their job is to run forward and get mowed down by enemy fire and do very little thinking), but we jobniks don't give a fuck and are proud of it. Almost by definition, a jobnik would be someone who didn't have enough ambition to really make it in a good role, was too frail or wimpy for a serious combat role but was still too smart to make a good laborer (someone needs to clean the floors, cook the food, and keep the tanks fueled - and they're a whole class of soldiers by themselves), and it shows.

Was I always like that? Actually, no. During basic training, I was completely the other way around (everybody else in my battalion kept saying that I must have been intended for an elite ranger unit and must have been accidentally placed with them). It's not that I was full of patriotic fire so much as I was full of a sense of overcoming and of having to overcome. Now, I am going to be completely honest with you: objectively, I'm a wuss; I only did level 02 basic training (the lowest generally available to boys - level 01 is pretty much exclusive to very weak and unmotivated girls and level 00 is a special course for people with serious mental or physical disabilities who want to volunteer for the army despite), but for me, it was never about proving to anyone that I can ran down dunes with an M-16 dodging shells and taking potshots at the enemy. For me, it was about proving to myself that I have more in me than I'd always thought. It was my chance to push myself beyond anywhere I ever have; to prove to myself that I can make do, even for a short while, under conditions that are the complete opposite of what I've been used to my whole life. In many ways, that's what basic training in the IDF (especially level 02, that doesn't include more advanced combat training or anything) is all about, and what makes it different from that of almost any other military. In a professional army, you can count on pretty much everyone being willing and able adults who are there because they chose to be there. In the IDF, many (if not most) of the new recruits are kids sometimes literally straight out of high-school who absolutely DO NOT want to serve and never would consider serving if the alternative wasn't leaving the country forever or being put in jail. They don't want to follow orders from some stuck-up girl a month older than them, they don't want to live for a couple months in field conditions, they don't want to waste three years of their lives doing things that don't really benefit them personally. The first part of basic training here is all about smoothing things up in this regard - it's considered the hardest part of training by almost everyone, but the old cliche of "The pain is all in your head" is very much true in here. It's a carefully designed system built not for maximum efficiency as is, but for show, the officers are deliberately nasty and harsh but when a recruit actually breaks down they'll take them aside and comfort them. The food is deliberately worse than anything any kid would ever eat of their own will, but it's never outright bad or foul. You get little sleep, but not so much that you wouldn't be able to function. Some even claim that the classroom environments are designed specifically in order to make you sleepy (hot, dry air is pumped inside, lights dimmed, etc.) so that the officer could bark at you if your head drops. It's not about turning men into soldiers, but about turning kids into men (or women, as it might be).

And I excelled at all of that, to my own surprise more than anybody else'. Like I said, I'm a wuss. A spoiled rotten, petulant man-child who'd wake up in the afternoon after a night of playing computer games if it was all up to him. While basically my whole class (I was in a gifted student class, and always least amongst them - there's a Hebrew saying that goes "It's better to be tail to lions than head to foxes", but let me tell you, it's not fun) went on to join military intelligence or the air force (you cannot imagine the shame and bitterness of knowing that the class slut became a fighter pilot while you became a glorified secretary), I had to accept the fact that militarily speaking I'm going to be a nothing.

Any yet, not only did I manage - in my own way, I blasted through it. I kept telling myself that no matter what, I will do my best, and be my best, for this short time period, and that's what I did. It wasn't about the big idea of being a part of the army, or of being a warrior - it was of defeating myself as a person. It gave me a new understanding of myself and of my life; it revitalized me in ways few experiences did. During that period, I was driven to a degree that scared some of the other trainees in my camp. I was the one who always woke up the earliest, who always took the extra watch, always ran the extra mile, always stood the straightest. It would've probably been the same, or at least pretty similar, had it been any other army for any other army fighting any kind of war.

But one can only run on pure willpower for so long. After basic training ended and I was put into my actual job, the great machine started grinding on me and within a couple months I was just another bitter jobnik, sitting in front of my computer sipping coffee and planning how to get out of having to appear for my next drill...

LT;DR: My political beliefs don't have anything to do with my army service, because I don't consider it real army service so much as a job that happens to be within the army. Am I generally proud of the way Israel works? Yes, I am - the same way I'd be proud to be one of those guys who manage to climb some mountain in Tibet naked. It's stupid, but the fact that they managed is pretty damn impressive. Do I think that Israel is doing the right thing? Yes - within the circumstances, and for the most part. It could have been a lot better planned out in the first place (say, we could have not bothered. Or not let the ultra-orthodox make up half the rules and hold the government by the balls. Or not choose Avigdor Lieberman for Minister of Foreign Affairs, that's just pants on head retarded Bibi, seriously), but things being as they are, having an army like the IDF really is necessary. Using white phosphorous munitions in Gaza or beating up pregnant women in checkpoints? Probably not, but you can't make an omelet without committing a few war crimes (or to put it another way, I can definitely see how we could have done worse). I'm not "ashamed" of serving in the IDF because it's a part of being Israeli, and being Israeli is ultimately no different from being American or German or Brazillian. Should Americans feel personally "ashamed" because their country used chemical weapons in Vietnam? They are not their country, and far more importantly, back then that really did seem like the wisest thing to do, or they wouldn't have done so.

I can't neither say that I like nor that I dislike being an Israeli - because it's all I've ever been, as far as nationalities go. It can be difficult, it can be annoying, it can be frustrating - but it's a part of you.

[Snuffkin]

I'm also technically not allowed to talk about it as is on the internet, but I like you, so I will.

Ah fuck yeah. Gloom? Liking me? Dude, my nickname for you is Tiny, 'cause you're the king of the manic-depressive Jews. Okay, maybe that guy from Seinfeld is a better candidate actually, but you know what I mean. Again, thanks.

Of course I read the whole damn thing. Only retarded tumblr users only read tl;drs, especially when the rest is this well constructed. Oh, and at least Bibi, while moronic, is a little more justified in being a fascist than Obongo. You ever hear of the National Defense Authorization Act? Or the fact that we blow up our own citizens with little R/C planes controlled by retarded 19-year-olds with XBox controllers? I'm proud of my state, but not my country as a whole, by any means.

[jarek56]

...This probably was not meant to be commented on by any one else. But Gloom, that was...utterly fascinating.

As ever, your posts always leave my mind a little bit blown. If any man has lived one hell of a life from a side so many see but few speak of, it is you.

Thank you, again, for opening my eyes on a few things. You help me see things in a light I did not think of before.

Thank you, even though you were forced to do so by law, for defending my religion's homeland. I hope that your life, now, is what YOU want it to be.

[Snuffkin]

If you'd spoken to IDF soldiers before as you say, than perhaps you can understand at least to a degree just how monumental a task it would be for me to truly give a comprehensive and truthful answer to your question, well phrased as it might be.

This was sarcasm, yes?

[TheLastMelody]

You should add this to the post title:
(GLOOM)

It means that there is a wall of text here made by our most beloved wallmaker ^_^

And Gloom, you need to stop making me pleasantly surprised, lest I start stalking your social media profile or something like that!