Weeks 28 + 29 – שבוע מלחמה + מסע קומטא

Where to even begin. The end of the training, the final challenge, the last push in this crazy 7 month journey. It's easier writing this now in hindsight, knowing how difficult Shavua milchama actually was as opposed to what I thought it would be. I'll go into everything we did throughout the 10 days, but that was the main takeaway: we all hyped it up too much in our minds. It ended up being very manageable. There were definitely difficult moments, and you're not sleeping or eating well throughout (there were stretches of 45 hours where I slept 2 hours), but after a few days you get used to your reality in the shetach and it all becomes doable.

It started Saturday night at 3 AM. We woke up, surprisingly of our own accord and not with a hakpatza, and after a quick misdar of our tziud, waited around in the pluga before leaving on a tiyulit to the shetach.

As soon as we disembarked from the bus, we got into two lines for the start of the first drill. No time wasted. But, before we started walking in formation, the car of the Machat (Mefaked Chativa) pulled up, and through a rolled down window, he shouted "AZAR!" (the acronym for Oyev Zorek Rimon — in other words, a grenade was just thrown at you). We all scattered and took cover. When we got up, he shouted "Welcome to Shavua Milchama" and drove off. Starting off with a bang.

Funnily enough, in the first drill, we actually did start off with a bang… and we weren't supposed to. Every drill starts first with a dry run and then a wet (with live bullets) run. During this drill, the very first of 10 days of nonstop drilling, one of the soldiers in my machlaka fired a live explosive. Thankfully, it was early on in the drill and no soldiers were near the target, but still a really bad mistake. We had to stop the drill and had a safety talk from the מ״פ instead of continuing. Tzahal takes drill safety very seriously.

We marched 1 kilometer to a strip of fake buildings for the next drill. We thought it was a normal drill but after a few minutes a "terrorist" came and shot at multiple people leaving 10 injured. We quickly scrambled into rescue mode, working to evacuate the injured and running through the whole procedure for dealing with this sort of situation.

We then marched 7 km to do a maarav chafuz (lookout circle) at the next stop. We waited there for nightfall to start the next drill, switching between guarding and relaxing every 7 minutes. While we waited, the chopel told the group of guys next to me the entire schedule for the next 10 days. This would become a common theme throughout shavua milchama: trying to get as much information as possible about everything we'd be doing. Where were we sleeping, what drills were next, how long of a march would we be doing that day. We wanted to know as much as we could to mitigate and diminish the mental factor.

During that first nighttime drill, we had another mishap. After the "wet" drill, we convened at the bottom of the hill to do a headcount before continuing onto the next location. We got to #24 and heard no response. We called out for him. Who had seen him last? Who was his partner during the drill? One minute passed. Two minutes. We sent out his mefaked and a few guys to the hill where we did the drill to search for him. Turns out, he had fallen asleep while in a lying down position. How he was already that tired on only the first day of shavua milchama, I don't know. But the gravity of what he'd done couldn't be forsaken and as punishment, the mefaked machlaka made us carry him on a stretcher for the first kilometer of our next nesigah. That's the army's approach – punishing your friends for something you did will make you less likely to do it again than just punishing you.

We walked 7 km back to the strip of buildings for a night drill and afterwards walked 9 km to a nap area. After being awake for 24 hours, we were given 2 hours to nap (from 4:30–6:30 AM). All in all, we walked 33 km during the first day of shavua milchama.

So. A quick recap. In the first two days, I walked about 45 kilometers and slept 4. Someone fired a live round during a sterile drill, another person fell asleep during a live fire drill, and another person got heat stroke and collapsed. We were off to a great start.

Every day of Shavua milchama was jam packed — midnight wake-ups to drill in the freezing cold, tarpalim (company-wide drills) that burned through whole days, a bus to Tzeelim (mini Gaza) where an 8-hour drill capturing houses ended with a "terrorist" running past the window yelling RPG, a night drill at 1:45 AM capturing three houses in the freezing cold. Nearly a week in, I still hadn't fired a bullet because of the tafkid of my kita. On Friday we walked to an area where a whole camp had been set up for the entire chativat tzanchanim for shabbat — tents, porta potties, cots, BBQ for lunch and bags of snacks. It was 10x better than the conditions of the past week.

The final days blurred together: bayit vehagana on a captured building, packing up camp, a simulated hakpatza to Shomriya — a drill to simulate Oct. 7 where terrorists were taking over a kfar — and, of course, the first rain of the entire Shavua Milchama arriving on the coldest night. On the absolute last drill, I finally shot my first bullet. Then a 5k walk back to the pluga with stretchers, as the final act. That night we slept 8 hours in a warm room with a bed. What a dream.

And just like that, Shavua Milchama was done. It didn't feel real. We had built it up in our minds for so long, had conjured fears and worries for it, that for it to be behind us felt like we had escaped something. Now there was only one challenge remaining: the masa kumta.

The masa kumta went well. It was cold, of course, but the only real challenge was the time. 14 hours of walking. Breaks about every hour; we snacked on candy and sweets throughout.

After the stretcher portion, carrying 80 kilo 4 kilometers, we stopped. There were 2 kilometers left of the masa and we were entering Jerusalem. I started to cry, thinking about the reunion with my family who I hadn't seen in half a year. I couldn't wait to hug them, to finish this crazy march and crazy 7 months walking hand in hand with them.

As we marched, and I saw other families embrace, the excitement grew. Finally, in the distance, I saw my family. My little sister, Ariella, flew in to surprise me. I was exhausted and leaned on them throughout the end. There's no feeling like it, finishing this crazy experience with your family by your side. One of the greatest nights of my life – I'll never forget it.

We got to Givat HaTachmoshet for the final ceremony. I was asked to speak at a small chayal boded thing and then the ceremony started. The מ״פ surprised me by giving me the beret off his shoulder, a sign of respect. I couldn't believe it.

It's surreal to see us all with the red beret we worked so hard for. I can't believe it.

In a weird way, it hasn't even hit me that I'm in the army yet. I think it's because I've been in survival mode for the past 7 months: get back to base and get through this morning, this day, this week, until you get back home to your real life on the outside. Like the army was always a bad dream or a crazy experience but not something that was actually real. Let's see if being in the gdud changes that. With more time to breathe, more personal freedoms, more of a life being lived and not just running from place to place without time to stop and breathe.

After the tekes, I took a NICE shower, and headed to Modiin for a family BBQ. I had a great sleep back in my Jerusalem apartment and on Friday I met up with a friend for breakfast and went to a spa in Jerusalem with cousins — the wet sauna, dry sauna, and ice bath, doing everything I could to bring my body back to normal.

We headed to Modiin for what we thought would be a restful Shabbat. Little did we know, the US and Israel would attack Iran. I got one day of rest, I guess. I'm a fully fledged צנחן in צה״ל. The real work starts now.