It used to be fun. That was the first thing I thought when I received my reserve duty call up orders last month. Yes, when I was in my twenties I would actually look forward to the olive drab uniforms, the desert hummer exercises, the endless field training of the latest weaponry and I would even be anxious to get out onto the front lines, whether in Lebanon, Shechem or Gaza.
I wanted to do my duty and I had fun roughing it with my closest buddies and the greatest military technology at our fingertips. I felt a connection with my comrades, my countrymen and my past. Indeed, looking out over the Land of Israel as a soldier in a Jewish army made me feel the connection to the warriors of the Judges, the Kingdoms and the Maccabees. (And for one month out of every year it was a relief to get out of the rat race and into the field.)
Times have changed. Today we are not patrolling cities, villages, frontiers and borders in an effort to keep the peace and a sense of normalcy until a final settlement can be reached with the Palestinian leadership as we thought we were doing just four short years ago. A war is raging and I am about to go out to the front.
Today I am a thirty-five-year-old man with a wife, two kids and a huge mortgage. I have some major responsibilities. If, G-d forbid, something happens to me, there will be some major repercussions. When I was a twenty-something gung-ho kid it was only I who had the most to lose. Not today.
For these reasons, I simply do not want to go. I do not want to get shot at. I do not want to chase after terrorists through tunnels and alleyways throughout the Kasbah. I don’t want my wife to cry herself to sleep at night while dealing with a three year old, a baby and a full time job.
There are other reasons why I don?t want to go. Not everyone does reserve duty. The vast majority of Israeli women do not do reserve duty. The vast majority of ultra-Orthodox do not do reserve duty or the regular army. The vast majority of Israeli Arabs not only are exempt from reserve duty and the regular army, but terrorists rarely target their communities for terror. (Think about it: Arabs living in Israel are the only Arabs in the entire Middle East who live in peace, vote in fair and free elections, are well educated, have free health care, are economically secure, do not serve in the armed forces and are not afraid to speak their minds.)
And then there are many Israelis who simply do not show up for reserve duty, or show up the first day with a ‘doctor’s note’ and go home. In fact, according to Ha’aretz, 70 percent of Israeli men between 21 and 45 do not do reserve service.
The other day I was talking with a friend of mine who did reserve duty until his thirtieth birthday. When I mentioned that I would be going into one of the West Bank’s cities for a month or so he looked at me deadpan and said, ‘Don’t go. There are enough insane Israelis around to do the reserves. They don’t need you. If there is a major war and they need you they will make you go.’
That got me thinking. He had a good point. Maybe I shouldn’t go. If there is a major war they will call me and I will report. Do they really need me — a slightly overweight, out of shape thirty-five-year-old tour guide? There are plenty of strapping young lads ready to take time off from their studies to play soldier. I have paid my dues.
Yesterday I took a group on a tour off the beaten track in the upper-western Galilee. We started off from the Christian Arab village of Maliyah to the cliffs overlooking Nahal Kziv and the mountains of Lebanon. We hiked (and slid) down the face of Mt. Ziv and into the riverbed across from an ancient Roman tomb (or temple) and finally to an ancient spring. There was a group of haredi boys wading in the cool mountain pool at the mouth of the spring, decked out in black hats, tzitzit and skivvies. When our coed group appeared, the haredi teens frantically searched for their pants as I held my group back at a snail’s pace.
Just then about two hundred Arab children showed up and ran into the water full throttle, splashing my group of secular Israeli Jews and the Yiddish-speaking boys despite the fact that their teacher was hollering over a megaphone not to cause a ‘balegan’ (ruckus). It was lots of fun, and all involved seemed to be enjoying themselves.
As I was riding on the Egged bus from Nahariya to my moshav, everyone suddenly stopped conversing when the bus driver turned up the radio — as every Israeli bus driver does at the top of every hour — to listen to the news updates.
Three soldiers — two 19-year-old women and a 20-year-old-man — had been killed by a Palestinian who infiltrated the settlement of Netzarim in Gaza. No one spoke for the rest of the ride back to Afula. The only thought that crossed my mind was that at any given moment, on any day of the week, there is a Palestinian who is trying to get through our defenses and into a mall, a cafe or a home in order to kill Jews. If soldiers are not sent into harm’s way, then harm will come home to our citizens. That is a fact — and a wake-up call.
If I am called upon, as a soldier, to fight this war and to protect our citizens of all backgrounds, then that is my duty — and I will do it.
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