About a week ago, we (Alexandra, our mom, and I) had dinner with Amit, who was the shinshinit (Israelis can defer their army service for a year and do a year of service before and one of the volunteer options they can do it be a shinshinit at Shuls or schools or communities in America and canada) at our shul 3 years ago. It was super fun catching up and she told us a lot about the army because she just finished her required service a little over a week ago.
In the army, there are different ranks of soldiers. They start at 01 and go through 012. 01 is the lowest. 03 and above is combat. The number stands for how many weapons you know how to use.
Amit did 03 basic training. Her job in the army was that she was a commander for 02 basic training. 02 soldiers are usually volunteers or people with a medical problem or people who can’t do anything physical. 02 basic trading is about 2-4 weeks.
Every soldier in the army has to shoot at least once, so the 02 soldiers have a gun workshop for one or two days and they learn how to shoot and how to clean the weapons.
The 02 soldiers are not really going to be in war zones, so they don’t have a gun for very long. Many 02’s are secretaries or do other office work.
Between groups of basic training 02’s she would have to guard at the base for four hour shifts, and all you can do during those shifts is blink and breathe.
Amit was a commander of 02 basic trading for a year and a half, and then for her last six months she worked in the base store.
The base store had really long shifts (14 hours!), so she would work Sunday- Thursday and then have a week off. There are other jobs in the army like this where the shifts are very long, so you work one week and then get one week off.
Amit was in the army for two years, because women have a mandatory service of two years, while men have a mandatory service of two years and 8 months.
I’ll finish sharing about the army in a follow up post.
– Naomi