Our Week at Gadna in the Israeli Army

by Briahn Witkoff,      12^th grade,        Denver

We recently returned from Gadna, the Israeli Defense Force’s week-long program for teens to experience the army. It is intended for Israeli teens, to prepare them for their required army service in the near future. The first day was a bit of a culture shock. Coming from a nice early-morning camel ride across the desert, the immediate bombardment of commands was a bit shocking. As soon as we got off of the bus, we were brought to the basketball court and separated into groups and assigned to our mefakdot (commanders). We learned we had to stand in acshev, which means feet together in a V-shape, water-bottle touching the left foot, and our hands behind our backs above the waistline in a diamond-shape. On top of all of this we had to stand in together in the shape of a ח (the Hebrew letter chet). If you were caught not doing any of these things when you were supposed to, or not following any other command, you had to do push-ups.

the view from the camel ride

Some of us standing in acshev before going to the shooting range

Here we are sitting in a ח

There were many things that were challenging at Gadna, specifically following orders 24/7 for sometimes seemingly no reason at all. For example, we had to hold our arms up in a circle for five minutes. One of the things that was the most challenging for me was bedtime. Our commander set a timer for 3 minutes, and we had to be in bed, alarm set, with everything in order, going to sleep. My heart was racing after those three minutes, which made it much more difficult to fall asleep.

The tents we slept in fit all 14 girls in neat rows of cots, with room for two radiators. Not bad, not great. We spent most of the day outside running drills or in class. We had one gun safety class in a building, but all of our other classes either took place somewhere on the base or in the outdoor classrooms. The weather was pretty nice the whole time we were there so it wasn’t too bad being outside all of the time. Meals were three times a day; most of us prepared for this by stocking up on instant ramen and granola bars, but I found that when I got there it wasn’t necessary. The food was actually pretty ok, and I saved my granola bars and ramen for snacks during our breaks in between activities in the day. 

 

Gun safety lesson with the ממ (Platoon commander)

View of the “classrooms”

Here is a picture of our group tents

Break time in the tents: featuring instant ramen

This was the phone charging situation; there were about 18 chargers for roughly 60 girls

It was interesting being there with a hundred other Israeli teens. It was cool to learn about their experiences as a teen in Israel, and their lives and how they prepare to go to the army at 18 instead of college. The weird thing about it was that they seemed to take Gadna less seriously than we did, and we weren’t even going into the army. I am not sure, but one of the reasons they may have been a bit more light-hearted about the whole situation might be because they have spent their entire lives preparing for joining the army, whereas we were just sort of thrown in there last minute. I am not sure if it felt like we were really in the army. At some points it did; when we were all in our uniforms running in two lines around the base and shooting M16s, but sometimes it felt like we were kids playing dress-up for a week.

This is the shooting range. We shot from inside the white covered area down into this pit that had 10 targets.

The Israeli army is very different from the United States’ army, with one of the main differences being that all teens are required to go into the army directly after high school. There are many pros and cons to this, but one of the benefits is that this helps build a stronger and more unified community. Everyone will have gone through this and in some way relate to one another, and have the shared experience.

Though this was a challenging week, I think we are all glad to have experienced it and come out with a new or more developed perspective on the Israeli army and even on Israel as a whole.