![]() On the far end of the base, near the front gate, are the dining hall, administrative offices, and an obstacle course consisting of red-and-white-striped climbing equipment that looks like giant candy canes. ![]() The base is bordered on three sides by a chain-link fence topped with concertina wire the fourth side, directly behind my bunk, is a firing range that opens onto miles of brown nothingness. The Armored School is a four-square-kilometer island in an ocean of sand. FIFTY-EIGHT SOLDIERS IN FORMATION, ONE SOLDIER GUARDING THE BUNK, AND CLEMENTE’S TAKING A SHIT.Life in the Israeli Army with author Joel Chasnoff: Ī Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah And all this while his relationship with his tough-as-nails Israeli girlfriend (herself a former drill sergeant) crumbles before his very eyes. By the time he’s sent to Lebanon for a tour of duty against Hezbollah, Chasnoff knows everything about why snot dries out in the desert, yet has never been trained in firing the MAG. The platoon sergeants are barely older than the soldiers and are younger than Chasnoff himself. More time is spent arguing over how to roll a sleeve cuff than studying the mechanics of the Merkava tanks. As a member of the 188th Armored Brigade, a unit trained on the Merkava tanks that make up the backbone of Israeli ground forces, Chasnoff finds himself caught in a twilight zone-like world of mandatory snack breaks, battalion sing-alongs, and eighteen-year-old Israeli mama’s boys who feign injuries to get out of guard duty and claim diarrhea to avoid kitchen work. The 188th Crybaby Brigade is a hilarious and poignant account of Chasnoff’s year in the Israel Defense Forces-a year that he volunteered for, and that he’ll never get back.
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