In the previous post, I had mentioned that Ari and I were going out to dinner with Jean and Xhev for Jean's birthday. I wanted to share a highlight from a great sushi dinner.
Over dinner, Xhev and Ari start comparing notes between the American Army and Israeli Army re basic training and hazing rituals. Xhev could not understand how there was next to no hazing in a culture that is so military-centered. Ari explained that the worst that happened (besides general lack of sleep) was that they made you do push-ups but that since there was a limit to how many they could make you do, they would have you do 20, get up, do 20, get up and do another 20. However, even that changed and they stopped being able to do that. Why? Because the mother's called to complain.
At this point Xhev lost it (as did we all)- mothers complain to the military? In the US army, you would get punished extra for that.
I think that it says something endearing and a little backwards about Israel. When you have a mandatory draft, everyone in the country has served in the army, knows someone who has served in the army or at least seen soldiers in uniform with varried ranks on the busses, the streets and everywhere else. It is a close culture where your brother served in the same unit as the neighbor's cousin who was dating your second grade teacher's son (they met at the wedding of a mutual friend) who was serving in a different unit whose older sister had babysat for you before she went into a different unit with your best friend's nephew who was in school with the teacher's son...or any other variation of the same thing. (You could change any or all of the relationships and genders and the same will be true.)
No wonder the mother's complain...they probably ran into your commander's mother at the local community center or in the coffee aisle at the supermarket.
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