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Recollections of Israeli Reserve
Duty in Camp Cesspool
By Steven Plaut
Who put it there? Surely it was not the Munchkins. Mother
Hen would never have thought of it. The officers never come in
here. Was it to be a joke? A protest? An act of desperation?
* * * * * * *
The sun is rising over Camp Cesspool. A large Israeli army
base. I am waiting for a Munchkin to relieve me from guard duty.
It has been a cold quiet night. It is supposed to rain today.
Do I go to sleep now or stay awake for an hour until the mess
hall opens for breakfast? Decisions, Decisions.
Cesspool is the filthiest army base I have ever seen, on
either side of the "green line". It is an "urban"
base, located within a city. In a sense this makes things all
the more frustrating, knowing that civilization, clean sheets
and decent food are all just a few meters away on the other side
of the barbed wire perimeter. 'Twas a time when Cesspool was
the model military base, with spic and span facilities, spotless
mess halls, and a Head to inspire pride in the heart of all soldiers.
But when the commandant was changed a few years back, everything
fell apart and into its current state of filth.
Anyone suspecting that Israelis are "militarists"
has never observed the despair and outrage by someone receiving
a reserve order to report for active duty. No Brooklyn longshoreman
could produce similar expletives.
Reserve duty is based upon a reversal of the quantum principle,
proving that in fact time slows down when the speed of a body
approaches zero. It has also been described as an inversion of
Descartes: I do NOT think, therefore I am a reservist.
The stench of gun grease is the first part of the initiation
into a reserve tour of duty. At the armory I ask for my equipment,
addressing the soldier on duty with politeness to which he is
unaccustomed. "How come you are speaking Old?" he asks
me. One "signs" for the rifle, coated with grease,
which gets into one's hair, clothes, fingers. It stays with one
even after showering, like a bad memory. For weeks everything
will taste and smell of it. The food in Cesspool is so awful
that the gun grease is somewhat of an improvement. The Munchkins
do not complain about it. The Munchkins are a strange group
of regular soldiers, Sadirniks, aged 19-20. They are the
anomalies of the Jewish state, the forgotten slow ones, the exceptions
to the stereotype of Jews being great scholars and intellectuals
and academics in high-tech Israel.
The Munchkins are all D students, dropouts, borderline literate.
They are just at the cut-off, the bottom minimal standard for
what the Israeli army will accept as soldier material. A few
less IQ points and they'd be classified as retarded or learning
disabled and never conscripted, condemned to joblessness and failure
in life.
For them, the army is their last, best chance. They will emerge
eventually with an honorable discharge, a passport into employment
and blue-collar opportunity in the Israel of the 21st century.
They are a mixed batch, about half Russian and Georgian,
the rest sabra Israelis. Even the army understands that they
cannot be made into mechanics and technicians, let alone officers
or operators of high-tech military equipment. They do endless
guard duty, the one and only thing they appear capable of performing.
For them, it is a sort of preparation for life. They are ordered
about, fulfill instructions as well as they can.
I lucked out and have become one of the reservists called
up to supplement the Munchkins in guarding Cesspool. Yanked out
of my economics classroom, away from research and data crunching,
to play soldier here in Cesspool. The Munchkins crowd about,
staring at my ruby slippers (beat-up smelly army boots), in awe.
They have never met a university professor before. I am nicknamed
"The Professor" by a Munchkin I name Gilligan, but he
has never seen the show.
The Munchkins sleep on and off during the days, guard most
of the night, seemingly used to this regime. A four-hour guard
detail of inactivity drives me to the brink of insanity, but the
Munchkins take it in stride, and sometimes even hang out for a
while after being relieved, just to chat.
Reservists take a less literal attitude towards military
orders and officers than do regular soldiers. We are all under
orders to sleep with our army boots on, as Cesspool is in a state
of permanent alert. When pigs are kosher, I chuckle. But the
Munchkins, I later observe, actually obey this order. They badmouth
officers during briefings, out of a sort of pathetic Munchkin
bravado, and receive repeated petty punishments for it, but are
obedient and well-behaved otherwise.
The Munchkins are really not a bad group, just slow. Alex,
a Russian Munchkin, likes to hang out with me during his off-duty
time and ask questions. Did I leave America because the Mafia
was trying to kill me? Could I please explain to him how exactly
he could get rich? He asks me to read and translate for him the
inscription by the manufacturer on my M-16. He has gotten quite
good at smuggling a large old Russian radio into the guard post
with him, and has never been apprehended, so he has hope in later
life.
Twice a day the Munchkins are assembled for their daily
briefings, and we reservists have to tag along. The briefings
are pretty much the same every day. The usual reminders of proper
procedures, warnings to be on the lookout for this or that, ammunition
belts and weapons checked. By the third day I can recite the briefing
in my sleep. That is, if I were getting any. As a reservist,
I only have to listen to this for a couple of weeks, and I am
already going nuts from the repetition; the Munchkins do not seem
to mind, and indeed keep answering some of the questions wrongly,
even though they have heard them asked and answered over and over
again for a year or more.
At night the briefing is followed by a fire drill. The
Munchkins do all the work, with the reservists admiring, off
to the side. The Munchkins have done the drill each night since
they came to Cesspool. And they still cannot get it right. They
trip over one another, attach the hoses incorrectly, spritz water
all over one another. Sleeplessness is getting to me. Watching
them, I am getting a flashback from the Disney Dumbo movie, where
the clowns with floppy long shoes come out dressed as firemen,
fall all over one another, and eventually spritz all over Dumbo.
Reserve duty is about killing time, not killing people.
I have brought along some English books and bluegrass tapes,
this choice - to insure they will not be stolen. Most of the
other reservists have brought along cellular phones, and chat
nonstop. A reservist, Wassily, is the regiment clown and has
everyone rolling in laughter.
Another, Moti, is awaiting his first baby in a few weeks.
To kill time, I run a private La Maze course for him.
Everything in the army is an acronym. Like that Robin
Williams routine where he makes an entire speech composed of military
acronyms. Some wiseass has posted a recent news clipping on the
wall near our barracks saying that 70% of Israeli men have not
done reserve duty in a year, just the thing to make the reservists
doubly irritable.
Since its moral decline into studied abandon, the greatest
asset in Cesspool is having a key to one of the hidden private
bathrooms. Like executives in a Madison Avenue office, you know
when you have made it when you get your own washroom key. I have
not made it. The private facilities are kept locked against all
invaders. Including reservists.
The rest of the world, and this includes the reservists,
must use the fearsome Head. A dismal grotto of a bathroom, caked
with ancient filth. Where one dare not allow one's flesh to make
contact with any stationary object. A scene out of Dante. Dark
and gloomy.
And it is here, of all places, where the mystery was revealed.
* * * * * * *
Oleanders are a common decorative shrub used in Israel,
like California and Florida. Pink and white flowers. No fragrance.
Only one thing, though. They are poisonous. Lethally poisonous.
Every last bit of them. The flowers, leaves, stems. Everything.
"Bootka" is a Russian word. One of many that
have entered modern Hebrew. The Bootka is a small guardhouse,
about 5 feet by 5 feet, and 7 feet high. More of a guardshack.
Windows in all sides. Guards must man it 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, 365 days a year. It strategically covers and provides
fire backing for the gate guard, so that if an intruder were to
force the gate, the guard in the Bootka would call him to order.
With an M-16. The Bootka is stifling hot during the day and
freezing cold duringthe night. Guards therein are prohibited
from listening to the radio while on guard duty, as it might cause
one to remain awake.
Yet I have fashioned a hidden line under the uniform and ammunition
belt that connects to the hidden walkman, and Garth Brooks is
keeping me warm. It is night and Mother Hen is asleep.
Mother Hen is the camp's Sergeant Major, in charge of making
sure all army boots are shined. He does not care about the filth
and the awful food and - having a blessed key of his own - I doubt
he has ever entered the fearsome Head. He stops regular soldiers
who walk by his office and makes them shine their boots. It is
his calling in life and he takes his sacred mission seriously.
He knows better than to order reservists to shine their boots,
and mine have not seen shinola since the mid-1980s. Mother Hen
has only addressed himself to me once. I am wearing a Senegalese
army sun cap, one I picked up for pennies in a Berkeley secondhand
shop, probably left over from the sixties and the "Diggers".
You are out of uniform, snarls the Hen, why are you not wearing
an army cap? This is an army cap, I insist, just not OUR army.
Mother walks away shaking his head in disbelief.
A Brigadier General has driven into Cesspool and asks me
if it s ok if he parks near the Bootka in which I am ensconced.
Sure, I reply, would you like the car waxed? He chuckles.
He walks off and, dear G-d, he has entered the Head. Was he
not warned? Will he ever be heard from again?
* * * * * * *
A new book of short stories has just been published in
Israel. By one Leah Aini. It is called Oleanders. It is a
collection of bizarre love stories. One story in the book Oleanders
is itself called Oleanders. It is about (I am not making this
up) a woman student at the university in the economics department
and an officer in the military who serves in Camp Cesspool. Once
the guy gets out of Cesspool, can he help but live happily ever
after?
On one of my first evenings in the Bootka, a lieutenant
has come by and struck up a conversation. He is as surprised
to find a college teacher in the Bootka as I am to be in it.
We get to talking. He tells me that his girlfriend is doing
a seminar paper in Beer Sheba in econometrics and she is stuck,
unable to resolve a data problem for weeks now. Tell me all about
it, I insist, I have nowhere to go. Ten minutes later the problem
is resolved.
Next night, his friend, a young captain, comes by. He is
doing an MBA and wanted to ask a few questions in finance. When
we finish, I ask him to pass on my regards to his Dean. But who
should I say is sending regards, he asks. Just tell him Private
Steve of the Bootka. How come a college professor is doing this
awful job, he asks. Well, all the generals slots were taken
when I signed up, I explain.
Word has gotten out among Cesspool's officer corps that
technical help is available for students at the Bootka. Many
of the officers are part-time students. They come by with questions
about business courses, economics problems, the internet, even
mortgage shopping. I feel like Lucy in the old Peanuts comic
strip, sitting at her booth with the sign offering psychiatric
advice for 25 cents a pop. I am considering dispensing numbers
for service at the beginning of each watch. I offer the officers
a deal: get me off a watch or two and I will come give the whole
officer's barracks a talk on MBA studies in Israel and abroad.
A major walks by the Bootka, and sees the group of officers
lining up, including one colonel, standing outside the Bootka,
trying to figure out who the important military personality is
inside whom everyone is trying to come see, but only seeing a
middle-aged private. What was the name of the private in Catch
22 who ran the whole army?
Toilet paper theft is a major problem at Cesspool. It
is in a state of perpetual scarcity, and the soldiers steal from
one another. The ingenuity they display is what allows the Israeli
army to win wars. I have come equipped with a lock and keep my
private stock well secured, except for ventures into the Head.
At lunch I join some Munchkins. I demand an investigation,
I tell them, the bread today is fresh, which means that the kitchen
staff has neglected to carry out its duty and store it until hard
and stale. The Munchkins are not sure if I am serious or joking.
Alex comes by the Bootka, and peels some oranges with the
sharp tip of a bullet, for us to munch. He has gotten grounded,
denied leave for two weeks, because he left his rifle behind in
his barracks room when going for a walk, and got caught. One
is expected to have it on one at all times. Even in the Head.
On my hidden radio it is announced that the army has decided
that college students will not be called up for more than 21
days of reserve duty this year. As for professors, apparently
the limit does not apply.
* * * * * *
Moti has developed a skin infection, and the cream the army
medic gave him is not working. Have you been going into the
Head without your Space Walk uniform, I ask. I m a walking pharmacy,
having learned in past reserve stints to bring along creams for
every conceivable skin affliction known to mankind. I fix him
up and within days he is back to normal. Who says PhD's are not
REALdoctors?
It is 4:00 in the morning. Shivering in the Bootka. I
ask some Munchkins on the patrol to take over for me for a bit
to allow me to visit the Head. I stumble in. The fumes and filth
attack every sensory organ.
And suddenly, there it is. The grand mystery. Cesspool's
answer to Stonehenge. Looking up, for the first time - it must
be - since coming to Cesspool's Head. White lights seem to be
flashing. I try to make sense of it.
On the wall of the paperless booth, staring out at me,
someone has composed a lyric poem and written it here in careful
letters. It is entitled Oleanders. It covers the whole stall.
It is lovely, although loses everything in translation. Here
in this G-d-forsaken place, amid the stench and the squalor, the
bowels of Camp Cesspool, someone has decorated the wall with a
poem. A work of indescribable beauty. About Oleanders.
Who put it there? Surely it was not the Munchkins. Mother
Hen would never have thought of it. The officers never come in
here. Was it to be a joke? A protest? An act of desperation?
I will never know.
Steven Plaut teaches business and the University of Haifa and at the University of California.
~~~~~~~
from the August 1998 Edition of the Jewish Magazine
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