They too have souls. They too have mothers and girlfriends and homes to go back to, childhood friends to commiserate with about all the bull they're going through. They too daydream in the desert of a nourishing meal and of more than five minutes to eat it. They sweat, they drink coke, they laugh, check Facebooks, and reminisce on all the drunken debauchery they enjoyed back in high school. Sometimes they see the same mirages of civilization, of proof that there is life outside this army and don't know whether to laugh or cry when the vision inevitably dissolves into dust. And of course, they too once were Tzairim, a partly endearing mostly insulting term used for the army's newcomers. Yes, even the Mefefakdim, the commanders were once Tzairim. Like me.
But right now, that all seems too hard to believe.
"KEEP CRAWLING!" Mefaked Doron bellows, veins pulsing violently out of his neck like weaving flash-floods in the desert. He lets out his most head-splitting shriek yet, "WAKE UP! You garbage, you jokes!!! What do you think this is? Summer camp? A hiking trip? Crawl faster now or I will stick my arm so far up your--"
You get the point. I'm smack dab in the middle of basic training and right now all I want to do is kill my Mefaked. He's a short guy, probably a chain smoker, with a face only a mother could love (with difficulty). His perpetually scrunched, sun-blotched expression dominated by a long crooked crease between his eyebrows makes him very very easy to impersonate. And this we all do with glee. Especially easy to parrot is his trademark, somewhat impossible-to-follow command: "SHUT YOUR FACE!" This he squawks at least 3 or 4 times a day, spittle consistently flying from his mouth, with such venom and velocity that it is remarkably difficult to keep said shut face straight.
In order to stay sane, and not commit homicide (which could be rather easy considering we carry around M-16s and two loaded magazines at all times) we just have to laugh. At him. Usually we wait 'til we're a safe distance away, but I'm not going to do that today. Here in the wilderness, crawling without end under the unforgiving Middle Eastern Sun, getting berated for not bloodying my elbows enough, I sure as hell ain't feeling patient. No, today, I'm feeling brave and invincible to whatever creative hell he's got up hidden up his sleeves. Make me run, crawl, do a couple hundred pushups, whatever you want--I don't give. It's worth any and every punishment just to make you look like a complete idiot for next couple of seconds. Bring it on.
And so I stand up and wait. At first, it takes Mefaked Doron a few seconds to notice; he's busy grabbing Ofek by the collar and dragging him a few meters for crawling too slow. But when he finally finishes and notices me standing there, naturally his reflex is to throw a tantrum.
"What do you think you're doing?!" he roars, "Drop! Get back down and crawl! Don't make me--"
Then before he can finish, before I have a chance to second-guess the possible consequences, I do it. Face scrunched into an ugly scowl, voice lowered to a trembling overdone bravado, finger pointed centimeters away from his nose, I scream with all my might his own favorite line back at him, "SHUT YOUR FACE!"
Silence. His jaw has dropped--quite literally as if about to ingest a massive deli sandwich. All the other soldiers aren't crawling anymore; they're staring in awe at my outstretched arm and posture, an imitation they've all seen and more than half of them done themselves a million times before but behind Mefaked Doron's back. This however is real, uncut 100% chutzpah and, god, are they scared for me. It feels like a whole eternity has passed and still no one's dared to move, stuck in the strangest still-life ever painted. Then finally without warning, something remarkable happens. Mefaked Doron laughs.
I don't know at first if this is really happening. I'm certain I'm dead or hallucinating because there's absolutely no possible way that in this life or any other, my Mefaked could have the capacity to laugh. But he's still at it, shaking his head self-effacingly, giggling as if he were physically tickled, an irresistible grin spread across his face. And suddenly everyone's laughing, and some people are laughing so hard they're crying. The soldiers, still lying where they were, are howling, their hands slapping the sand sending it flying into the air, rolling around as if they've never seen or heard something so hilarious. I'm going along with them, half-shocked half-jubilant and mostly just so immensely relieved that a) he didn't kill me and b) it turns out Mefaked Doron has a sense of humor. For even though his job is to be the biggest schmuck in the world, to turn us Tzairim into real soldiers and to break us in order to do so, Mefaked Doron is only human. And when something's funny, something's funny.
Eventually we all calm down and the Mefaked tells me to come over to the side. I know whatever's coming can't be good, that such a gracious moment can only be short-lived, so I approach him cautiously. He waits for a moment, still half-smiling, and then puts his arm on my shoulder.
"You know" he says, "We Mefakdim make fun of you guys too." I nod, partly surprised, trying to imagine him imitating us, though this is still too big a stretch. He continues, "Now, I have to punish you, of course. This is clear. But I wanted to remind you that I was once in the exact same spot you are now. Don't worry, Basic Training will end eventually and when it does we can laugh together again." He gives me one last grin, a real sincere one and I'm struck by how wrong I had him. He's really not that ugly after all. And y'know, he seems like a pretty decent guy in real life. Maybe if I just think of him as Doron, remind myself that he's not always a Mefaked, then I'll be able to get through Basic Training just fine. I don't think I even want to kill him anymore.
A few minutes later, I take that back.
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