Lone Soldier

Is an Israeli term for a soldier in the IDF who has no family members in the Land of Israel. The Jerusalem Post is currently running as series of blog posts from a blogger who also was an American Lone Soldier serving in the IDF. Here’s a Thanksgiving excerpt:

It was our second day out on ambush. My three buddies lay next to me, and as the order came in I looked at them as if to say, "What the hell is that all about?" Tomer fiddled with his night vision and Eli scooped tuna out of a can, his grubby hands using the bent lid as a makeshift spoon. They shrugged their shoulders and pouted as if to say, "How the hell are we supposed to know?"

Their inner lips were a vibrant pink beneath their black and green faces streaked with sweat. On the far side of the foxhole, Sergei slept hard, his nose buried in the carpet of leaves and sticks.

I knew better than to question an order, so I whispered an affirmation into the mouthpiece. I looked through my scope across the narrow, brush-choked ravine and in the dying light I discerned a young shepherd boy urging his flock towards the blocky outcropping of homes on the opposite hillside. The green fluorescent lights on the minarets bristling from the village flickered to life. The battered Datsun we had been staring at for the last 36 hours remained parked beside a small, windowless shack on the village's outskirts.

I stuffed the refuse from the combat rations into my gear, wished my pals good luck and inch-wormed my way backwards out of the foxhole, being careful not to disturb the camouflage netting.

Crawling, I made my way up the hillside towards the ridge at such an angle as to keep the vegetation between the village and myself. Once over the spine I stood and walked carefully down to the dried creek bed on the other side. There, behind a giant fig tree in a bend of the creek, the company commander and his driver sat, spitting the shells of watermelon seeds out of the open doors of the Hummer.
"Get in," he said. "You've been requested to attend a dinner for American lone soldiers for that holiday where you guys eat turkey."

I had totally forgotten that it was Thanksgiving, and I absolutely love Thanksgiving. I had to remember to call my family.

"I don't want to go, sir."

"You will go, you will eat turkey, or you will be court-martialled."

From the other side of the ridge I could hear the Muslim call to prayer blaring from the mosques in the village. Our guy - that murderous scumbag - was going to finally move that night and I was now going to miss it for a crappy lone soldier event. I reluctantly conceded and the commander gave me a friendly - yet sturdy - slap to the back of my helmet as I climbed into the back of the Hummer.

Read more by Lone Soldier here.