"...Vacation's All I Ever Wanted..."

So I'm on vacation now, Praise the Lord, HalleluY-a *southern-black-minister speak* (although I left out the "jesus the lord" part). Before we went on vacation though, we went to our new base in Beit El. Yup, new base, we finished all of our training, now we're going to be doing what we're trained for -- takin' care of bid'ness *ebonics*. As I may have mentioned, I'm in the Ramallah area. Went we got to my Beit El, saw a mosque out in the distance a bit (3 - 4 kms maybe) and asked my mefakeid (commander, sergeant in rank),

"Omri, mah zeh?"
Omri: Ramallah.
Me: Sweet.


We didn't do anything though. We got our equipment, the next day had our masa aliyyah lag'dud, and then vacation.


Now, masa aliyyah lag'dud, is I guess you could say an entrance fee to the g'dud, the unit. We finished training, we're doing a masa with the g'dud, and now we're going to fight with the g'dud.
It was from Handarta Sayeret Duchifat (the Sayeret Duchifat Memorial) in Pisgat Ze'ev (northeast Yerushalayim) until the Kotel, about 12 km. Let me tell you, it didn't feel like 12 at all. I wasn't feeling so well that week, I had a cold, my ankle which I sprained 4 yrs ago was acting up again as it does here and there, but I was not going to miss this masa. And I didn't, Praise the Lord HalleluY-a. Walking through the streets of Yerushalayim to the Kotel, one whole unit of Tzahal, all together, how can I miss that? It was absolutely amazing. Even though no one loves running when you're wearing your vest and all your stuff, I didn't mind one bit when we did the obligatory 50 meter sprints that you do every so often in a masa. Just being part of it, I didn't care what I did. They could have told us to fly, and I would have. You know, it's weird -- if you were there, you would've have seen a whole unit walking on the sidewalk to the Kotel. You would have felt amazing, watching Tzahal just march right on, feeling a huge sense of pride. Well, it was weird because I didn't see it -- I was it.
And then we get to the Arab part of Yerushalayim, right outside "their" part of the Old City, guys singing the song about Moshe Rabeinu "*low part* Vayach es hamitzri, vayifen ko vacho...*high part* la'asos nekama lagoyyim*--*lp* and he hit the egyptian and looked here and there...*hp* to do revenge on the nations" was a cool feeling. I know, I know, the point isn't to do revenge on them, it's to defened ourselves, yada yada I know, I know. But someday, we have to give back 100x what they've given us for so many years.
Then we reached Kikar Tzahal (the intersection before that long footpath to Sha'ar Yafo) and we just sprinted as fast as we could. We stopped after a little bit, but, just the symbol, when we get to Yeruhalayim, running as fast as we can. Then we skipped Sha'ar Yafo and entered through Sha'ar Tziyyon, singing Am Yisrael Chai, and, most importantly, Yibaneh HaMikdash, at the end, seeing the Beis HaMikdash in its ruin (not just its ruin, its insult to injury with a mosque on the holiest place on earth, but that's another post for a different time...).
We got to the Kotel, and had a little tekes (ceremony), and then we got our really nice Duchifat March 07 gun straps. Now all we need is our Duchifat pin that we're supposed to get sometime soon and it's all good...