Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Yalah, B’nee! (Oh G-d, My SON!)

Now my son is not scheduled per se for a combat unit, being drafted with the “jobniks” (non-combat) section of the army. But he is a driver, and in excellent physical shape, so he may be put to “work” as the driver of a combat jeep. Even other drivers are not as safe as regular desk jobs, as my son-in-law can testify. A few years ago, as a truck driver for the army, he was lynched by a mob of Arabs, barely escaping with his life. (He had not known the way to where he was going. He asked for them to give him an accompanying soldier to direct him. Turns out that the accompanying soldier also didn’t really know the way….). These types of things give mothers, even the mothers of jobnik, a pause. But I can live with it. Even if he becomes a combat jeep driver, I will just have to learn to live with the fear. As my son pointed out, this is probably safer than his previous job as a delivery boy.
Yesterday, the day of induction, I said my good-byes at home. I felt no need to go to the pick-up point with him, and indeed, he requested that we not “bother”. He went with his married sister (married to the former almost-lynched driver), and his older brother, N.
N. reported on his return home that the inductees had all been instructed to get on a bus, had been driven about 100 yards, and then got off and went into a building to be processed. Apparently this “ride” of 100 yards is to get the soldiers free from their parents. And, reported N., that was quite necessary. He reported that one mother was screaming and crying, “Yaahla, B’NEE!!” (“Oh G-d, my son!”). “I mean”, continued N., “He’s going in as a JOBNIK, for Heaven’s sake! I pity her son….”
I suspect her son is tickled pink to go to the army.

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