Training for the war that won't be

Somewhere in the north of Israel

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Preparing for another night march to be followed by a dawn attack, we were graced with a visit from the battalion commander.

I don't think reserve officers of his rank are shown many intelligence assessments, and he admitted himself that most of what he knows is from the press, but if he was in on something, I doubt he'd be sharing it with his soldiers.

In any case he thinks we're looking at war with Syria in the next year or so. The army is calling all the large-scale exercises taking place right now 'training for war'.

Whether or not there's another war in the north, these exercises are long overdue but what is questionable is the way the army is presenting them to the reservists and the general public. There is a double message being sent out. While politicians including Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak have repeated over the last month that they don't expect war soon, the IDF gives a very different impression.

Are they trying to send a not so subtle signal that they believe differently from their political masters? Perhaps they're just covering their behinds in case war does break out so they can say they told us so. Is this a ploy to put more pressure on the government to increase the defense budget? Or maybe they're just trying to put some fire in reservists' bellies and make us train harder.

If that's it, then it's not really working. I mean we take training as seriously as can be expected but apart from the rhetoric, there's no real sense of urgency around here. There is a limit to how seriously you can take the talk.

There is something innately childish about the whole thing, playing soldiers with shooting toys and competing for who can get the most hits on target. The funny thing is that in some countries, wealthy businessmen pay good money to go camping in the woods and blast imaginary targets in male-bonding exercises.

Despite having done it for so many years, there still is something surreal about wearing a uniform, putting on combat webbing and charging up a hilltop shooting cardboard cutouts and balloons. I don't know if it's because I'm a journalist and supposed to be the one watching from the side while others do the real thing, or whether most reservists feel this way.

The dissonance has definitely deepened thanks to technology.

When I started doing miluim twelve years ago, only a few of us had cellular phones and reception out in the field was patchy at best. Nowadays we're all constantly hooked on to what's happening back home and at work, and I'm using a laptop to blog, stay abreast of news and exchange emails.

This morning we were just loading our rifles for a live-fire exercise when my wife called to say she was on her way to emergency with our youngest who had opened his head. By the time we had taken the ridge, I already knew it was only a minor cut and there was no need for me to rush back home.

Technology has other uses, too. Fed up with the state of our equipment, one of the sergeants ordered a telescopic sight for his M-16 through eBay, which he now sports proudly, picking out faraway targets on range when he's not busy taking orders over the phone for his successful carpentry business. He claims he spent the money to be better prepared for war but I suspect he would have done it just for the fun of it anyway.

We were called up last summer but spent the war stationed on the Syrian border. I was given permission to leave to cover the fighting and wondered how I would have written about the war if I was actively participating in it. For obvious reasons, I don't want war with Syria to break out, but if it does, I can't help thinking that this blog is going to be a lot more popular.

Previous entries:August 5, 2007: 'The real change is that we're training at all'<August 5, 2007: Olmert's own heritage is no excuse<