If anyone reading this has ever seen any sort of promotional feature about lone soldiers, I’m sure you’ll be able to agree with me that it all looks very inspiring. Shiny pictures of soldiers standing proudly at their beret ceremonies at the end of training, moving clips of soldiers helping each other out in particularly tough moments.
Well here I am, the token lone soldier, ready to shatter the illusion.
It’s not that those things don’t happen, of course. It’s that they happen for a few minutes, over a couple of hours, in between often boring, often dirty, uninspiring moments.
If a video about Israeli soldiers were ever to be accurate they would need to start including the daily floor washing, pointless sweeping of cigarette butts from one end of a courtyard to the other, and of course, an inside look at the deep and never-ending exhaustion of the average soldier.
My tekes kumta (ceremony where soldiers receive their unit’s beret at the end of training) was the proudest moment of my service, but just a few hours before that I remember that we had been frantically cleaning our building, multiple times because it was never quite clean enough.
That’s how the army works really, on extreme highs and extreme lows, and until you learn to roll with the punches, you’re going to be pretty miserable.
Speaking of misery, if there’s one thing worse than being a soldier spending the holidays on base, it’s being a lone soldier spending the holidays on base.
The holidays are a time for family, for quiet reflection, and for looking forward to the new year with the people you hold closest.
An army base is full of people you pretend to like for decency’s sake, is absolutely never quiet, and the food is never going to be like your mum’s.
Something that any lone soldier will tell you, is that however hard they try, your commanders will never understand what it’s like to be in the army whilst your family is thousands of miles away.
They try their best, sure. But a free towel set doesn’t really disguise the fact that we sometimes only arrive home seconds before the chag starts, and all we have in the fridge is an assortment of sauces and some expired orange juice. Or maybe that’s just me.
To the reader back in England, I’m sure this sounds a little harsh. It was my choice to join up, after all, and who am I to complain about the army not making special allowances for lone soldiers? It’s not like they asked me to be here!
And you’re right. No lone soldier ever joined the army thinking it would be easy. We didn’t join for the uniform (turns out that polyester and Middle Eastern heat? Not a good mix), didn’t join for the pay cheque, and certainly didn’t join because we fell for those shiny promotional videos. Ok so maybe we all fall for those a little bit.
We join the army because we think it’s the right thing to do. We do it because we know that no matter how many times we fall down, we’re resilient enough to get back up again, and we know that ultimately all the sleepless nights and long hours are worth it.
Any lone soldier can tell you about the first time they put on the uniform. Sure, the boots rub in all the worst places, the trousers never fit, and somehow the shoulder seam on your shirt is at your elbow. But none of that matters. Because there you are, looking at yourself in head to toe olive green, ready to blend seamlessly into the crowds of Israeli soldiers at the train station on a Sunday morning. And there’s no better feeling than that.
And then two days later you’re standing in a field of mud being shouted at in a language you don’t speak, trying to follow instructions lest you get given a handful of pushups as a punishment. But all of that matters less so long as you try to remember where you are and why you’re there.
On the first night of Rosh Hashanah I found myself working a sixteen hour night shift, from 8pm until 12am the following day. During a break, I exited the building I had been in, to find that the sun had just risen over my base.
And so that’s how I found myself celebrating the Jewish new year. Sitting outside on a tiny sandy army base deep into the Negev Desert, watching the sun climb its way up the mountains after a sleepless night.
It certainly wasn’t home. It definitely wasn’t a holiday meal with my family, were everyone eats too much and then tries to pretend they haven’t. But it was certainly something, and something I wouldn’t give back for anything.
So sure, being a lone soldier isn’t always shiny and perfect and we’re not always as motivated as we want you to think. It’s hard to find motivation when you’re washing the same floor which wasn’t dirty to begin with for the sixth time that day. But we’re resilient, and we keep pushing because eventually, we know we’ll find those moments, the ones that make it all worth it.
Shira Silkoff is a 20 year-old Lone Soldier in the IDF. She grew up in Golders Green
