Chapter 82, Guard Duty

    I hate that! Is it that time again? And it seems like I was just last week that I was on guard duty. As you know by now every three months or so I had to be on guard duty for two weeks long. No one liked guard duty. You had to stay up for six hours straight and watch over your post from 6:00 PM till midnight or from midnight until 6 AM. This would have been fine if that was the only thing you had to do. During the day for the whole two weeks, we had to be also on “Master Sergeant’s Patrol”.

 

    My post this time was the far away aircraft hangar. I had the late shift, and it was a warm night for the season. We just had the last rain the day before and the trench around the hangar was filled with slippery mud. At 2:00 AM the coffee arrived. My friend Yossi Cohen remember him? arrived with the jeep announcing; “careful ‘T’ the colonel had a fight with his wife tonight. He’s on his way to catch someone and get him in trouble.” That was the last thing any of us wanted to hear. Whenever the colonel had a fight with his wife he would come and try to get us in trouble. He would sneak at us and try to find us away from our posts or maybe sleeping on our duty. And no matter what your excuse was, there would be no mercy. If you were caught sleeping at your post it would be thirty-five days in the army Jail Number 6. No one wants to spend time in the army jail. First because they make you do things that have no purpose like spreading a pile of rocks in a field and then just for no reason collecting them back into a big pile. But the worst thing about going to the army jail was that those days spent in jail were not counted as days of service. That means your service at the army was just extended in thirty-five days. I don’t remember whether it was the coffee or just that I was in a funny mood that day, but I had a terrible feeling to steer some trouble.

 

   As soon as Yossi drove off, I started gathering my things. I gathered the field telephone and I looked for a portable projector that was at the corner of the hangar. I plugged it in, pointed it toward the trench and waited with all the lights turned off. We were not aloud, to smoke or sit not even talk to each other. If we saw a stranger, we had to stop him with a “holt” call and ask for the “pass-word”. That is if someone came from the road direction. No one really expected anybody to show up from the back where the trench was.

 

    I heard stories about the colonel sneaking on people from behind on guards and scarring them to death and then accusing them of not paying attention to their duty. Thirty-five days in Jail Number 6. It will not happen to me.

 

    I heard his jeep coming and stopping at the far distance behind the hangar. The moonlight was very feint, but I could still see. He turned the engine off and I could see his shadow crouching and approaching the trench in the back. I hid myself in the shadow of the hangar and waited. It took him a while to come near. He was walking very slowly and quietly. Trying to find me in the darkness and probably was very frustrated or maybe happy, thinking that I was probably sleeping somewhere. I waited for him to come close to the trench. The moment his foot was in the muddy ground I turned the projector on and pointed it toward him yelling, “freeze!”

He didn’t wait much, the moment the light hit him he lunged forward into the trench forgetting how deep it was, and he fell face down into the murky water. 

“It’s me,” he yelled. 

“I don’t know who me Is,” I yelled, and I called on the phone the headquarters telling them I have a suspect on watch. 

“What’s the password?” I asked.

“Sour” he yelled back

“What?” I asked, “I can’t hear you why don’t you crawl over closer?” I continued. “And don’t dare to do anything foolish I have my gun pointed at you.”

He crawled through the muddy trench and by the time he got close enough to me the other jeep has arrived with Yossi and the sergeant in charge, both with guns pointing at him. “Pass-word!” I yelled again. “Sour” he replied. 

“Grapes” I answered.

 

    He got up dripping and all covered with mud. It was hard to recognize him or even see how mad he was. Seeing the other two he couldn’t blame me for anything, and he had no choice but command me for being alert and told me to report to his office the next morning.

As soon as he drove off Yossi smacked me on the back. “You son of a gun!”

“I can’t believe you pulled it off,” the sergeant added smacking my back too.

 

    The next morning, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I knew he couldn’t charge me with neglecting my duty or sleeping on the job or even for being disrespectful. How could I know that it was the colonel trying to sneak on me? 

 

    He was all cleaned up and shaved but the look in his eyes told me; “better not say anything you might regret.”

 “Think you’re smart?” he said.

I was about to say no, but he saved me the trouble and continued, “I think you are a smarty-pants.” 

I didn’t know what to say to that, but he continued again.

“I have a new job for you” he said. “From now on you’ll be driving me at night and when I’m not here you’ll be patrolling the outside fences on the jeep patrol”

I was shocked. This was the best guard duty I could ever get. I was sure that he was going to find something to send me to jail for, but he was actually rewarding me. I guess I’ll never know why.

 

 “Report to the sergeant immediately. You are dismissed from Master Sergeant patrol too. You have to take the jeep for inspection and do the dog’s patrol.” (We had dogs placed around the camp and every day we had to check on them and feed them “See you tonight. Dismissed!”

 

    It took me a while to digest what just happened. I turned slowly and walked slower to the door. Outside I saw the sergeant and Yossi waiting for me. Yossi almost fell of the jeep when he heard what I had to say, but the sergeant had no reaction. I wonder if he knew what it was all about. 

 “Don’t think you got it easy,” he said. “The colonel will be watching you very closely now and the first mess-up you’ll be begging for mercy.”

 

That night the colonel didn’t show up.

 “He made up with his wife.” Said Yossi. “You have to lean the patrol rout.”

Well, you might think it’s easy, but that night I learned that it was scarier than any guard duty I ever had.

I was assigned a gunner to man the machine gun next to me. He was an older man on his reserve duty.

 “Drive carefully.” He said. “I have a wife and kids”

 “No problems.” I said.

No problem? You think? Well, I had to follow Yossi, but it was night time, and we had to drive with no lights. Yossi who knew the road was driving in front and I was right behind him. We had to keep radio silence and had to drive with a distance between us, so we won’t hit each other if we had to stop short. As soon as we got to the dirt trail around the camp parameters Yossi started to speed up. I had no choice but follow suit. But he was driving even faster. We took a turn to the right and I was right behind him. But then after a long stretch I saw him take a turn to the left and disappeared. Before too long I realized that he had taken a sharp turn to the right too. It was too short a time for me to stop. Or try to take the turn. There was a trench to the side of the road and if I tried to stop, I would have fallen right into the trench. If I tried to turn the jeep would have rolled over. Without thinking much, I pressed on the gas pedal and sped straight on. The jeep flew straight above the trench and landed on the other side. I pressed on the brakes and stopped one foot away from a large tree. The helmet of my partner flew of his head and hit the tree trunk. The sound of it was muffled by the rattle of the machine gun that was held by my pale partner. He didn’t stop shaking until I was able to pick up his helmet, back the jeep up to the road and saw Yossi backing up to look for us. 

Egg Salad

 

 

Too many eggs could get your digestion a little irritated. There for I came up with an egg salad with the right spices and herbs that will help your digestion system and prevent “misshapes”. 

 

 

 

Ingredients:

6 Hard Boiled Eggs (7 Minutes)

½ tsp Salt

1 tsp Mustard

3 TBSP Mayonnaise

¼ cup Minced Onion 

½ tsp Paprika

¼ tsp Garlic Powder 

½ tsp Cumin

½ tsp Turmeric

1 TBSP Minced Parsley or Dill

 

Preparation:

 Mash the eggs, mix with mayonnaise, mustard, onion, and spices. Top with chopped parsley and a dash of paprika.