Daniel and Tamar Shachar

IN ESRA MAGAZINE #139, (April - May 2007) I wrote about the parenting experience that is uniquely Israeli; bidding farewell to your 18-year olds as they leave home to serve their country, a country that has been in a state of war ever since the day it declared its independence 60 years ago. It is an experience anticipated since the day they were born and it is made up of a mixture of pride and apprehension. Pride that they are meeting their obligation as citizens, and apprehension that they will be leaving the protective environment of home and school for the impersonal embrace of the IDF. The apprehension goes up a notch or two when a child is slated to join a combat unit.

This week our daughter completed her two years of compulsory service. She served in Logistics and she had a reasonably pleasant and not overly demanding time of it. Our son is just starting the second of his compulsory three years in the artillery corps, having completed a commanders’ course and qualified for combat duties. This has given me an adjusted perspective of what it means to be a parent in Israel.

Apprehension, or worry, is one of the elements of parenting everywhere. From the moment a child is born, we parents worry. As we attempt to protect and nurture our offspring from the cradle through school years and beyond, we worry about whether we have done and are doing the right thing to equip them to survive as independent members of society, and we worry how they will fare the moment they leave home on their own. We worry when our toddler walks across the hallway to play with the neighbor’s child, when our child gets onto the school bus and when our teenager takes the family car for a spin a day after passing the driving test.

However parental apprehension rises to new heights on the day our children are recruited into the IDF. We worry that, in the army environment, they will be exposed to challenges and temptations for which they are inadequately prepared. We worry that they will be unable to maintain such values as we managed to instill in them while they were growing up. We worry about training accidents, unsympathetic commanders, difficult living conditions and about the fact that the uniform turns them into ‘legitimate’ targets for elements hostile to the state. Some parents manage to handle all this with relative equanimity, while others live in a perpetual state of anxiety, which peaks every time they receive a late-night telephone call or an unexpected visitor at the door.

I don’t wish to dwell on the many benefits our youngsters receive from their military service - comradeship, self-reliance, discipline, responsibility for self and for colleagues, qualities of leadership, teamwork, professionalism and the sort of maturity that is hard to obtain from any other environment. I feel sorry for youngsters who miss out on this experience. What I find interesting from my new perspective is the shift in the nature and degree of my parental apprehension. With one child just out of the IDF and one still in, I now know what I feel when they are away from home, and at first those feelings surprised me.

I now think that the army is in fact a remarkably protective environment for 18-21 year olds, and more so than the high school environment that our kids have just left behind. Personal security in the classroom and schoolyard is not what it should be. The presence of weapons and drugs is unforgivably common. Classes are impossibly large and beyond the capability of most teachers to discipline in any meaningful way. Students for the large part wear what they like, say what they like, do what they like, and respect for self, for peers and for the teaching staff is at a low level. The military environment is totally different; here, rules and regulations are not just words but are enforced, and especially in the field of safety and security. Basics such as discipline, a neat appearance and even personal hygiene are a given. The fact that some of our spoiled kids find it difficult to adjust is no reflection on the army, but rather a denunciation of our bankrupt school system that inadequately prepared them for the real world.

I was actually less concerned when my daughter left home every morning at 7 a.m. and returned from her military office job at 6 p.m. than I am right now, when she is planning her post-army trip abroad to who knows where. If I am lucky it will be to London or to some other civilized place, but if it is to Thailand, Guatemala or Timbuktu I know that we will find it difficult not to worry about her.

I am less apprehensive when our son is on some training exercise in the Negev, and we don’t hear from him for several days, than when he comes home for the weekend, takes the car one evening and doesn’t return until late the following morning. In the army I know that he is in a controlled environment, the chances of any mishap are small, and in the worst case I will be informed should anything bad happen. When he is home and goes out for the evening, I have little idea where he is or with whom he is. I have read the newspaper reports about how the chance of an off-duty soldier being involved in traffic accidents is many times higher than that of a regular driver, and I can only wait and hope that all is well. I am sustained by the fact that after only a bare twelve months in uniform, I recognize in him a maturity and sense of responsibility that just wasn’t there a year ago.

When a soldier is at his military base, you know where he isn’t. You know he isn’t in bars, in dubious clubs, or in some unknown friend’s apartment somewhere in the city. You know he hasn’t had one too many beers, and isn’t being tempted by some hustler into a get-rich-quick scam. You know he isn’t like so many of those who avoided the army altogether or dropped out early, and who drift around unsure of who they are and what they want to do with their lives.

All this and more leads me to think of the IDF as a greenhouse, converting our kids from teenagers into responsible young adults. I am grateful to this institution for taking on, or at least completing the role of the education system. I am aware of the downside; I know about the inefficiency, the waste, the mistakes, the corrupting nature of some of the army’s tasks and the ever present possibility of being involved in actual conflict. However the statistics are on my side. The dangers to life and limb in civilian life are actually greater than they are in the army, and I prefer to bet with the odds for as long as I can. The upside is that I worry less now than I did before or will again, after my youngsters take off their uniforms for the last time. And the bonus is my knowledge that their military service will have given them some of the skills and maturity they will need in order to cope with the everyday difficulties and perils of adulthood.