A reservists thoughts (part III) on why people don't turn up to reserve duty until war breaks out.
By DASH TEAMIDF soldier 521(photo credit: IDF)
The idea behind reserve duty is "If you build it, they will come." Meaning if, God forbid, a war breaks out, almost everybody will report in. When the second Lebanon War began, there was a 110% show of reservists. People who were officially "too old" to serve or whose unit hadn't been called in also came to enlist again. That says something.Several small organizations have been created with the sole purpose of helping reservists not go to reserves. They are not trying to dodge the duty; rather, their aim is to force the IDF to make the best possible use of the people that they get. Lots of university students would be happy to do reserve duty if the army would just talk to the universities to find out important dates they have on their curriculum. Many others would be happy to do reserves if the army didn’t stick them on a deserted base or worse, in a political hot zone, for 28 days. All they want is for the army to use people correctly.My thoughts? Let them train others. Let them do border duty so the 19 year old kids can get better training. Many reservists have a lot of ideas, but unfortunately, the IDF is a slow listener.The 30% of those who do reserve duty have their reasons for doing it; some for patriotic reasons, others for the break it gives them from their daily lives and others, like me, do it for the experience of getting to “hang out with the guys.”I have the privilege of doing reserves with the same guys I served with for five years, so it’s actually like a small vacation for me with some of my best friends.Don’t let my wife read this. For correctly used guys like me, reserve duty is fun. If I could sum it up in a few bullet points, it would look something like this: It’s a great “boys-only-club” on vacation.The best Turkish coffee is made on Miluim.It’s good to get away from the office once a year.It’s good to get away from the kids once a year (have I asked you not to show my wife this article?) My unit does exactly what we are good at and we are used to our fullest potential. I guess that I’m one of the lucky ones.Word Chart
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