The IDF – a pensioner’s army…

January 7, 2009 - 10:51 AM by

Moshe Peled may be 65-years-old, but that didn’t stop him volunteering for the Israel Defense Force when a call went out a few days ago for reserves. Nor did it bother his 75-year-old partner, Ishai Zimmerman.

Together the two men are driving huge tank transporters across the country, delivering tanks and heavy trucks to wherever the IDF needs them most. Yesterday they were under fire next to Gaza, the rest of the time, Yoni – Peled’s son – isn’t entirely sure.

Israeli tanks massed on the border of Lebanon in the 2006 war.

Israeli tanks massed on the border of Lebanon in the 2006 war.


“They’re like 19-year-olds,” Yoni told me this morning. “They are full of adrenaline.”

Just yesterday Peled called up his seven-year-old grandson, Itamar, and told him: “I’m driving the biggest truck you could ever imagine.” (Tapping into every little boy’s fantasy.) “It’s huge and I’m going to war.”

Israel’s army is known as a people’s army, and for good reason. Once they’ve carried out their three years of service, all the men do reserve duty at least once a year, up to the age of 40, or 43 if you are an officer – and often beyond. In times of trouble, many Israeli men will go out of their way to serve, even flying back from their jobs abroad.

On Monday, Channel 10 reported that when the IDF called up reserves this time around, they had a 115 percent response. In some cases they actually had to send people back home.

Peled, who served as a Member of Knesset for far-right party Tsomet during the 1990s, was the colonel of a tank division. When he left the army, he carried on doing reserve duty. When he reached retirement age a few years ago, he asked the army if he could continue doing miloweem – not as a colonel, however, but as a driver of tank transporters. He told them he wanted to be close to his soldiers.

Since then, every year for a month and a half, Peled and Zimmerman, from neighboring communities in the north of Israel, are called up for duty. Two years ago they served in the Second Lebanon War.

Peled is now getting worried that in a few years the IDF might not let Zimmerman carry on driving these huge tank transporters. So much so in fact that when the IDF Chief of Staff gave a speech to his platoon a couple of months ago, he got up and asked him when he was planning to retire, and whether he’d consider joining him in his tank transporter when he did.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , • Category: General, Life, Politics, War 

Comments

2 Comments on The IDF – a pensioner’s army…

  1. Maskil on Wed, Jan 7th 2009 7:15 PM

    2. Good piece. BTW, I think most would understand “miluim” rather than “miloweem” for reserves.

  2. Nicky on Sun, Feb 8th 2009 7:34 AM

    3. That’s the joy of spelling Hebrew words in English – everyone has their own interpretation!

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