Hot dogs for the IDF

December 8, 2011 - 10:09 PM by David

One of the striking things about living in Israel is the lack of distance between the army and the average citizen – mainly because they’re one and the same.

Soldiers are everywhere, and they are our sons, daughters, neighbors and friends. And because of the tiny physical distances within the country, that means that soldiers are always coming home for leaves – for weekends, 24-hour ‘afters’, or week-long ‘regilot.’

Israel has one of the few armies in the world where the soldiers can bring home their laundry for their mothers and fathers to do. Or, as in our case this week, for parents to bring their children soldiers a treat.

Our daughter’s who’s been stationed along the Egyptian border for most of the last two years, is currently on a three-month training assignment only 20 minutes from our home – in a satellite base in the middle of the desert.

That means that we’ve been able to sporadically pop by for short visits during the week during her breaks from training her 15-person combat team. They’re often away from the base for a couple days at a time doing maneuvers, and eating rations of tuna and chocolate spread. They were not happy.

This week, my wife came up with a delicious idea. She came home from work in the middle of the afternoon, and together we prepared two trays of hot dogs, some with sauerkraut and others with mustard or ketchup, and a tray of chips (fries) and onion rings.

After wrapping them in foil, like a fast food delivery team we set out for the base to present our commander and her soldiers an unexpected treat. When we got their however, they were still out on maneuvers and we had to leave the trays of food with the soldier who was guarding the equipment.

A couple hours later, we got a phone call from our daughter who turned on the speaker phone – and 16 happy soldiers gratefully cried out ‘todah raba!”

Who says an army doesn’t run on its stomach?

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