When I joined the IDF I was 16. Usually we get inducted at age 18 but I came of age during Operation Peace for Galilee, a rather innocuous sounding name for the First War in Lebanon. In the war's first 18 months we took incredibly heavy losses. For you Americans, imagine if in the first 18 months of Iraq your military lost 110,000 soldiers in combat. THAT was OUR experience on a per capita basis. At about the 14 month mark I turned 16. The military needed cannon fodder and...voila.
From the time I had moved to Israel, at about age 12, I had been educated in a religious school that doubled as a military academy. We call such schools "Hesders." Most of my day was taken up with Infantry Training.
Because we were not, and still aren't party to the Convention on Child Soldiers we have no limitation such as those in place in most Western Nations. Technically speaking we consider every Israeli-Jewish male over the age of 14.5 to be a potential soldier if the need arises. My dad became a soldier at 16 as well though that was pre-Statehood so it isn't THAT unusual- though noone younger than 17 has been inducted since the late 1980s.
Normally we graduate the equivalent of high school at age 18, though in our 2nd year of high school, at age 16, we have what we call "Gadna." Gadna is 1 to 2 weeks depending upon your type of high school, and is a military training programme that is used primarily to pick and groom young people for particular units. However it is also used as a bonding exercise because even mildly retarded Israelis are taught to field strip and fire M16s.
At 18 we have a couple of months after high school to hang out, party and then... we are inducted. We then spend 3 years (4 if Navy) with almost no pay (we get about 70 US a month to cover calls home and tolietries, since our service is an honour). Then, at age 21 or 22 we are released to the Military Reserves. We get a year before we serve again and almost always we use that initial year for "Walkabout," going on holiday abroad, sort of like the Gap Year in the UK.
After that year of partying, at age 22 or 23, we finally begin our university (those that go, and that is the vast majority). In my case I served almost 7 years, finishing at age 23 so in THAT way, despite my military service having begun at a rather early age, I still ended my service at roughly the average age.
Because of my extended length of combat I was mandated to attend university while still in uniform, at age 20. The down side to that was that the military dictated my course of study. In a traditional Jewish education we don't study secular subjects above and beyond the state mandate. In the US that mandate is a daily math, English and phys ed class but in Israel it is math, that's it. In my own case I have a learning disability related to the processing and retrieval of numbers. I have a 144 to 147 IQ depending upon the type of test but beyond basic math, I'm lost. This really limited me academically because despite the IDF providing me with extencive tutoring I still struggled with decimals, forget about Algebra, Trig, Calculus and so on. Aside from that narrowing my possibilities in terms of Majors, I had always been fascinated with Ethnography, Anthropology, etc.
The IDF extencively tests all personnel so that years before they mandated my university they had already decided what I could excel in (thanks Big Brother!). I remember discussing in Hesder (my religious-military high school) my interest in plants. Despite my interest in cultures and ethnicities the IDF instructed me to study Botany, the science of plants.
Of course Botany, like any scientific genre has more than a modicum of advanced math. The genetics and other biological facets meant I was going to be bombarded with math whether I liked it or not and so I grudgingly accepted what would eventually prove to be a gratifying course of study.
I was enrolled in the Technicon (alternative English spelling being"Technikon"), our equivalent of MIT, in the coastal city of Hafia. Sill, I managed though it was not without difficulty. Then, at age 23 when I was up for a promotion to Jr. Officer (Lieutenant, from Command Sgt., which is like a Sgt Major in the US), and was denied my promotion because of my military arrest over hashish smuggling. I then cashiered out and so ended my first period of Active Duty.
When I came to the US about 3 years later, I began to consider re-enrolling in school after leaving Tampa and coming to New York City. Before long I found myself studying at CUNY, City University of New York. Casually I began taking courses that I enjoyed, Anthro, Socio, Psych, etc. Eventually a professor I had become friendly with recommended the field of Ethno-Botany, which is a genre, a sub-discipline of Anthropology. Basically it is the study of the utilisation of plants within a cultural context, culture being the particular way in which a group of people interact with their environment. To clarify, "environment" doesn't necessarily refer to the PHYSICAL environmemt. As I said previously, I wasn't privy to a secular education until I was 23. I had no odea what "Ethno-Botany" was. The IDF had directed me to take Botany because at the time we were hardcore Socialists, private industry was very rare, and even today the govt. retains significant control over many areas of industry though in a not too invasive manner (usually through very advantageous arrangements with R & Ds so as to net royalties and/or patents). Botany would be used to further develop Israeli agriculture and or forest management which is another national obsession, due to Arabs having turned much of the land into desert via denuding the land.
So I began to study ABOUT (as opposed to taking course work) Ethno-Botany. It is a relatively young sub-discipline that was basically single handedly created by the American, Richard Schultes. Schultes also single handedly created psychadelic culture. Hoffmann created LSD but it was Schultes who in his investigative work in Mexico discovered hallucinogenic mushrooms being used for spiritual purposes.
Shultes work inspired intellectuals to ponder, and then subjectively investigate hallucinogens. It was this work that led to the original "Acid Tests" amongt psychologists. When it began to be utilised outside of the clinical setting, in about 1964, psychadelia wad born.
When Schultes cut back on Field Work and settled into the staid but rewarding life of a well respected academic one of his many acolytes was astudent by the name of Wade Davis. Davis today is relatively well known for his involvement with "National Geographic," and as a documentary filmaker. Davis first gained wide acclaim via his seminal tome, "The Serpent and the Rainbow." Later made into a cheesy movie, the very well written book tells of Davis' real life experiences in Haiti .
I"l continue in my next entry, at which point I'll explain my title.
From the time I had moved to Israel, at about age 12, I had been educated in a religious school that doubled as a military academy. We call such schools "Hesders." Most of my day was taken up with Infantry Training.
Because we were not, and still aren't party to the Convention on Child Soldiers we have no limitation such as those in place in most Western Nations. Technically speaking we consider every Israeli-Jewish male over the age of 14.5 to be a potential soldier if the need arises. My dad became a soldier at 16 as well though that was pre-Statehood so it isn't THAT unusual- though noone younger than 17 has been inducted since the late 1980s.
Normally we graduate the equivalent of high school at age 18, though in our 2nd year of high school, at age 16, we have what we call "Gadna." Gadna is 1 to 2 weeks depending upon your type of high school, and is a military training programme that is used primarily to pick and groom young people for particular units. However it is also used as a bonding exercise because even mildly retarded Israelis are taught to field strip and fire M16s.
At 18 we have a couple of months after high school to hang out, party and then... we are inducted. We then spend 3 years (4 if Navy) with almost no pay (we get about 70 US a month to cover calls home and tolietries, since our service is an honour). Then, at age 21 or 22 we are released to the Military Reserves. We get a year before we serve again and almost always we use that initial year for "Walkabout," going on holiday abroad, sort of like the Gap Year in the UK.
After that year of partying, at age 22 or 23, we finally begin our university (those that go, and that is the vast majority). In my case I served almost 7 years, finishing at age 23 so in THAT way, despite my military service having begun at a rather early age, I still ended my service at roughly the average age.
Because of my extended length of combat I was mandated to attend university while still in uniform, at age 20. The down side to that was that the military dictated my course of study. In a traditional Jewish education we don't study secular subjects above and beyond the state mandate. In the US that mandate is a daily math, English and phys ed class but in Israel it is math, that's it. In my own case I have a learning disability related to the processing and retrieval of numbers. I have a 144 to 147 IQ depending upon the type of test but beyond basic math, I'm lost. This really limited me academically because despite the IDF providing me with extencive tutoring I still struggled with decimals, forget about Algebra, Trig, Calculus and so on. Aside from that narrowing my possibilities in terms of Majors, I had always been fascinated with Ethnography, Anthropology, etc.
The IDF extencively tests all personnel so that years before they mandated my university they had already decided what I could excel in (thanks Big Brother!). I remember discussing in Hesder (my religious-military high school) my interest in plants. Despite my interest in cultures and ethnicities the IDF instructed me to study Botany, the science of plants.
Of course Botany, like any scientific genre has more than a modicum of advanced math. The genetics and other biological facets meant I was going to be bombarded with math whether I liked it or not and so I grudgingly accepted what would eventually prove to be a gratifying course of study.
I was enrolled in the Technicon (alternative English spelling being"Technikon"), our equivalent of MIT, in the coastal city of Hafia. Sill, I managed though it was not without difficulty. Then, at age 23 when I was up for a promotion to Jr. Officer (Lieutenant, from Command Sgt., which is like a Sgt Major in the US), and was denied my promotion because of my military arrest over hashish smuggling. I then cashiered out and so ended my first period of Active Duty.
When I came to the US about 3 years later, I began to consider re-enrolling in school after leaving Tampa and coming to New York City. Before long I found myself studying at CUNY, City University of New York. Casually I began taking courses that I enjoyed, Anthro, Socio, Psych, etc. Eventually a professor I had become friendly with recommended the field of Ethno-Botany, which is a genre, a sub-discipline of Anthropology. Basically it is the study of the utilisation of plants within a cultural context, culture being the particular way in which a group of people interact with their environment. To clarify, "environment" doesn't necessarily refer to the PHYSICAL environmemt. As I said previously, I wasn't privy to a secular education until I was 23. I had no odea what "Ethno-Botany" was. The IDF had directed me to take Botany because at the time we were hardcore Socialists, private industry was very rare, and even today the govt. retains significant control over many areas of industry though in a not too invasive manner (usually through very advantageous arrangements with R & Ds so as to net royalties and/or patents). Botany would be used to further develop Israeli agriculture and or forest management which is another national obsession, due to Arabs having turned much of the land into desert via denuding the land.
So I began to study ABOUT (as opposed to taking course work) Ethno-Botany. It is a relatively young sub-discipline that was basically single handedly created by the American, Richard Schultes. Schultes also single handedly created psychadelic culture. Hoffmann created LSD but it was Schultes who in his investigative work in Mexico discovered hallucinogenic mushrooms being used for spiritual purposes.
Shultes work inspired intellectuals to ponder, and then subjectively investigate hallucinogens. It was this work that led to the original "Acid Tests" amongt psychologists. When it began to be utilised outside of the clinical setting, in about 1964, psychadelia wad born.
When Schultes cut back on Field Work and settled into the staid but rewarding life of a well respected academic one of his many acolytes was astudent by the name of Wade Davis. Davis today is relatively well known for his involvement with "National Geographic," and as a documentary filmaker. Davis first gained wide acclaim via his seminal tome, "The Serpent and the Rainbow." Later made into a cheesy movie, the very well written book tells of Davis' real life experiences in Haiti .
I"l continue in my next entry, at which point I'll explain my title.