After serving nearly 6 years of Active Duty in the IDF, I felt my military career would not be going anywhere having been detained and sentenced to military prison after attempting to smuggle hashish into Israel on a tank, an episode I may have written about in past entries. As a native Arabic speaker with an IQ of 147 I was fast tracked as a junior officer in AMAN, military intelligence.
I had begun my career as a Kravi, a combat soldier in a paratrooper battalion (50th Bn, NACHAL Brigade) but I was deemed too intelligent to serve as mere cannon fodder. Lucky me. Before induction they test us with a 4 part psych test (females only have 3 parts), one part being your IQ. The highest score you can get is a 90 which correlates to an IQ of 135. If you score a 90 you are later tested to find out exactly what your IQ is. I had a bit more thn 4 years as a Kravi, then was attached to Central District in Occupied Southern Lebanon as a liason with the SLA.
The SLA, Southern Lebanon Army, was our Lebanese puppet, commanded by Lebanese Maronite Christians but consisting of both Maronites and Shi'a Musllims (Shite) in the rank and file. The SLA had a prison, Khi'am Detention and Interrogation Centre, where Arab terrorists were handled and my assignment was to supervise the SLA interrogators and make sure they didn't go overboard when torturing.
I was still only a Command Sergeant, equivalent to perhaps a Lieutenant in the US Military vis a vis responsibilities while still being an NCO rank in the IDF. To be deployed in my role I was made a brevet Lieutenant which gave me the responsibilities and power of command of a junior officer without actually promoting me, as I was placed on a list fo the next Officers' Course.
Without getting into the shit I experienced at Khi'am, I was busted and after spending my few weeks in military prison was re-attached to my Kravi battalion, the 50th. I have never thought about it, but as I'm thinking now, it was during my time at Khi'am that my addiction got heavy. Heroin freebase, aka Heroin #2, was cheaper than cigarettes in Southern Lebanon at the time and my helpful mates slash subordinates in the SLA were happy to sell it, often giving it to me free as "baksheesh," which is usually translated from Arabic as "bribe" but is more akin to "gratuity." If I allowed a Shi'a soldier (only Shi'a sold drugs brecause all heroin, opium, hash and cannabis was growm in the Beka'a in Eastern Sector, near Syria and the people there were and remain almost entirely Shi'a) to have Friday- the Islamic Sabbath- off, boom, a gramme and/or a fat chunk of red hash.
After returning to Kravi I tried to smuggle hash into Israel inside the fender skirt of a Merkava II tank. To protect the treads the tank crews would bolt on armour plates that acted like skirts and parts of these skirts had internal pockets, spaces, which acted to strengthen the plate overall. Place what you want in a pocket, re-weld plating over the pocket and voila. Sadly, the IDF had gotten hip to this by 1987, the year I was caught.
By 1989 I realised that I had no future in the IDF and so I cashiered out and joined my squadmates in Thailand on walkabout. A couple of them had gone into Reserves in 1986 but others were cashiering out with me after 6 years. During our sourjourn in SE Asia the Intifadeh I, aka First Intifadeh, began in Israel. The word "Intifadeh" means "to throw off," or "castoff" in Arabic, and was used in the sense that "Palestinians" were trying to castoff the suppoded Israeli "Occupation."
I say supposed because under IHL/LOAC (Laws of Armed Conflict, a genre within International Humanitarian Law), n "Occupation" can only occur when one nation subverts the sovereignity of a second nation. The land in question has never held any other nation but Jewish States. Apart from that it has only existed as a neglected and forlorn corner of vast foreign empires.
Intifadeh I began after a Jewish man was stabbed at least 100 times while shopping in Gaza City. The next morning an Israeli lorry was backing down a narrow alley in Jabaliyah Camp in Gaza, not far from the murder scene. The lorry knicked a "Palestinian" taxi and it was off to the races.
We received our Reservist Call Up messages in Thailand, actually I and another mate were in Cambodia. We linked up with our mates in Bangkok and flew home, and instead of deploying to regular Reservist Brigades we were re-attached to the 50th Battalion and re-enlisted as Active Duty.
Fast forward to 1992 and (almost) another six years have passed. I was able to make it to Captain, and commanded a company within the 50th Battalion. An IDF company consists of 120 to 130 men including officers. After a couple of months of playing with my kids I bought a house in Bat Yam, a coastal city, and allowed my ex-wife to live there with the kids- as long as no man ever visited the house- until the kids reached 18. For myself, I moved to the US and initially lived with an aunt in the South Bronx, in New York City.
My uncle was a big coke dealer. In fact, when he was arrested and convicted he was labeled as the Cali Cartel's American manager. My uncle Harold's father (Harold Ackerman) had emigrated to Colombia during WWII, from Bessarabia where my mum was born. In the 1970s Harold and some of my other cousins emigrated to the US and settled in Dade County.
After my first month in the US, with few job prospects other than my family's businesses- which I tried to avoid because I stubbornly wanted to be a self-made man- I flew to West Palm Beach and visited various family members in the area, Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties. One afternoon at my Aunt Marla's condiminium in Fort Lauderdale Uncle Harold stopped by for dinnner. I had only met him twice since we were usually on different continents. I had heard a lot about him, he was supposedly doing well with his 3 dress shoppes in local malls but my younger cousins told me he was primarily making his living selling drugs.
Since coming to the US I had only been using opiates/opioids sporadically. In Florida I had an auntie who was married to a pharmacist who was part owner of his own pharmacy but I quickly used everything they had (except Paregoric, disgusting even when sick) and was trying to find a way to buy opiates/opioids in the street. This was at a point when Colombian heroin only began to find its way into the US and Southern Florida was much, much different than it is today. When Harold came over I went against my better judgement and asked him if he knew where to find heroin, after explaining how I had become addicted after being wounded twice in Lebanon.
To be continued...
I had begun my career as a Kravi, a combat soldier in a paratrooper battalion (50th Bn, NACHAL Brigade) but I was deemed too intelligent to serve as mere cannon fodder. Lucky me. Before induction they test us with a 4 part psych test (females only have 3 parts), one part being your IQ. The highest score you can get is a 90 which correlates to an IQ of 135. If you score a 90 you are later tested to find out exactly what your IQ is. I had a bit more thn 4 years as a Kravi, then was attached to Central District in Occupied Southern Lebanon as a liason with the SLA.
The SLA, Southern Lebanon Army, was our Lebanese puppet, commanded by Lebanese Maronite Christians but consisting of both Maronites and Shi'a Musllims (Shite) in the rank and file. The SLA had a prison, Khi'am Detention and Interrogation Centre, where Arab terrorists were handled and my assignment was to supervise the SLA interrogators and make sure they didn't go overboard when torturing.
I was still only a Command Sergeant, equivalent to perhaps a Lieutenant in the US Military vis a vis responsibilities while still being an NCO rank in the IDF. To be deployed in my role I was made a brevet Lieutenant which gave me the responsibilities and power of command of a junior officer without actually promoting me, as I was placed on a list fo the next Officers' Course.
Without getting into the shit I experienced at Khi'am, I was busted and after spending my few weeks in military prison was re-attached to my Kravi battalion, the 50th. I have never thought about it, but as I'm thinking now, it was during my time at Khi'am that my addiction got heavy. Heroin freebase, aka Heroin #2, was cheaper than cigarettes in Southern Lebanon at the time and my helpful mates slash subordinates in the SLA were happy to sell it, often giving it to me free as "baksheesh," which is usually translated from Arabic as "bribe" but is more akin to "gratuity." If I allowed a Shi'a soldier (only Shi'a sold drugs brecause all heroin, opium, hash and cannabis was growm in the Beka'a in Eastern Sector, near Syria and the people there were and remain almost entirely Shi'a) to have Friday- the Islamic Sabbath- off, boom, a gramme and/or a fat chunk of red hash.
After returning to Kravi I tried to smuggle hash into Israel inside the fender skirt of a Merkava II tank. To protect the treads the tank crews would bolt on armour plates that acted like skirts and parts of these skirts had internal pockets, spaces, which acted to strengthen the plate overall. Place what you want in a pocket, re-weld plating over the pocket and voila. Sadly, the IDF had gotten hip to this by 1987, the year I was caught.
By 1989 I realised that I had no future in the IDF and so I cashiered out and joined my squadmates in Thailand on walkabout. A couple of them had gone into Reserves in 1986 but others were cashiering out with me after 6 years. During our sourjourn in SE Asia the Intifadeh I, aka First Intifadeh, began in Israel. The word "Intifadeh" means "to throw off," or "castoff" in Arabic, and was used in the sense that "Palestinians" were trying to castoff the suppoded Israeli "Occupation."
I say supposed because under IHL/LOAC (Laws of Armed Conflict, a genre within International Humanitarian Law), n "Occupation" can only occur when one nation subverts the sovereignity of a second nation. The land in question has never held any other nation but Jewish States. Apart from that it has only existed as a neglected and forlorn corner of vast foreign empires.
Intifadeh I began after a Jewish man was stabbed at least 100 times while shopping in Gaza City. The next morning an Israeli lorry was backing down a narrow alley in Jabaliyah Camp in Gaza, not far from the murder scene. The lorry knicked a "Palestinian" taxi and it was off to the races.
We received our Reservist Call Up messages in Thailand, actually I and another mate were in Cambodia. We linked up with our mates in Bangkok and flew home, and instead of deploying to regular Reservist Brigades we were re-attached to the 50th Battalion and re-enlisted as Active Duty.
Fast forward to 1992 and (almost) another six years have passed. I was able to make it to Captain, and commanded a company within the 50th Battalion. An IDF company consists of 120 to 130 men including officers. After a couple of months of playing with my kids I bought a house in Bat Yam, a coastal city, and allowed my ex-wife to live there with the kids- as long as no man ever visited the house- until the kids reached 18. For myself, I moved to the US and initially lived with an aunt in the South Bronx, in New York City.
My uncle was a big coke dealer. In fact, when he was arrested and convicted he was labeled as the Cali Cartel's American manager. My uncle Harold's father (Harold Ackerman) had emigrated to Colombia during WWII, from Bessarabia where my mum was born. In the 1970s Harold and some of my other cousins emigrated to the US and settled in Dade County.
After my first month in the US, with few job prospects other than my family's businesses- which I tried to avoid because I stubbornly wanted to be a self-made man- I flew to West Palm Beach and visited various family members in the area, Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties. One afternoon at my Aunt Marla's condiminium in Fort Lauderdale Uncle Harold stopped by for dinnner. I had only met him twice since we were usually on different continents. I had heard a lot about him, he was supposedly doing well with his 3 dress shoppes in local malls but my younger cousins told me he was primarily making his living selling drugs.
Since coming to the US I had only been using opiates/opioids sporadically. In Florida I had an auntie who was married to a pharmacist who was part owner of his own pharmacy but I quickly used everything they had (except Paregoric, disgusting even when sick) and was trying to find a way to buy opiates/opioids in the street. This was at a point when Colombian heroin only began to find its way into the US and Southern Florida was much, much different than it is today. When Harold came over I went against my better judgement and asked him if he knew where to find heroin, after explaining how I had become addicted after being wounded twice in Lebanon.
To be continued...
