A message came in last week. I read it twice before I answered.
It was from a man in my unit. A combat reservist. He told me his business collapsed during this round of miluim. Then he was in an accident. The two together put him into heavy debt, and the debt turned into liens from the enforcement office. He is married. He has a daughter. He wrote one line that I keep coming back to. He has no support from his family, because he enlisted as a charedi.
He asked me to connect him with people who could help. He thanked me for what we do. He apologized for asking.
Not the Only One
I want to be clear about something. He is not the only one.
A few days later, another man in the unit wrote to me. He had spent all of Shabbat going back and forth with himself about what to do. The enforcement office had frozen his bank account over a credit card debt. He was down to nothing. The men around him had been buying him cigarettes because he did not have a shekel left.
They repossessed his car too. He still comes. Every week, three hours each way, on the bus.
He did not write to ask for money. He wrote because he was deciding whether to leave or stay, and he did not want to walk out and leave the rest of us short. He asked me to keep it between us. He did not want to be embarrassed in front of the other soldiers.
That is the part people outside this world do not see. A lot of the men I serve with enlisted without telling their families. Some did not tell their community either. The charedi world many of them come from does not hand out praise for putting on the uniform. For some of them, the decision cost them the thing every other soldier keeps. The people back home who pick up the phone when the money runs out.
So they pay twice. Once when they enlist. Again when the bills come and there is no one behind them.
Why They Don't Stop
People ask why a man in that position keeps serving.
The answer is simple from where I sit. The unit needs him. There is no one standing behind him to take his place. He was called, and he is needed, and both of those are still true while his business folds and the letters from the enforcement office pile up on a table he is not home to see.
The second man could have stopped. His car is gone. His account is frozen. Three hours on a bus each way is a long time to think about quitting. He keeps showing up anyway, and he apologized to me for even considering otherwise.
These men do not have time to fix any of it. You cannot rebuild a business in uniform. You cannot negotiate with creditors from a base. So the problem sits and grows, and they keep going, because going is the only option they were handed.
They are not looking for sympathy. Both of them apologized for bringing it up at all. One was more worried about leaving me short than about his own frozen account. That is the kind of men we are talking about. They would rather carry it alone than be a burden. They asked anyway, because they ran out of room.
Where I Send Them
When a message like that comes to me, the help does not come from the army. It comes from people who decided that a man should not lose his home, or his car, for showing up.
Smiles for Chayalim exists for this. We send gear and equipment to the field. We also stand behind the soldier whose life is falling apart in the background while he holds the line. I cannot erase a debt. I can connect a man to people. I can make sure he is not carrying it alone.
I am writing this because the next message is already on its way. I have read enough of them to know it is coming. Someone in this unit, maybe next week, is going to tell me the bills stopped being something he can manage and there is no one at home to call.
When that message comes, I want somewhere to send him.
That somewhere is you.