People keep asking me why IDF soldiers are still asking for help three years into the war. The question makes sense. The State of Israel has an army. The army has a budget. Why are men on active duty depending on civilians to fundraise for them?
I am writing this from base, where I just finished my second day as a Rasap. I sign for every piece of gear my unit receives. I am the one who has to figure out what is missing and how to fill the gap. So I can answer the question with what I have seen with my own hands.
Israel is in its longest war ever. Multiple fronts. Gear that gets damaged and ruined in the field needs to be replaced. The army is stretched. The basics are what they can manage right now. Everything past the basics falls on the unit.
Let me walk you through what that actually means.
What the Army Provides
The army gives every soldier a gun. The army gives every soldier bullets. The army gives every soldier a helmet and a vest, even though many of them are not functional and date back decades. That is the equipment side.
On base, the army provides a bed. A mattress, although sometimes that takes a day or two to actually show up. Three meals a day. Water, when the trucks arrive on schedule.
That is the list. After that, you are on your own.
I want to be clear about what that means in practice. If you need batteries for your radio, that is on you. If your boots fall apart in the field, that is on you. If the heat is one hundred degrees and you need shade at your guard post, that is on you. If the bathroom door has a lock and you do not have a key, that is on you. The army provides the floor. The unit builds everything that goes on top of it.
The Container Every Unit Needs
Every reserves unit in Israel needs a shipping container. The same kind you see stacked on cargo ships. A metal box, twenty or forty feet long, with one set of locking doors.
The army does not give your unit one. You either know someone who can donate a container, or you fundraise for one. Most units do the second.
That container becomes the unit's warehouse. Inside is every piece of gear the unit has accumulated that does not belong to the army. When the round of Miluim ends, you do not throw any of it away. You load it back into the container, padlock it, and the container goes wherever the unit goes next. When the next call-up comes and you arrive at a new base, the container shows up on a truck a few days later and you unload it again.
The container is the only continuity the unit has. Without it, every round of Miluim starts from zero.
The Zula
Every unit has an area called a Zula. It is the unit's living room. The place where soldiers go between shifts to decompress, eat something that is not from the dining hall, talk to their families, or just sit somewhere that is not their bunk.
The army does not build the Zula. The army does not furnish the Zula. The unit does.
Here is what goes in a Zula, based on what we are setting up right now. Couches. Tarps for shade. Fans, because the heat in summer is unrelenting. Outdoor AC units, when the unit can afford them. A BBQ for Friday nights. Gas burners. A refrigerator for cold drinks and leftovers from home. Gazebos to sit under outside. Tables and chairs and benches. A TV. Cabinets and shelving to store anything that does not fit anywhere else.
Every single item on that list came from a donor or a unit fundraiser. Not one of them came from the army.
If you are wondering why this matters, here is the answer. We are on this base for five months. Some of these guys are on twenty four hour rotations. They come off a long shift in the sun and they need somewhere to be other than a bunk in a sealed trailer with seven other men. The Zula is where the unit holds itself together. Without it, the unit frays.
It Starts With a Key
The smallest example I can give you is the keys.
We sleep in small trailers. Four to eight men per room, depending on the trailer. Four bunk beds in each room. Each room has a door with a lock. The bathrooms also have doors with locks.
The base has exactly one key for every door. One. Not one per soldier. Not one per room. One key total, for the whole door.
That means if I want to lock my room when I leave, I take the only key with me, and the other seven men in my room cannot get back in. If my roommate has the bathroom key, everyone else has to wait or find another bathroom.
The fix is simple. Make copies. The problem is that copies cost money. A copied key in Israel costs ten or twenty shekels. For a soldier on Miluim who left his job four days ago and is not earning right now, ten or twenty shekels is real money. Multiply it across every door in the unit, every bathroom, every storage closet, and it adds up to hundreds of shekels per unit just to make the doors usable.
That is what falls on me as the Rasap. Either the unit pays out of pocket, or I find a donor who is willing to cover something as small and unglamorous as a stack of copied keys.
Day Two on Base
I am writing this on day two. Let me tell you what day two actually looks like.
Water is supposed to arrive by truck. Pallets of bottled water for the unit. As of right now, on day two, it has not arrived yet. We are stretching what we have. The trucks will come. They always come eventually. In the meantime, you are doing math in your head about how much each man can drink.
We are guarding the two gates of the base in full sun. There is no shade structure over either gate. No gazebo. No tarp. Nothing to sit under. The sun in this part of Israel in summer does not negotiate. The men on shift are out in it for hours. The men coming off shift have no shaded spot to recover in before they head to their bunks.
We have a gun. We have bullets. We have a vest that is essentially a strap for magazines and a helmet that was issued before any of us were born. After that, we are on our own.
Where the Donors Come In
This is where you come in. The donors. The friends. The supporters of soldiers most of you have never met.
Your help is what allows us to stay on base for five months and focus on the job, instead of focusing on whether we have shade at the gate, or keys for the bathroom, or a working fan in the trailer. The army told us this morning that we will be called back again four months after this round ends. Your help is also what allows us to be ready for that.
I want to be specific about where the money goes, because vague language does not help anyone understand.
A donation pays for copies of keys for every door in the unit. A donation pays for a gazebo over a guard post so the men on shift are not standing in the sun for six hours. A donation pays for a working vest for a soldier whose army issued vest is forty years old. A donation pays for the BBQ on a Friday night that makes a man on his second month away from home feel like a human being again. A donation pays for the gas burner that lets him make coffee at three in the morning before his shift starts.
We do not love relying on help. We do it anyway, because the alternative is going without. Every shekel travels further than people realize.
When people ask me why we still need assistance three years in, that is the answer.
Reach Out
If you want to support a soldier or a unit directly, or you want to know exactly what your dollar is buying before you give it, I am happy to talk to you. Email me at aron@smilesforthekids.com or message me on WhatsApp at +972 55 500 1689. I will tell you what we need and where the money goes.