The dates are locked in. The Tzav 8 is on the way.
A Tzav 8 is the emergency call-up order in the IDF reserves. It is the official document that says you are being mobilized. Once it lands, the rumors are over. This is the real thing. The thing every WhatsApp message had been asking about for weeks is now sitting in writing, with your name on it and a date you report.
So I have to tell my boss I am leaving for two months. I will try to stay on top of my work from afar, but both of us know what that really means. Summer plans get rescheduled. Trips with my wife move around the army schedule instead of the other way around.
Then come the late night phone calls. Analyzing lists of soldiers. Who is coming and who is going. We have a hard number on how many men we are allowed to bring, so we have to call everyone and understand their plans. Can they come or not. It is not as simple as a yes or a no. People have jobs, families, other units, things that cannot move.
What does each soldier need. What does the schedule look like. What training can we do before. What are our roles and how can we get better. These are just a few of the things we worked through in the three weeks before, in constant contact with all the officers, starting the planning process.
As the Rasap, a lot of this lands on me. I went through what we have and what we are missing. That means going gear by gear, soldier by soldier. Who has a working vest and who has one that should have been replaced two rounds ago. Who is missing a helmet that actually fits. What the unit is short on before we even take over the base. The gaps are real, and the army does not always close them.
So we work to close them ourselves. Part of the job became identifying exactly what was missing and helping raise the money to cover it. Gear for the unit. Gear for individual soldiers who showed up with equipment that was worn out or wrong. Some of these men walked away from their jobs to be here. The last thing they should worry about is whether their protective equipment will hold up. We made calls. We raised funds. We filled in what we could before anyone set foot on base.
You do not just take a gun. You sign for your gun. Everyone has to go to the range and sight their weapon. Dry shooting. Night shooting. Everything in between has to be scripted into the week before we take over the base. And you do all of this knowing it will change daily, right up until the day of.
That is the reserves. You plan everything, and you plan it again the next morning.