Journal entry: 26/9/2011

(This is a journal entry I wrote three days ago. It was an hour or two after I found out that my physical profile isn't high enough to join any of the infantry units that I have been training for and dreaming of.  Anything in parenthesis is added just for the post.)

OK. I have my profile. 72.
I will not be invited to try out for a סיירת (advanced unit).
I will not be a צנחן (paratrooper, what I hoped for).
I have "mild asthma". I was born with this. I have beat this. Over and over.
I need to make this list. Because some things can never win. Not even for one day.
So I never forget.
Why I am here.

-To protect a country that has protected my grandparents and will protect my grandchildren.
-To read and speak and dream עברית (Hebrew).
-To eat חומוס (chummus) with everything. To eat bowls of nothing but חומוס (chummus).
-To look back in 10 years and know that I followed something I believed in more than anything I have ever believed in.
-Because this is the same belief that drove my סבא (grandfather) to sneak into Palestine when it was still ruled by the British. From Iraq. (Eventually he got caught and was sent back. To Iraq.)
-Because this is the same country that my father protected in המלחמת יום הכיפורים (The Yom Kippur War). That my cousins protect now. That every Israeli in the past 63 years has protected.
-My parents are scared shitless. But they are proud of me. I think that means something.
-To know that when I need my country she will be there for me. Just like how I am here for her.