Today was our first day back at the kibbutz after ten days of travel. Over the past ten days we visited Masada, Ein Gedi, the Bedouin tents, Gadna, Eilat, and Kibbutz Lotan. While Eilat, with the sun and the beach, was my favorite part of the trip, my army experience at Gadna was definitely the most memorable of them all.

Truthfully, I was pretty unprepared for the army - I didn't really know what to expect, even for the five days we were there. I've never thought about joining the army, American or Israeli, and my mentality for Gadna was that I would just get through it and be done, but after completing my week, I can see that I actually had a good experience in the army. Aside from the inefficiency of moving in ten second intervals, I learned a lot in Gadna: how to shoot a gun, follow orders exactly, fall asleep without a pillow or any blankets, and a lot of Hebrew, which was probably the best part of Gadna for me. I have worked on improving my Hebrew a lot over the past month, and hearing the language spoken 24 hours a day helped my understanding tremendously.

Overall, my feelings for the army barely changed for better or for worse. I still think the IDF is an important part of Israeli culture, but it is not for me. I believe that I should try to do some service for Israel at some point in the future, but it probably won't be through the army.