Krav Maga: Special Forces Selection Process-Part 2
Krav Maga Instructor Jeremiah Belsky continues his blog on IDF Special Forces training amnd selection.
After doing my time at the army base Micheve Alon, I had now arrived at Base Golani, the home of the infamous Israeli ” No1″ infantry brigade. 2,000 new recruits would join me and be separated into battalions 51, 13, 12 and a select few to the Special Forces.
Golani has a reputation of being hardcore warriors, receiving arguably the toughest training and given the toughest jobs. It was a massive achievement having got this far, but this was just the beginning of a immensely suffocating yet rewarding journey.
I was sent to battalion 51 and was sent to collect all my equipment. My knowledge of the native language was minimal and there was a good 5 years age difference between the others, not to mention the cultural difference and me. To say I was apprehensive would be an understatement.
Throughout the units, drill sergeants lined us up asked who wanted to sign up for the selection process for specials. This would mean who ever signed up would have to spend 31 days on base (including the selection process itself). Now that may not seem like a lot, but I would challenge any civilian to spend 31 days on base Golani, doing the first month of basic training and tell me it’s not a serious shock to the system. Don’t let the word “basic” fool you. In order to make the transformation from a civilian to warrior, a lot of sleep deprivation, food/water deprivation mixed with intense and suffocating physical exertion under extreme weather conditions is necessary. Out of the 2,000, only 300 signed up.
Those that signed up believed they had mentally and physically what it took to be in the special forces of the IDF. They had been training for most of their lives in one way or another, with long family histories of being in such units. Whilst we in the UK aspire to going to top universities from a young age, they aspire to going into elite military units.
Those who wanted to test what they were made of were marched to a courtyard at night and told to sit and wait with our equipment till further instructions. As we waited you could see everyone eyeing up the competition. There was a vast range of personalities and physical stature. A lot of big guys that looked pretty tough but you could tell had an ego, some smaller guys that kept quiet and a few guys that didn’t look fit at all. Something I would come to understand meant nothing- there’s a big difference between conventional fitness and battle fitness.
As we waited anxiously for a couple of hours, I went and asked one of the Sergeants what the situation was. Being the middle east in the month of August, the weather was unbearably hot and so they needed the temperature to drop to a certain level. Something you don’t see when you watch documentaries or movies about the army. Wearing thick socks, boots, uniform and full gear in this heat is enough to brake certain people in itself.
NO GO!- the temperature was too hot, even at night, to push us to our limits. There are strict rules when it comes to selection. People die or get seriously hurt during this type of process so we would have to wait. I was livid, I just wanted get on with it. The anticipation was torture…….
The next night we proceeded to the courtyard and followed the same procedure. We sat and waited for 3 hours until we finally got the all clear. Already exhausted and sweating from the heat we marched to the torture pit. 300 people split into groups of 25 and designated a Special Forces commander to make notes on each candidate. We were taken to an area the size of 3 football pitches.
This area consisted of sand, rocks, jagged rocks, and cow excrements. We all had a number painted on our hats. I was number 21 and il never forget it. Over the next 12 hours throughout the night, we would have to sprint to the end of the sand and rock field then back again for an hour straight, crawl to the end and then crawl back again, carry weights on a stretcher and back again, perform tasks like digging a fox hole with a small shovel that was big enough to get in as quick as we could, and 10k run whilst performing hundreds of pushups and situps. This list of physical tasks went on and on. Only at the end of each hour after being physically destroyed could we have a 5 minute water break. We also didn’t have watches, so we would have no idea when this torture would end. All the mean while, we were being examined. Who was first, who was last, and who would helped others, who would cheat others, who could compose themselves, who would share food from rations if we were given food. We were tested for everything.
I knew I was in a good position. By sunrise 8 people had washed out from the 25, either due to injury or by giving up and I was coming first for nearly everything. One time I didn’t come first, one of the candidates who befriended me during selection fell over and struggled to get up, so I naturally sprinted back to help him, even though it was drilled into us that this was a highly competitive process. If I were going to get reprimanded for helping my mate then so be it, I wouldn’t want to be part of any team that frowned upon this anyway. As it happens, the unnamed soldier testing us gave me the thumbs up. I ended up being last back to the line this time but also the sprint directly after that I would be last. Straight away we were off sprinting down the sand field again, I was in the lead but was tripped up resulting me to come last. No one helped me up. I knew who tripped me, the same guy who tripped others and pushed others out the way. When I got back to the line, the soldier asked why I fell. I told him I tripped over a rock and it won’t happen again. He nodded his head at me slowly. He knew what happened, he also knew who the cheat was. Was told that if I came last again I would be binned. Needless to say I wasn’t last again. In fact, I wasn’t anything but first from that moment on…….to be continued.
