Gadna

Gadna was an experience that helped us all learn and grow as individuals, it tested us physically as well as mentally.  Gadna was fun at times and not so much fun at other times, it was fun trying to make our mfakedets laugh while it wasn’t as fun crawling through rocks.  One of the things that we learned about quickly was discipline, this includes small this like being disciplined enough to have our water bottles filled up all the way on time but also includes important things like getting places on time.  The experience of doing Gadna also helped us learn about the IDF and what it is like being apart of it.

Doing Gadna showed us what some of the challenges of being in the IDF might be.  This includes many of the things that any soldier would have to experience like yelling loudly when your commander walks over to you or standing with good posture all the time. In addition to these things a combat soldier has to do even more difficult things like shooting a gun or covering your face with dirt and trying to stay hidden.  Even though it has challenges Gadna also showed us some of the better things about being in Gadna like belonging to a group and having a necessary job inside of that group.  

Gadna helped us get closer with the people on our team because of the fact that everything we did had to be done by working together.  One of the things we learned about is that in the IDF nobody really had a more important job than somebody else because everybody was working to better the group as a whole.  This is different from what I have experienced in different teams I’ve been apart of and even jobs that I have had. The difference between jobs I have had and being apart of Gadna is the level of respect I am treated with. I took away the importance of working for the team and not just yourself from Gadna, because of it I now understand more of what it means to be apart of a team.  Although it is very easy to put yourself first Gadna showed us the importance of putting your team first (even if it is just sometimes).