Joel Chasnoff - The 188th Crybaby Brigade - A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah - A Memoir

“Fuck you! I was standing here!”

“Your mother’s cunt.”

“Your mother’s cunt!”

I remind myself they’re only eighteen years old.

But still, wouldn’t I have been able to stand in a column of three when I was eighteen? Or fourteen? Or ten?

“Enough!” shouts one of the sergeants.

We freeze.

“Guard!” he snaps his fingers and calls me over from where I’m standing watch by the pay phone.

I scurry over. The sergeant has a husky chest voice like a Harley rider. Physically, though, he looks like an infant. His pale blue eyes, soft features, and wisp of blond hair make him look like the Gerber baby.

“Listen to me, soldier. In exactly thirty seconds, this platoon will be standing in three perfect rows. Go.”

I face my new platoon mates. The formation is a mosh pit. I run around back, grab two guys by the elbows, drag them to the front row. “Stand here,” I say. Next, I push two guys, one skinny and the other chubby and wearing a yarmulke, into place behind the first two. “You stand here.” I grab more guys by the elbow and line them up, one by one, into rows like a kid setting up dominoes. Finally, we stand in three perfectly parallel rows.

“What’s your name?” barks the sergeant.

“Yoel,” I say.

“Yoel what?”

“Chasnoff.”

The sergeant shakes his head.

“Shetznitz?” I say.

“No. Yoel, Staff Sergeant. When you speak to me or your other commanders”—he points to the two sergeants standing behind him—“you address us as Staff Sergeant. Everyone hear that?”

“Yes, Staff Sergeant!” we shout.

“Yoel,” he says, “how many soldiers here?”

I run to the far left side of the formation, count the soldiers, one-two-three-four—

“Yoel!” the sergeant screams.

I freeze.

“How many rows in this formation?”

“Three, Staff Sergeant.”

“So if you were smart, you’d count the number of soldiers in the first row and then multiply by three. Right?”

“Yes, Staff Sergeant.”

“So how many in the front row?”

I speed-walk past the formation and count.

“Eighteen, Staff Sergeant.”

“And eighteen times three is…”

I open my mouth.

Air.

“Are you an idiot? Eighteen times three! Let’s go!”

I was a math minor at Penn. In high school, I got a 5 on my BC Calculus AP test. And yet I cannot, for the life of me, figure out eighteen times three.

“Well?” the sergeant barks.

“Uhm… fifty-four?”

He scrunches his face into a scowl. “Really? That’s it? Fifty-four?”

I stare at him bug-eyed. What the hell does he want from me?

“There are sixty soldiers in this platoon, Yoel.”

I nod.

“So where the hell are they?” he roars.

I face the platoon. “We’re missing six guys!” I shout.

My comrades mumble among themselves, discussing in earnest, and finally word reaches me that three soldiers are in the dining hall setting up for dinner, two soldiers are in the infirmary, and another soldier is off somewhere else.

I face the sergeant. “Three are in the dining hall,” I say, “two are in the infirmary—”

“No, no, Yoel. From the beginning.”

“Fifty-four soldiers here, Staff Sergeant. Three in the dining hall, two in—”

“Wait!” the sergeant barks. “Do not! Make me! Do the math! Tell me the exact total each step of the way.”

I feel a bead of sweat trickle down my cheek. “Fifty-four soldiers in formation, Staff Sergeant. Three in the dining hall, that’s fifty-seven.”

“Excellent.”

“Two in the infirmary, fifty-nine. And one… one…”

I face the platoon.

“Who’s not here?” I whisper.

They mumble.

“Ronen Peretz!” shouts a voice in the back row. “Ronen Peretz is looking for his bag!”

The sergeant orders me to step forward. “Platoon Two, open your ears!” he barks. “At all times, each of you must know the exact whereabouts of every soldier in the platoon. In six months, you could be in Lebanon. God forbid you’d be in Lebanon and don’t know exactly where each of your friends is.”

A hush falls over the platoon as we process the word: Lebanon.

“For the next two months of basic training, Yoel is the platoon scribe. You know what that means, Yoel?”

Yes. Bad news.

“It means that you, Yoel, are responsible for keeping track of every soldier in this platoon. If I wake you up at three in the morning—and I will—you’ll be able to tell me who’s guarding, who’s sick, and who’s lying in bed awake because he’s scared of the dark. Clear?”

“Yes, Staff Sergeant,” I say.

“The rest of you: When you go somewhere, you tell Yoel first. If you go to the infirmary, tell Yoel. If you go to take a shit, tell Yoel you’re going to take a shit, and the minute you’re done wiping your ass you tell Yoel you’re back. Understood?”

“Yes, Staff Sergeant!”

“Now everyone stand straight. Tuck in your shirts. You’re about to meet your platoon commander. You will address him as Lieutenant. You will not, ever, speak to him unless he speaks to you first. Take one minute to prepare for the platoon commander.” We dive into a frenzy of button checking, shirt tucking, and shoelace tying. I feel a hand inside my pants, on my ass—the kid in back of me tucking in my shirt from behind.

I decide to neither ask nor tell.

“Sir!” the sergeant shouts and salutes.

A tall, muscular, blond-haired officer struts into the courtyard. His uniform, crisp forest green, fits perfectly. His posture is perfect. His body is perfect. He is Charles Atlas. Only this Charles Atlas wears thin-framed eye glasses, adding an aura of intelligence to that of his power. On his head he wears a knit white yarmulke.

This is fantastic news. If he’s wearing a yarmulke, that means my officer is a religious Jew. If he’s a religious Jew, that means he has Jewish values. This means he’ll be nicer than the typical combat officer. If he believes in God, eats only kosher food, and keeps the Sabbath holy, how much of a jackass can he be?

“My name is Lieutenant Yaron,” he says in a warm tone of voice. “I want to be the first to welcome you to the One Hundred Eighty-eighth Armored Brigade, the best brigade in the Israeli Army. Your tank, the Merkava Three Baz, is the best tank in the world. That means your brigade is the best brigade of any military on the planet. I expect every one of you to live up to the honor of serving in the One Hundred Eighty-eighth. Those of you who know how to give one hundred percent will succeed. Those who do not, I will rip your ass to pieces. Good luck.”

We stand frozen while he exits the courtyard. So much for the yarmulke.

Once our officer is out of sight, our three squad commanders introduce themselves.

Sergeant Eli is tall and stocky with thick eyebrows that connect at the top of his nose. He looks like a pudgy Pete Sampras. Sergeant Hanoch is thin with blue eyes. From the way his mouth hangs open, he looks to be a bit of a dolt.

Sergeant Eran is the tough one. Despite his Gerber baby looks he’s the one we instinctively fear most. “Tomorrow,” he shouts, “we’ll divide you into squads. Now, prepare to meet your platoon sergeant. He’s in charge of discipline. If you work hard, you’ll see little of your platoon sergeant. If you slack off, you’ll curse the day you were born.”

That’s all it takes: the instant we hear the word discipline, we fly into another round of frantic shirt tucking, button checking, and hands inside the backs of each other’s pants. “Platoon Two, Company B: prepare to greet your platoon sergeant!”

A short, crew-cut first sergeant darts into the courtyard.