JM in the AM: Nachum Interviews Ohad From The IDF

jewish unity initiative continues here at the uh jm the am radio broadcast we have a member we uh you could watch right now watch right now at the malcolm segal dot com you're going to want to watch right now at nothingsequel.com we have a member of the idf a member of the israel defense force is with us his name is ohad shalom where are you from i'm from iran originally yeah good old radonna yeah where are you today where did you sleep last night you don't have to give me details it's not allowed but i'm curious like you know where's the base where what city did you sleep in last night all right last night i slept like in that corner right you're serious yeah that's you slept in that field over there no not feel it's like a small room over there a small little room yeah because your job now is to protect the area of gushing yeah on the crossroads the main crossroads here every citizen that takes rides i need to keep him safe from hazards stabbing people that's my job so one of the most prevalent uh news items in the coming out of israel these random stabbings um attacks people like yourself are have taken the responsibility to do what you can to protect the citizens that they not be victims of those attacks of course yes of course like i know you say i know i know it's your job i know you say of course but we're just taking in the enormity of it how unbelievable it is and you're responding as if it's not that big of a deal when it's really one of the most incredible things you could be doing well listen ever since i got drafted that's what we learned to do trying to teach me what to protect people protect people yes how long are are you officially on 24 hours and sleep whenever you want do you have uh a timetable of you know when you're you know you and your i assume you have colleagues who are doing this with you right yes yes so how long of a day do you have well first of all let's go by hours right and every six hours you either taking a position here as a guard or you basically have free time to sleep and train and what are you looking for you're looking to see that every car is doing what it's supposed to be doing and and no episodes or incidents are taking place between drivers and passengers or people maybe running or attacking somebody every suspect we need to ask him a few questions um the license plates from israelis and non-israelis is different so if there's a suspicious behavior we need to ask questions see registrations and stuff not mostly yeah just see that i think everything is going as usual if you're watching now at nothingsigal.com this is ohad joining us at jm the amazing camera right that's a camera yeah uh what rank do you have in the military um what do they call you i don't know the name of it how should i address it what is it what would it be a normal soldier like what would it be what we would call a corporal yeah so you're corporal ohad yeah may i ask you your age or i'm not supposed to do that in this conversation yes i'm almost 22. you're almost you make it sound like you're getting up there in years you're almost 22 yeah in a month or so yeah who who is this that you're looking at over here no is this your commanding officer oh you're not expecting i thought you might be i'm sorry um so almost 22 years old are you among the older soldiers doing this work or are you among the younger ones like um in normal life i'm my account is older but in the in my time in the army not so much i'm still young but the soldiers you're working with are also 22 or no most mostly in 1918 yeah 19 18 years old yeah doing this checking cars and pursuing the enemy if necessary and protecting people exactly wow i don't know what to say i mean we know all this and we hear it all the time but when we go ahead and meet people like you or hear more stories about we met a 20 year old earlier who spent six years in the united states and was describing the same type of work as you're describing here and it's just you know the older i get the more difficult it is for me to believe that people who are 20 or 19 or 18 as you just said my parents says the same stuff but your parents don't believe it either huh what do your parents say about being parents of a soldier well first of all my parents both has been soldiers so they've both been in the army yeah so it's different like they know what what the what they demand of you right what it takes and the help with everything everything they can very supportive how often do you see them um once twice a month maybe three times what is shabbat like when you're when you're when you're on duty and you're protecting the people of israel any different than a regular day or you just try to make it as different as you can so it feels a little bit more like shabbat it's a little bit different but i'm only this guy i don't know if they see the keeper but well that's why i'm asking you because i know you're really curious if it's we do our best and yes it takes about everything once or twice but of course also that's what i need to be done like you have no choice how much equipment do you carry with you for now what are these these wow keep me safe these these knee pads are much different than nhl regulations like that much wow yeah um don't almost thought that the cramming vest that's if people try to shoot me it's supposed to protect me the bulletproof vest yeah a gun helmet over there that's it what kind of gun is that m4 an m4 yeah that's what it's called yeah it's a better version of m16 does a good job yeah you know you happy with it you don't go you don't go anywhere without it huh yeah corporal ohad is from ranana and now he serves feet away from where we are at the tsomet gustation katz what do you say about meeting corporal ohad what do you say thank you thank you thank you thank you mama thank you thank you thank you that's my mom look you're home in efrat he's right here he's right here sleep at night because of him but no really but it's not just that my point is that your family's sitting in a fraud and i'm not criticizing believe me i think it's the same thing for my family in the u.s i believe i could live freely in the united states because of you that's a whole other story meaning because of ohad but you're in a fraud and he is trying to grab a minute or two of sleep right here at this little hut or house that the soldiers are in it's like a completely different perspective at the age of 22 and of course as he said many of his colleagues are eighteen nineteen twenty unbelievable anyway yeah oh hot clock a vote thank you very very much for all you do i believe not only that people in israel like and others can live in israel because of you i honestly believe that people can live freely as jews in other parts of the world because of our israeli soldiers that's what i honestly believe oh thank you very much thank you for doing our best and call i kavod