What is a Fillbox?

This week, after over a month, is when you can really say I’m back at it. On August 6th I flew home to New York, to start my one month break per year given to every lone soldier, called a meyuchedet (מיוחדת). In the army you get two types of breaks. Everyone gets a regilah (רגילה) once every four months on average. The word regilah itself literally means normal, so this break is just your normal one week break we get about three times a year. On top of that, there are different types of special breaks known as a meyuchedet (מיוחדת) which literally translates to special. I, in particular, get a meyuchedet chul (מיוחדת חול), which is given to soldiers whose parents live abroad.

For the last month I’ve been enjoying my time back home, seeing family and friends, spending some time at camp, and even making it to two weddings. The month off is a nice little break from the army where you are really pulled away from the current reality of your life and thrust back into pre-army life. In many ways, during the month off in America, it’s easy to forget you are still in the army. The two lifestyles are simply just worlds apart.

This time home was special in that I knew it was my last time before I finish the army in January, and yes, I know that’s very soon. I enlisted to the army with two years to serve, and those two years are exactly 85% up, and yes there’s an IDF app that counts how much time you have left in the army, even down to the second. At this moment I’m writing, I have exactly 9,111,970 seconds left until I cut my card and am no longer a soldier, but who’s counting.

A week and a half ago on Wednesday the 6th of September, I landed in Israel, and already the next morning I was on my way to base. Quick turnaround, I know. In typical army fashion, I had to resign on my gun, and there wasn’t anyone in the neshekia (battalions armory) until the following Tuesday. That means, without a gun, I was put in kitchen duty from Thursday-Monday, a great welcome back if you were to ask me. Usually, and this is the funny thing, extended kitchen duty is usually given out as a punishment. It’s almost like I was punished for being away for a month, but in all honesty it was only because I didn’t have a gun, and it’s hard and even impossible to guard without a gun.

I finally signed on a gun on Tuesday, shot the gun to calibrate it on Thursday, and already that night I was starting shmirot (guarding). On Thursday I was sent to what is known as a fillbox (פילבוקס), and was officially back at it. I wouldn’t consider my five days in the kitchen as “back at it,” even though I helped prepare some delicious food if you were to ask me.

So, what is a fillbox? The land throughout the Gaza border, the northern borders, and the West Bank are split up into different regions, each one being called a gizra (גזרה). At any given time, a battalion is stationed in each gizra, and they are essentially responsible for the security within that region or gizra. It gets more complicated when you talk about the differences between the West Bank and gaza/Lebanon/Syria, and also when you add in the Israeli police, military police, Shabak, private security teams and all of that, but that’s a whole different conversation. Some regions are big and spread out, and some are extremely dense, such as Hebron where I was stationed during the spring.

Within a gizra, there are several outposts. There’s always one outpost that is bigger than the rest, and thats the main outpost of the battalion. Here sits usually one or two of the platoons, all the workers of the battalion that are not combat soldiers, and all the high up officers. Throughout the region there are always several other outposts that are smaller and only meant to fit one platoon, ranging anywhere from 70-120 people, as an estimate. These outposts are much smaller and are honestly more relaxing. Usually the high up officers in the army aren’t on these outposts, and therefore they are more calm.

In addition to these outposts, both the main one and the smaller ones, there are usually a couple of little posts known as a fillbox, and this is where I am. This is certainly not considered a base, and not even an outpost, it’s much smaller than that, and I’ll use the term post. Relatively, a fillbox is significantly  smaller than any base or outpost you can be on. There tends to be anywhere from 4-8 people in one of these on average, with the largest I’ve seen being 18-20 people, and that was an outlier. This week, we are four soldier plus a commander, so five in total.

*An example of what a fillbox looks like. There's always a tower where someone is at all times, to overlook and secure the area.

You might be wondering, what is the purpose of one of these? Why are these small posts created to hold such a small amount of soldiers? Why can’t these soldiers just be on the main outpost? And for this I’ll give two reasons.

First of all, these small posts allow us to be closer to our shmirot (guard) areas. This region we are particularly in is considered one of the largest by territory in the West Bank, and to get from our outpost to this fillbox is about a 10 minute drive. To get to the main outpost of the battalion is over 25 minutes away. In comparison, it would take less than 25 minutes to drive to one corner of our region in Hebron and then go back to where you started.

Secondly, a common theme in the IDF is presence. The IDF wants to show everyone in the region that we are here, and they want everyone to see us. Showing a presence helps to intimidate those planning to harm us by showing them that we are simply here. For example, you might act differently as a teenager if you are at a party with supervisors vs a party without. Or, you might decide not to jaywalk if police are standing on the corner. Adding more posts throughout the region allows more eyes to see an IDF presence.

This week our main responsibility is to look over the settlement of nahliel. Nahliel is a Jewish settlement situated on a hill, and directly north is an Arab village of Kobar. Between these two is a valley where one can walk across and make it to the other. Our task is pretty simple: we leave our fillbox and walk 10 minutes in the direction of Nahliel, and we find a nice overlook into the valley between these two towns, and our responsibly is to watch and make sure nobody tries moving towards and ultimately trying to break into the settlement. It’s relatively quiet, and a huge change from the more intense guarding we did in Hebron. We spend about 9 hours a day at this overlook, split into the morning and evening shift, and that’s really it. However, the best part about the fillbox is the fillbox itself.

*View from our overlook. Taken during golden hour so yes it looks very nice.

I mentioned earlier that a smaller outpost is nice because we don’t have the high ranking officers sitting over our heads, so with that logic a fillbox is even nicer. Here we have four soldiers and a commander as I mentioned, and this quiet allows for more peace in an army where someone is always sitting on your head. Furthermore, the fillbox becomes a home. Here there’s no dining room with a kitchen making mass produced food. Instead, we make the food in our small kitchen here, and the army provides us with it all. Frozen meats, pasta, a bunch of spices, tuna, and all the classic army foods. We’ve grilled twice making hotdogs, hamburgers, chicken, and even some mediocre steak that was a Rosh Hashanah donation from someone in the area. We’ve cooked pasta and meat sauce, eggs every morning, sandwiches and a bunch of other small things. The fillbox becomes your home for the week, and although we’re still in the army, the quiet lifestyle is a nice break from the hectic nature of a real base with many soldiers.

I guess you can say I’m finally back at it, even though the end is in sight. In two weeks my battalion returns to the training base called Nebi Musa I wrote about earlier, where we will soon have a huge exercise, and this will be my last shetach (field) week. We will then have a few easy weeks, a week long break, and then as of now my battalion is going to guard the northern region of the Gaza Strip where I will be stationed for a month before getting ready to be released. In short, my service is coming to an end, and for now I’ll just enjoy the army as it is, or at least to the best one is able