One Month Home

I have been at my home in New York for the last month. How did I pull that off, you ask? Well, it’s one of the benefits of being a “chayal boded” or lone soldier. A lone soldier is a soldier is a soldier who have no immediate family in Israel. A lone soldier gets a ton of sweet benefits including money, gift certificates and packages. When you are in the army, your “mashaki tash” (human resources contact) will inform you about most of these benefits and direct you exactly where to go and when. There is only one benefit that you need to ask for. That is the benefit of leaving the country for one month per year of your army service. (In the case of shlav bet which is only 6 months, you still get a full month abroad.) It is the right of every chayal boded to have one month abroad by his parents. This month is INCLUDED as part of your army service; you do NOT need to serve an extra few weeks after your release time to make up your time abroad. Also, this does not impact any of your vacation days. Keep in mind that you only get one trip; you can't break up your time into several trips. Either you go to work or you are abroad on vacation.

A few restrictions apply:

1 – Your month cannot be taken during your time in basic training.

2 – Your month cannot be taken during your time in a course

3 – Your month must be requested at the base for which you will be working during your absence. This means that you cannot schedule your trip abroad while you are in basic training, because you will be at a different base after basic training when you go abroad (after basic training everyone goes to another base.) As far as I know, only the people who did NOT pick one of the original 5 options for jobs that were offered were at one place long enough in order to schedule to go home. For anyone who chooses one of the 5 jobs, try going straight to your mashaki tash the day you arrive at your interim base (where you spend 2 months waiting for your course) and schedule to go home. It’s better than doing a pointless job.

4 – Unless you are a fighter, the army does not assist with paying for your ticket home. This changes year to year, as I have heard that some years they would give a partial assistance. Ask your mashaki tash.