May 1st

If you remember the story of how I was supposed to enlist for a year but then the army "messed up" and gave me two then here is a new and exciting twist...

I requested to shorten my army service and get release on May 1st instead of July 21st so that I could make it home for my little sister's prom and graduation and also have time to work this summer before studying next fall. Apparently as the army was looking over my request for shortening my service they realized that I was only supposed to serve for a year and I was 3 months past my release date of July 20th, 2012. Because of this they wanted to give me a release date immediately, and made it for the following day.  To be notified and released in one day was clearly non-realistic so (this was on November 11th) they decided to set my release date for November 20th.

I sat down for a meeting with my commander who asked me what I want to do. Even if I had said that I wanted to take the release date in a week and a half he would never have let me anyway, but at least he asked, haha. He told me to think about it and request a new release date.  He did not hesitate to tell me that if he had his preference I would be his soldier until the end of his service, but I told him that May 1st still sounded just fine to me.

During Operation Pillar of Defense November 20th came around and I found myself opening an email, signing a form in "Paint" on the computer, and emailing it back saying that I accept my release date to be May 1st, 2013.

Tricky thing that IDF is, but in the end I'd say I came out on top of this one. They would only give me a year, then they pulled me along for two, I tried to get out earlier, they tried to get me out sooner, and I managed to stay in longer. Talk about tough love...