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Source: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1263147941170&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Volunteer Reserve Duty in the IDF
(Jerusalem Post) Doug Greener - A few brief observations after a recent stint of volunteer reserve duty at a Home Front Command base in the IDF: The young man giving out equipment at the reception center was a uniformed soldier with Down's syndrome. On three of my assignments (one involving 48 hours in a very cramped "pillbox" watchtower), the commanding officers were 19-year-old girls. For the guys under their command, their officers' gender was irrelevant. The privilege of serving in the IDF still moves people across oceans. Within my little group, there was one volunteer from Seattle and another from Frankfurt, Germany, who came here twice a year to do reserve duty. Among the young soldiers on the base, there were two girls who came from the U.S. without their parents to serve in the army.