Sharpshooter

Tavor in hand, ready. Left, Roni.

The sight of soldiers in pizza shops and the feeling of M16s brushing against my clothes were everyday occurrences during my year in Israel. Granted, it took some time to readjust to New York City life. Now, still, when I see a police officer, I notice (and smirk just a bit) at the small size of his gun. When I see the gun, I am reminded of the very unique experience I shared with a friend during my year abroad, shooting in a range. I have two memorabilia from that experience, one stronger than the other: a photograph—a precise candid shot of me at just the right angle—and a target sheet with more than one bull’s eye.

I remember our minivan rumbling down the dusty, dirt road smack in middle of the West Bank desert. This shooting range, located in Israel’s West Bank, is not just any shooting range. It felt like a real battlefield. In fact, as our instructor Roni taught us, it is an actual anti-terrorism base where the Israeli Defense Forces train soldiers for the army. Not an indoors entertainment complex, where you shoot behind protective glass. This was serious business.

Roni, the guy in charge, was a member of IDF, no Joe Shmoe with a job at an entertainment industry. The first gun I handled was the Israeli Tavor, the new gun replacing the standard M16 in IDF. On Roni’s “Up!” (or, in his Israeli accent, “Ahp!”), I pulled back and aimed for the target sheet, never mind the painful recoil of the rifle. We also experimented with handguns, a significantly harder skill to master. I must say, I did pre-tty well for a girl my age and size.

The coolest thing of all—and the most Israeli thing of all—was when Michael, our chaperon, a regular citizen (who happens to be on the security team in his neighborhood) took out his own M16 sniper. (Yes, he owns the gun and keeps it in his car sometimes.) Michael frequents this range so often that he created his own addition to the shooting game: aiming at bright blue balloons instead of the standard target sheets. To his surprise and mine, I popped both balloons on my first two tries! Michael was so impressed; he nicknamed me “sharpshooter” the rest of the day.

New-Yorker born-and-bred, artillery as a commonplace of public life was at first shocking to me: the NYPD seemed tame compared to the super-tough Israeli soldiers. I definitely got a glimpse into life on the wild side, foreign to native New Yorkers.