Showing posts with label Israeli Defense Force. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israeli Defense Force. Show all posts

Monday, May 20, 2019

Mom of "Lone Soldier" "No other soldier should come back in a casket

MOTHER OF MICA LEVIT, WHO TOOK HER OWN LIFE, CALLS FOR MORE LONE SOLDIER SUPPORT


Jerusalem Post Israel News
BY ANNA AHRONHEIM
MAY 20, 2019
But the annual State Comptroller report has found major deficiencies in how the military deals with lone soldiers whose needs the IDF has not fully examined.


"No other soldier should come back in a casket."

When Michaela (Mica) Levit joined the Israeli military in November of 2017, her parents knew she was going to be a fighter, but last week she was found dead outside her base in central Israel.

“We knew she wasn’t going to go anywhere else in the army,” her mother Orit Levit told The Jerusalem Post. “She told us she wasn’t going to Israel to be a secretary, she wanted to be a fighter. We knew that if she was going, she wouldn’t do anything else.”

Levit described her daughter as “full of life, positive and happy,” as someone who was always encouraging and supporting her friends in times of need and the life of the party and “glue of the group” during the happier moments.

“She loved everyone, she never had bad word to say... She was so good to her family, never wanted us to worry, to disappoint us. She was an angel.”

What happened “wasn’t anything we expected of her,” Orit said.

“I never felt she was isolated in Israel, she had the support of extended family. She had so many invitations and she told me 'Mum, sometimes I feel bad that I want to stay home on the weekends.’”

And it wasn’t only family, Orit said. “A lot of her friends are sending condolences and [saying] that their hearts are broken and that they will never meet another person like her... She had a community.”

Orit’s middle child, Mica, moved to Israel in June 2017 and settled at Kibbutz Kinneret, where she took ulpan classes before joining the IDF through the Garin Tzabar program in November, drafting into the mixed Caracal combat battalion. She had just moved to an apartment with other lone soldiers in Hadera and was going through the army’s team leader training course (Course Makim) when she took her life.
read more here

This is what a "Lone Soldier" is
LONE SOLDIERSA “lone soldier” is a soldier in the IDF with no family in Israel to support him or her: a new immigrant, a volunteer from abroad, an orphan or an individual from a broken home.

Every day tens of thousands of soldiers are defending the State of Israel and its citizens. These soldiers regularly spend weekends and holidays at home where their parents provide for all of their needs: food, laundry, and even a hug. Challenges for a lone soldier arise when he or she leaves base. While Israeli-born lone soldiers have their families to return home to, lone soldiers are left to fend for themselves while on leave from the army. This can be once a month, or every weekend, depending on where they serve and what part of training they are in. For more than 7,000 lone soldiers, there is no immediate family in Israel to support them. Though highly motivated and proud to serve, when on leave, many of them struggle with basic needs that a family would solve.

Family searching for answers after US-born IDF lone soldier dies by suicide

 

Sunday, April 7, 2019

Hundreds attended funeral for "Lone Soldier" Alex Sasaki in Israel

Laguna Beach ‘lone soldier’ dies in Israel; hundreds attend his funeral in show of support


Los Angeles Times
Faith E Pinho
April 5, 2019
“With a lone soldier, you never know how many people will be there. And there were just so many people from so many walks of life,” Rodnitzki said. “It was unclear how many of the other soldiers who served with him could join. But so many did and so many had such beautiful remarks to share.”

Alex Sasaki of Laguna Beach served as a lone soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces. He was found dead in his home last week at age 27. Hundreds attended his funeral in Jerusalem after a call on social media from fellow soldiers to support his family. (Alex Sasaki's Facebook page)

A Laguna Beach man who followed his love of Israel overseas died last week, triggering an outpouring on social media that resulted in hundreds attending his funeral in Jerusalem.

Alex Sasaki, 27, served in the Israeli Defense Forces’ Golani infantry brigade as a “lone soldier,” without family in the country. He was found dead in his home while off duty, and military police are investigating the cause of death, the IDF said in an email.
read more here

This part should be read by anyone who believed the BS book Tribe by Sebastian Junger, who claimed that PTSD is a "disorder of transition" and that troops in Israel do not have the same problems.
"Sasaki’s death followed those of two lone soldiers who died by suicide in the past three months, according to Tzivka Graiver, chairman of Keep Olim, an immigrant advocacy nonprofit in Israel."
Considering the reports are all over Wounded Times, it shows that Junger did not do basic research and nations do not do basic outreach for their troops or veterans.