The 188th Crybaby Brigade: A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah: A Memoir

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The Russian is poking my balls.

It’s awkward.

I’ve been trapped in this dank examination room since nine o’clock. In five minutes it’ll be nine-thirty, and I feel like a dope, what with my boxer shorts at my ankles and my dick in my hand so the Russian can get a good view.

“Hmm,” he says.

It’s Tuesday morning, the eighth of July, and I’m at the Israel Defense Forces Induction Center outside Tel Aviv. I arrived in Israel three weeks ago. Today is my first pre-army checkup.

The Russian says something in Hebrew, but I can’t understand him through his thick Russian accent.

“Huh?” I say.

He switches to broken English. “You pee-nus… hurt you?”

“Lo!” I say in Hebrew, and shake my head. “Penis tov! My penis is fine.”

The Russian scoots forward on his knees. He’s about sixty years old and bald. Even though he’s a doctor, he’s dressed like a plumber—plaid short-sleeve shirt, dirty jeans. I imagine that back in Russia he was a brain surgeon. Now he checks gonads for the Israeli Army.

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