FionnMcC

So the year is 1991 and im being deployed to sunny south Lebanon with the army.Im excited about the opportunity to serve overseas with the United Nations as my 2 brothers have served there before.I loved listening to their stories when i was a kid and the way they described the country,in my mind i imagined the country as biblical as it is portrayed in old movies. I will never forget the night i was departing and saying goodbye to my family,what got to me the most was saying goodbye to my dad,i dont know,it was weird as i have never had a close relationship with him,like he was always there for me but we just never seemed to get along,but saying goodbye to him was hard for some reason..I guess we just take people for granted.Anyway after a flight that seemed an eternity i finally landed in Ben Gurion airport in Israel. The first thing to hit me was the heat, coming from a freezing cold island to the middle east.We travelled outside the airport via minibus and halted awaiting a UN convoy to meet us and bring us to the Isreali -Lebanon border crossing into Naquara, UN HQ. It was at this stop that i first laid eyes on Israeli soldiers,and they looked scary (understand that im 1 year in the army at this stage and have never seen a foreign soldier,let alone be in a foreign country full of them). The convoy met and we travelled what seemed like hours on end,after security checks by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) assisted by the UN at the border crossing we finally arrived in Naqura. Here we were given light refreshments and issued with our body armour,weapons, helmets and kit and mounted up into armour to travel into our area of operations(AO).It was now night time,we had been travelling over 26 hrs and our convoy was rolling over the beautiful hills of south Lebanon.The darkened countryside had so many
similarities to Irish countryside i almost though i was home,only not as green.Then the sky light up, like it was Halloween, big bright lights,loud bangs,thunder...The Defacto Forces (DFF) were giving us a Lebanese welcome.I spent the night in the canteen(it was closed) sleeping on the floor with body armour and helmet on,as no transport was allowed leave camp untill the shelling had stopped,all i wanted was to get to my outpost and write a letter home to say i had arrived safe and sound.Let me clear up something,the shelling was not directed at us.So thats how my first trip overseas began,i was to spend 6 months on static checkpoints and observation posts(OPs).But the good news was i got 3 weeks leave, so i booked my flights from Ben Gurion to Cypress, but there was one snag, my leave dates and flight dates were not in sync, i would have to spend 4 nights in Isreal before i could catch a flight to cypress..19 years old, 4 nights in a fantastic city,booze(which i havent had in 3 months) how bad eh!! It was on this 4 day stopover where i would first hear about Krav Maga....to be continued :)