This is a bit off-topic. I was reminiscing with someone about our army days and I recalled something that really hit me then.

During tironut, I had gotten Shabbat on the base (first of many) while everyone else went home.

I was mostly alone on the base with a guard shift here and there, but plenty of time to sleep and eat.

Come Sunday, the buses came back with all my fellow trainees.

As I’m watching the mifakdim run them from the bus to the wall and back, and to pick up their gear, and move their gear, and run to the bus and then to the tree and back, it really struck me.

Their nearly 2 day break for Shabbat completely changed their mindset.

On Friday morning everyone was a tough soldier following orders, while on Sunday morning no one was in the soldier mindset at all. While I didn’t do anything soldiery over Shabbat, I was still in soldier mode the entire time, but I could see that none of them were there yet.

I decided to pay attention, and in fact, it took most of the day of being run around to the ground for my fellow trainees to get their soldier mindset going again.

I found that to be an intriguing insight to be stored away.