(?)תן.תני לי דקה להתרגל אליך שוב: המקרה של חיילי מילואים קרביים בצו 8 והתמודדות עם מעברים

Upon the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 2023, over 300,000 reservists were drafted on an emergency basis (Tzav 8). This situation requires us to analyze the cyclic nature of serving in the reserves. In all militaries, service in the reserves is cyclic, ambivalent and complex, and potentially traumatic. To the best of our knowledge, however, little has been written on the way soldiers define their own experience in specific social contexts. This article analyzes the transitions experienced by combat soldiers from their call to service, through the battlefield, and to their return home, in order to learn lessons towards their optimal integration back in civilian society. Our findings are based on interviews with 12 reservists. The main theme arising from the interviews is a deep conflict between collective and personal cultural narratives, which causes dilemmas and tensions in each of the transition phases. Our narrative framework and focus on the cultural context, rather than on trauma, shed new light on the experience of the combat soldiers, the stressors they identify, and the way they relate to
specific sociocultural contexts. Finally, we propose solutions for intervention and providing an
appropriate space for working through these complex experiences, and most importantly, sharing them.