Tranquility

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My battalion, the 670th Artillery, has a mascot. His name is Shalva, which means "tranquility" in Hebrew. It's hard to imagine what Shalva's dad was thinking but easy to guess what he was drinking the night he named his boy; because tranquility isn't what comes to mind when you think of Shalva.

His story is that when he was a young man in Russian Georgia, he vowed that if the good Lord would allow him to live in the holy land, he would serve in the Israeli Army until the end of his days. God kept His end of the deal and Georgians are men of their word. The scuttlebutt is that Shalva is 61 years old and he has never missed a tour of duty since the 670th was formed in the late 70's.

Shalva swore to serve, but he never said how he would serve. When I first encountered him in the mid 80's, he was the terror of the battalion. You had to go through Shalva to get uniforms and gear. About 50% his limited vocabulary in Hebrew was swear words, which he reserved for those of us he liked, and he used his huge, shaved belly to literally bounce everybody else out of his way. Sometimes it was easier to go a few weeks in uniforms big enough for two of me or so tight that they crawled up to my knees and barely reached my elbows than to try my luck with his temper.

Wisely, our officers usually didn't trust Shalva with any duties involving weapons, but from time to time he was needed to do guard duty and he would show up fully loaded and with two water canteens full of vodka. Fortunately, he was always assigned to posts chosen for their distance from anyone he might harm. Relieving him of duty was a risky business and done with care.

The 670th finished another tour of duty this week. I had been released this time, but showed up on the last day to see how my friends had fared. I found Shalva for once living up to his name, fast asleep on a pile of winter gear. Time has taken its toll on Shalva and he's not nearly as fearsome as he used to be. You can find him in the mess hall at the officers' table; he cusses them out even more than he does the rest of us, but they know that just about the only thing he fears more than the Almighty is rank, and they know that he will be in the battalion long after they're gone.

There are many legends about Shalva in our battalion. To this day, nobody knows his last name, or even if he has a last name. Maybe he is an angel; a drunken, smoking, foul mouthed, grumpy angel, but our guardian angel nevertheless.

Perhaps Shalva's dad named him well after all. Because in the close to quarter of a century that I have been in the 670th, we have know tranquility. We have made lifelong friendships, served our country and without exception returned everyone, every time safely to our families.

That's tranquil enough for me.