“No regrets” is how Dafna Voloshin and Yanor Yazna, two weapons instructors in the IDF Golani Brigade, together summed up their decision to leave family behind in California, pass up college and move to Israel to serve in the military.
The two, who serve as instructors for soldiers going through basic training, enlisted in the IDF last year as part of Garin Tzabar, a military program for the children of expatriate Israelis.
Voloshin, 20, from Sunny-vale, teaches soldiers how to use special weapons such as the Matador anti-armor shoulder-launched missile. She had been accepted to college but decided to defer her education to serve in the IDF.
“When I came here I decided I wanted to stay and serve in the army,” said Voloshin, whose parents, Moshe and Anat Voloshin, moved to Silicon Valley in 2001. “It is a lot of fun, and I would have never been able to do any of this had I not come.”
Yazna, 21, from Orange County, was born in Israel and moved to the United States when she was 5. After high school, she applied and was accepted to U.C. Berkeley, but decided to pass up studying at the prestigious university to serve in the IDF.
After a four-month course, Yazna was certified as a weapons instructor responsible for teaching new recruits how to operate heavy machine guns.
“People here are very different,” she said. “People here are very used to the army, and we [Americans] did it by choice. There are a lot of times when I think about what I am doing and realize that teaching soldiers how to shoot is not what your average 19-year-old in the U.S. is doing.” — jpost.com