SS1 3.4 - Toyota HMV

Even though I was not a strict Jew, I still put some effort to adopt daily diet under Jewish tradition, and believed me it was very complicated. Therefore, when I went overseas I adopted the simplified version. I would still avoid pork, lobster, shellfish, bird of prey, and other prohibited animal, but I won’t avoid beef, chicken, fish, and other non-prohibited animal even though these animals were not being butchered in accordance to Judaism.

I also wouldn’t avoid processed food that was not being processed or served based on Jewish tradition. My father called this diet as porkless path and my big family had been practicing it since a few hundred years ago. It was far before the state of Israel existed, where we could live our life as Jewish folk to the fullest in our very ancestral land.

My ancestor couldn’t help but had to take this measure or they had to go fully vegetarian while also avoiding milk, cheese, wine, butter, oil, and other processed food that were not made in accordance to Jewish tradition. My father called the full vegie option as rabbit path and some of my uncles adopted it when they on overseas trip.

But rabbit path was too hard for me, so I chose the porkless path and applied it to my current life. And so, as soon as I arrived in the terrace at Pukin’ Dog’s quarter, I immediately bought my lunch from a shop in Tokyo. It was a set of Hamburg beef steak with grilled mackerel fillet, fried egg, cheese, steamed potato with butter, and lemonade.

The cheese, the veggie oil, and the butter were definitely not being produced in accordance to Jewish tradition. Mixing protein from land animal and water animal in one meal was also a violation to Jewish tradition. Such combination would generate enzyme that hinder brain development on children with certain DNA.

‘Unfortunately, my family carries that certain DNA,’ I muttered as I took a glance the Hamburg steak and grilled mackerel alternately. ‘Fortunately, once the children with certain DNA reach age of twenty, the negative effect from the enzyme would strengthen their body instead.’

The lemonade I bought also had additional sweet grape juice to smoothen the flavor, which would also be considered as a violation if the grape was bought from non-Jewish vineyard or being planted without following certain method.

However, as I said, it would be too complex and pain in the butt to apply Jewish tradition on your daily diet when you were outside of Israel. Then, I was about to put a piece of Hamburg steak in my mouth when Torrak entered the yard and walked over straight to me.

“Do you have a moment?”

“Yeah,” I replied before putting the piece of Hamburg steak into my mouth.

“Do you have something you want to do after finishing your lunch?”

“Not in particular. I just want to search and buy a car using my tablet.”

“In that case, can you do it while you become back up personnel for northern wall?”

“I don’t mind, but is there any emergency?” I curiously asked.

“It’s not an emergency. The northern wall just sends me a request for additional 20 hunters as back up for wall duty,” Torrak explained. “I already got nineteen, and need another one.”

“I will go after finishing my lunch,” I casually said.

“Thank you,” Torrak genuinely said. “After reporting to guard office in the north wall, you can go to the lounge and leisurely search for your car.”

“Roger.”

Torrak then left while I ate my lunch as fast as I could. After that, I went to guard office in north wall.

---

As Torrak said, after reporting to officer in duty I could go to the lounge. It’s simple lounge, but it was spacious and clean. It also had a big side yard. After introducing myself to other hunters in the room, I went to the side yard and started the hunt for second hand car.

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I already decided I would buy roll-cage Toyota HMV. The official name was Toyota Mega Cruiser BXD10, but JSDF serviceman I knew love to call it Toyota HMV or just HMV, and before I realized it I already followed his naming.

I met the HMV for the first time in a multilateral land insertion exercise in US. The organizer was a team from US JFK Special Warfare Center and School, while the participants were member of special operation community from UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, and Israel.

I attended the exercise with folks from Balnam 444, Unit 5515, and land insertion specialist from Matkal, but we were being mixed with participant from other countries through drawing. As the result, I ended up in 4-man team with dudes from US Airborne Ranger, Canadian shooter, and JSDF SF operator.

As for the car, the organizer provided us with Humvee, Toyota HMV, Ford Ranger, Jeep Cherokee, Nissan Frontier, Toyota Land Cruiser, Land Rover Defender, and Mitsubishi Estrada. All cars were on roll-cage configuration with proven-modification that had conquered the latest world-class long-range trekking.

As for the exercise, in five days, we had to cover 300 km across the desert and savanna, using compass, map, and short-range recon drone as our only navigation means, hide at the day, move silently at night, and collecting visual intels on hostile outpost along the route.

Covering 300 km in five days using off-road SUV maybe looked easy, but people who designed the exercise really knew how to place the target outposts in nasty spot. Therefore, no matter the route we took to approach the outpost, it would deliver a living hell for our car.

In the last day of the exercise, only Toyota HMV and Humvee were still in a decent shape to continue the event. The rest of the cars suffered fatal damage in various degrees. Some even broke it axle. It was a clear testify how the trek was abusive beyond common sense.

I heard that later, the evaluation from this exercise became one of driving forces behind the acquisition program for JLTV and MRZR Polaris. As for me, this exercise gave me a serious lesson about Japanese dude. Despite their amicable look, some of them were definitely a crazy mother fucker.

Here was the story. In the last day of the exercise, my team got left behind about 2 km. We came from high ground and could see that the Humvee in the distance was skimming the river side. They looked for shallow spot they could use to cross the river. After that, they only had to close 5 km distance to finishing line.

We knew it was impossible to beat the Humvee team so we took it easy. But then, Watanabe, the Japanese dude with amicable face who had the wheel calmly said, “Be ready to get wet and leave the car.”

Everyone instantly had big question mark in their face. It couldn’t help as there was still some distance to the river. Even so, we carried out the preparation to enter the water. We completed it in no time, and then Watanabe looked at us one by one before smirking and stating his intention.

“Brace for impact! Cliff! Cliff! Cliff!!”

‘Huh… Cliff?’ I muttered as Watanabe took the HMV out of the trek, and then drove it straight to cliff edge a dozen meter in our left.

A moment later the HMV happily jumped off the cliff, and actually I recognized the cliff. This morning just before the dawn, Watanabe asked me to fly the recon drone to scout it. He also asked me to scout the wide body water about 80 cm deep in the cliff base from close range.

However, doing drone recon on a cliff and jumped off it personally was two day and night different animals. Not to mention, I clearly remembered our HMV could absorb impact of falling only from 4 meter height and the car had to properly land on four wheels.

Meanwhile, the cliff was 6 meter high and just before the rear wheel on the left took off, the cliff edge that supported it crumbled and it made the car went to the air in a tilted position. Worst off all, when I looked down at the water body below, I found it had shrunk significantly and only about 20-30 cm deep.

And so, my blood run cold as I gripped the roll-bar with everything I have. Then, my eyes widened as the thin water surface was rapidly closing in straight to my face. After that, everything turned pitch-dark.

When I opened my eyes I found I was weakly laying in the bed, facing white ceiling, with a body full of patches and bandages. On the beds next to mine, lay the rest of the team with various degrees of injuries.

When the HMV jumped off the cliff, we didn’t put our FAST helmet and seat belt on, and so we reaped what we sowed. It sucks to spend two whole weeks in hospital putting together our broken body, but at least no one go beyond ER.

As for the HMV, despite the fucked up landing it didn’t receive fatal damage. It was still more than capable to reach the finishing line in full speed. If we didn’t suffer heavy injury and had to be sent to ER, we would definitely win the game.

Not to mention, the leading Humvee got stuck in the mud not long after we jumped off the cliff. Other car had to tow it out of the river, while the team continued the journey to finishing line on foot.

And that’s the reason, why I bought a Toyota HMV after my return to Israel. The life and death experience I had with this car still gave me a shudder every time I recall it, but at the same time I was fell in love with its resilience. It made me remember the resilience that my folk possessed throughout our long history, along with the painful and unbearable moment we had to gone through on each generation.

Now, I would buy Toyota HMV one more time. I would also use similar set up and configuration with my old one.

*****

Warning:

In case you have Toyota HMV, please don’t try to imitate the scene where the car happily jumps off the cliff. It’s freaking dangerous and there is a high possibility it will send you beyond ER. Thank you.