This article explores the social media postings of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers on two different and unofficial Facebook groups. While scholars of armed forces and society have noted the growing importance that militaries have placed on digital media, there is little data regarding the unofficial uses and meanings that regular soldiers themselves make of social networking sites. With an anthropological focus on everyday experiences, we argue that the social media activity of IDF personnel highlights the quotidian aspects of military life in ways that reverberate beyond the strictly ideological or political facets of their service. Here, soldiers can express their frustrations with military bureaucracy, while also presenting a lighthearted (and positive) commentary on a shared rite of passage. This research opens a window into the lives and dilemmas of the first generation of Israeli soldiers to employ new media as a taken for granted aspect of their service.
This study presents an empirically grounded account of tunnel combat operations in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) within the context of “post-heroic” warfare. Current scholarship on “post-heroism” has viewed the technological and professional standards of contemporary military conflicts as distancing the individual combatant from the modern battlefield. Little attention has been given however to the ways in which soldiers themselves experience and adapt to post-heroic conditions. Findings based on in-depth semistructured interviews with 17 IDF tunnel combatants show these soldiers actively reinterpreting the strategic importance placed on distancing the warrior from the battlefield. This exploratory article suggests that an individual “warrior ethos” still resonates amid the professional and technological contours of post-heroic (underground) conflicts. By presenting a novel account of contemporary tunnel warfare from the perspective of the combatants themselves, this research sheds new light on the different personal dimensions that impact post-heroic military operations.
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