My plan was simple — crawl inside the iron worm on rails, ride in its belly from Tel Aviv to the city of Beer Sheva, look around, spend the night there, and move further into the rocky wasteland. An awesome dude Nathan (aka Anton) drove me and my bike to the train station in his car. While we were hanging out there waiting for the train, he told me that you can determine a soldier's branch of service and other facts by their uniform and hat.
Since we are on the subject of the armed forces, I should explain that from the very beginning of the independent state of Israel (since 1946), the army has played a huge role in it. Highly predictable, considering the hostile Arab/Islamic regimes all around. All Jews serve by conscription, except for the Orthodox; the latter, just like people of other nationalities, can volunteer to serve. There is one exception — Israeli Arabs (of whom there are quite a few in the country, about 20%). Men serve for three years, women for two, sometimes even more — if the army paid for your civilian specialty training, for example.
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