Always Stepping Over Some Soldier

Time to head out on a Monday morning and explore Jerusalem.

No tripping over a newspaper or a snowdrift from last night, here. This morning, as always, a soldier or two or five is sitting on the steps outside the main garden gate of the Austrian Hospice. (REMEMBER: I think you can click on each picture if you would like to enlarge it on your screen, seeing it in a scale larger than it is simply shown here.) I almost knock them over whenever I open the door, and again, I'd hate to bump them too unexpectedly, expecting their fingers may be resting gently on their machine-gun triggers. (I sleep soundly, knowing that I am likely better protected than most elected officials.)

In fact, the soldiers congregate in this small little intersection as it is relatively central to everything in the northern section of the Old City. The Via Dolorosa cuts from right to left in the picture, and the Al-Wad passes right in front from the top of the photo to the bottom. Again, realize these are hardly main arteries as we might know them. These would be no more than alleys in Minneapolis or St. Paul. Cobblestone, tight-quartered, semi-straight alleys of a centuries old city.

They also seem to have an ever-present supply of food nearby. After one moved for me to get up, he wandered over and picked out his morning ration. They all seem to be relatively friendly, and I occasionally engage them in a brief chat. The majority of them are still 18-22 year-old young men.