Brother Zachary Marino, Delta Upsilon/Arizona State University 2014, a Criminal Justice and Criminology major, had the opportunity to experience a 'one-of-a-kind' Study Abroad adventure this summer. Read on as Brother Marino shares memories of his Study Abroad in Israel. The photos show the Israel Paratroopers Memorial in Tel Hai, a sign on an electrical fence that surrounds a city in Israel, a bomb capsule in Old Jerusalem, a soldier on patrol around the city of Old Jerusalem, a warning sign that says "beware of rockets in the area" in the city of Ashdod, which is very close to the Gaza Strip, a watch tower at one of the gated entrances from Israel to Palestine, and the top of Masada which overlooks the Dead Sea. Jordan can also be seen from this height.
This study abroad was not a typical study abroad program. What I mean by this is... we did not study in classrooms and we did not study with other students from Israel. It was a small group of students from Arizona State University in Israel to learn about the Israeli's counter terrorism defense tactics.
Since I was a child I have always wanted to travel around the world and see different places, when I found a program that offered credits towards my major for traveling. I was surprised at first but signed up, soon finding out that we were going to Israel for the summer to study counter terrorism intelligence just made it even better.
When going to a different country there are drastic cultural differences, Israel was a sweeping culture shock for me. The patriotic benevolence that was in the society was defiantly striking as different from the US. Israel has a mandatory service in the army, women two years and men three years. (You could imagine walking around the city at night and seeing heavy machine guns strapped to a nineteen year old soldier’s backs).
The Israeli's living quarters are similar to public housing in the US. Israelis live with most of their families in one house. Very rarely do families split up. Usually a few generations live in one home.
There were a few times when I felt a little uneasy about being there, we had traveled to the Gaza Strip borders which is a heavily guarded area. There have been stories in the news about bombings and rockets being shot over the border every month and Israelis are being murdered in cold blood. These news stories are accurate there are many rockets that get shot off daily in cities like Ashdod, as well as bombings that do happen in the city of Jerusalem. If there was any sort of attack on our group, we had guards following us at every place we visited.
I must say that one of the greatest experiences I had was being able to swim in the Dead Sea, this was amazing being able to literally float on top of the water because of the vast amount of sodium contents. This was an immense trip, it was a great experience and I really have learned a lot about cultural differences and terrorism intelligence.
Zachary Marino,
Vice President, Delta Upsilon/Arizona State