What would motivate a successful corporate lawyer to trade in his comfortable life in America for three weeks every year to volunteer for manual labor on Israeli military bases? This book is based on journals he kept during 14 volunteer Sar-el stints on Israeli military bases from 2006 to 2019.

Mark Werner is a retired attorney in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife Arlene. A graduate of Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he served as Chief Legal Officer of GlaxoSmithKline (North America) prior to his retirement. Mark has volunteered on Israeli military bases for each of the past 18 years with no plans to stop. He is the author of a previous book describing his first four volunteer experiences, Army Fatigues: Joining Israel's Army of International Volunteers (Devora Publishing). He also edited his father's wartime memoir, Fighting Back: A Memoir of Jewish Resistance in World War II by Harold Werner (Columbia University Press). Mark is currently the President of Volunteers for Israel, the organization that enables him and other Americans to serve as civilian volunteers on Israeli military bases.