I grew up in a poor neighborhood, hung out with a bad crowd and was in an extremely toxic relationship. My immigrant parents, who didn't have the tools or knowledge to help me, asked me to enlist in the army - in hopes that my service would be a ticket out of the neighborhood. My incentive was qualifying for the increased release grant combatants were entitled to. Terms such as "the occupation", "apartheid" and even "Palestinian" meant little to nothing to me, much like the vast majority of soldiers serving the checkpoints. Soon enough I found myself serving in the Tulkarem checkpoints. Most of the soldiers came from poor neighborhoods and difficult backgrounds. The only thing we cared about was our own survival. Morals were the luxury of elitist rich-kids, and those were never recruited to the checkpoints.