LOOK: Pinay joins Israeli army unit that rescued her grandmother

Reuters

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2017/news/05/11/051117-israel1.jpg"/><figcaption><div class="embed-desc">Joana Chris Arpon, an Israeli soldier from a search and rescue unit, whose parents immigrated from the Philippines, looks on during a drill at Tzrifin military base in central Israel on Wednesday. <cite>Amir Cohen, Reuters</cite></div></figcaption></figure></div><p>JERUSALEM - Filipina Joana Chris Arpon&#x27;s unusual journey to becoming one of the few non-Israeli and non-Jewish volunteers in Israel&#x27;s military began with an earthquake - in the country her parents migrated from.</p><p>The disaster in 2013 struck a region where Arpon, an Israeli-born Filipino, had relatives. Amid the chaos, a search and rescue unit of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) was dispatched to provide disaster relief, and ended up rescuing her grandmother.</p><p>&quot;Then I chose to serve in the same unit that saved her,&quot; Arpon told Reuters.</p><p>She has since been honored by Israel&#x27;s president as one of the country&#x27;s most outstanding soldiers and was recognized at a festive ceremony last week.</p><p>Arpon&#x27;s service is all the more unusual for the fact that, as the daughter of economic migrants from the Philippines, she is not an Israeli citizen - though she hopes to change that.</p><p>&quot;I hope for myself to be an Israeli (citizen), to have it, and also to help other people in other countries as I do here in the army,&quot; she said. </p><div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2017/news/05/11/051117-israel2.jpg"/><figcaption><div class="embed-desc">Joana Chris Arpon (L), an Israeli soldier from a search and rescue unit, whose parents immigrated from the Philippines, helps evacuate her comrade during a drill at Tzrifin military base in central Israel on Wednesday. <cite>Amir Cohen, Reuters</cite></div></figcaption></figure></div>

<p>Filipina Joana Chris Arpon's unusual journey to becoming one of the few non-Israeli and non-Jewish volunteers in Israel's military began with an earthquake - in the country her parents migrated from.</p>

Filipina Joana Chris Arpon's unusual journey to becoming one of the few non-Israeli and non-Jewish volunteers in Israel's military began with an earthquake - in the country her parents migrated from.

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LOOK: Pinay joins Israeli army unit that rescued her grandmother

LOOK: Pinay joins Israeli army unit that rescued her grandmother

Reuters

Published May 12, 2017 04:17 AM PHT

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Israel

Joana Chris Arpon

military

Israel Defence Forces

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