By Lt. Col. Jackie Brill Crothers, USAFR (retired)

In December of 2006 I retired from the Air Force Reserve after almost 30 years of service, both active duty and Reserves, enlisted and officer.  The last 15 years or so of my service was served at or from Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts as a squadron commander of four different squadrons; Services, Maintenance, Maintenance Operations and Logistics Readiness.  During that time I also spent six weeks as Deputy Commander of Moron AB in Spain.  While I am proud of the things I have done in my Air Force career, and grateful for having my life enriched so from all of these experiences, I am most proud of my family.

My husband served in the active duty Air Force for 24 years, as a Supply Superintendent and an In-flight re-fueler (boom operator) on a KC-135.

My Daughter, Beth, is a Tech Sgt with the Command Post at Westover.  This assignment follows six years of active duty during which she was stationed at Travis Air Force Base.  During that time, she did tours in Korea and Russia and was deployed three times to rather exciting destinations in the Mid-East, the last of which was in Iraq.

But we come from a long line of military service.  My mother, Frances Abrams (Brill) wanted desperately to serve after Pearl Harbor, but she was too young.  At that time, women were not allowed in the military until they were 21.  So, while she awaited her 21st birthday, she volunteered as a spotter in Boston.  From there she and her friend went to Connecticut to work at a Sekorsky aircraft manufacturing plant.  My Mom was actually “Rosie the Riveter!” She did finally enlist and was stationed in Tallahassee, Florida until the war ended.

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I asked Staff Sergeant Big Tobacco, the soldier who wrote a piece for the Mrs. Lieutenant blog, to help Jews in Green kick off its JiG Voices series.  He generously took the time while in theater to scribe the following piece for us.

I ask all to consider written, video, or audio submissions for this effort.  I had emailed the Jewish Lay Leaders listserv, and I believe it was passed around the chaplains listserv as well, but ultimately, I’d like to provide all portions of this web series to both the Library of Congress and the National Museum of American Jewish History, to help preserve Jewish American voices from the Global War on Terror.

“Sometimes it’s Easy”

I’m sweating.  My body is a fortress.  OITV armored vest, camelback, assault pack, a rifle with a million Gucci attachments.  Magazines loaded.  Equipment checked.  Batteries in.  CCOs turned on so the red dot in the middle of that site will gleam in the desert sun like a deadly jewel.  We are ready.

“Door on left!” I shout.  “Number one man going in!”

“Gotcha covered,” my team screams back.

I rock back and blast forward, doing my buttonhook in through the door, getting the hell out of the fatal funnel.  Target in front of me.  I put four rounds center mass.

“Room clear!  One target down.  Number one coming out,” I call to the men outside.

“Come out!”

I shoot through the doorway and take a knee on the far side of the building.

“I’m set!  Contact!  I yell.  One fifty meters.  Covering!”

I fire several controlled pairs downrange.

“Two and three,” I call back to my team.  “Move to the vehicle on the right!”

“Cover!” they yell.

“Got you covered, move!”

The two sprint one at a time to a vehicle twenty meters to my right.  When they reach the vehicle, they take cover and fire on my targets.

“Bee Tee!  Move to our location!” they cry when the targets go down.

“Moving!”

We continue this leapfrog for the next five minutes.  I go through five magazines.  At the end, my finger is aching from pulling the trigger and my body is slick with sweat.  It seems like I can’t drink enough water.

My platoon, who was watching the exercise from the bleachers, cheers as my team comes off the range.  I can’t light a cigar, range safety rules don’t allow it, but I do put one in my mouth.

“And that, my friends,” I say to my platoon, “is how you do that!”

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As a rule, this site tries to avoid commentary on Israel, but I read the eulogy delivered by Ofar Regev, brother of Eldad Regev, z"tl, and was incredibly moved by these words:

“I stand here today sad, crying, but proud; proud of my country that fought with me to bring you back, proud of every citizen who thought of you, Eldad, as his brother. I’m proud to belong to those who love and not to those who hate. And to the entire nation who paid a high price with clenched teeth, they know that camaraderie has no price.”

In my humble opinion, Samir Kuntar should have been strangled—slowly—a long time ago, but I’m glad that his release gave Israel the opportunity to demonstrate for the world that a Jewish state has a higher moral center than its neighbors.  Israel is a nation that will send a brutal murderer to a hero’s welcome while humbly receiving the bodies of warriors who gave all in the pursuit of their duties.

May they all come home soon.

UPDATE: In regards to a request, in the near future I’ll break out this list for Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Other/Unknown, with each list ordered alphabetically.  “Other/Unknown” could encapsulate garrison and Horn of Africa casualties, may there be none, so as not to diminish the sacrifice of any Jewish service member during the Global War on Terror.

I think it’s appropriate to remember our Jewish service members who have given all in the Global War on Terror.  If I missed any names, I do apologize.

For families of the deceased:  Ha’makom yenahem etkhem betokh she’ar avelei Tziyon vi’Yerushalayim.

1st Lt. Daniel Farkas, NY National Guard, New York
Senior Airman Jonathan Yelner, USAF, California
Sergeant Steven M. Budeysky, Army, Chicago
Captain Robert Michael Secher, Marine, Tennessee
Specialist Daniel Agami, US Army, Florida
Sergeant Howard Paul Allen, Arizona Army National Guard
Airman 1st Class Elizabeth N. Jacobson, Air Force, Florida
Corporal Albert Bitton, US Army, Chicago
Private First Class Colin J. Wolfe, Marines, Virginia
Specialist Benyahmin Ben Yahudah, Army, Georgia
Specialist Daniel J. Freeman, US Army, Cincinatti
Sergeant Michael Shackelford, US Army, Denver
Sergeant Alan D. Sherman, Marines, New Jersey
Captain Michael Tarlavsky, 5th Special Forces Group, US Army
Corporal Dustin Schrage, Marine, Florida
Lieutenant Seth Dvorin, New Jersey
Petty Officer Nathan Bruckenthal, Coast Guard, New York
1st Lieutenant David Bernstein, Army, Pennsylvania
Sergeant Foster Harrington, Marine, Texas
1stLt Andrew K. Stern, Marines, Tennessee
Cpl Mark A. Evnin, Marines,Vermont
Cpl Michael R. Cohen, Marines, Penn
LCpl Mark E. Engel, Marines, Colorado
Sgt Elijah Wong, Army, Arizona (Nat. Guard)
Sgt Aron C. Blum, Marines, Arizona
PFC Jacob S. Fletcher, Army, New York
SPC Jeffery Wershow, Army, Florida (Nat. Guard)
Major Mark Rosenberg, Army, Florida
Major Stuart A. Wolfer, Army, Idaho
1stLt Nathan M. Krissoff, Marines, Nevada
SPC Marc S. Seiden, Army, New Jersey

Editor’s note: It’s important for Jewish soldiers to consider lay leadership, especially if they are indeed strong as leaders and are capable of coordinating services (or even leading them).  If you have a rabbinical chaplain, your capabilities may be of great use for that chaplain as he leverages his duties to his unit against his duties to Jewish personnel.  If there is no Jewish chaplain, you can enrich your fellow Jewish service member’s lives.  Both the Jewish Welfare Board and Aleph Institute offer endorsement and resources for lay leaders.

American Soldiers in Iraq Enlist in a Different Kind of Service

By Richard Tenorio of the Forward
Thu. Jul 10, 2008

A Jewish chapel at the Al Asad airbase in western Iraq was the site of an unusual Jewish gathering that began on July 4.

Seven members of the American military had flown in from across Iraq for a precedent-setting training for Jewish leaders in that country. Iraq does not have much in the way of an indigenous Jewish population anymore, but the American military has brought scores of Jews to the region, most of them with little spiritual guidance.

To supplement the lack of rabbis in Iraq, one of the few Jewish chaplains in the country, Rabbi Jon Cutler, came up with the idea of training ordinary Jewish servicemen and -women to be lay leaders for other soldiers.

“People claim to be Jewish, and show up for High Holidays and leave it at that,” said 25-year-old Ari Jacobs, one of the participants in the event. “I kind of regret it. Now I can do services,” said Jacobs, who is a field medic at Al Taqaddum, in central Iraq.

Read more at the Forward.

G.I. Stein: Local Woman Heads for West Point
July 10, 2008 - Aaron Passman

It takes a lot of chutzpah to apply to just two colleges—especially when your safety school is Stanford. But that’s exactly what Anna Stein did, withdrawing her application there in December after receiving her appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.

“I want to serve my country,” said the teen. “For me, this is the most direct route to do that.”

The recent graduate of the Episcopal Academy in Merion reported for basic training on June 30, bringing only the essentials—socks, underwear and running shoes, among other things—with the academy taking care of providing the rest. She’ll spend the next seven weeks enduring “Beast Barracks,” the basic-training process when cadets make the transition from civilian life to the military. She will also spend a week at Camp Buckner, an encampment some 12 miles from the academy.

Read more at the Jewish Exponent.

Below is the URL to the guest post on my blog from a Jewish soldier now in Iraq.  I asked him to write about being Jewish in the military and he did a terrific job!

http://mrslieutenant.blogspot.com/2008/07/guest-post-from-iraq-people-like-him.html

SAN FRANCISCO—Jake Yelner thought he’d pulled a fast one on his mother.

He enrolled at Diablo Valley College near his hometown of Lafayette, in the East Bay—but he never showed up for classes. His mom finally busted him, dragging him to campus to prove that he wasn’t a student.

“He never went to school at all, that little brat,” Yolanda Vega recalled. “I gave him two choices: go back to school or join the military. And if you do join, I said, I’d love it if you joined the Air Force.”

Yelner joined the Air Force on Oct. 7, 2003, and more than once raised his hand to serve on dangerous missions.

A weapons crew load member, he volunteered to provide escort duty to contractors in Iraq and volunteered to be sent to Afghanistan this year for a program to help residents build roads and buildings and set up water supplies.

On April 29, Senior Airman Jonathan A.V. “Jake” Yelner, 24, was killed when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb near Bagram, Afghanistan, north of Kabul. He was assigned to the 28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D.

“He loved wearing the uniform. He loved serving his country,” his mother said. “I’m sure as a 24-year-old he had no idea he was going to die. He went to help the people of Afghanistan, to help build their homes. He’d say ‘Mom, I’m making a difference.’ “

Yelner, who was Jewish and Puerto Rican, attended Catholic schools throughout his childhood and graduated in 2002 from De La Salle High School in Walnut Creek. He also embraced his Jewish heritage and completed the bar mitzvah coming-of-age ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, his mother said.

More here.

See my blog post at MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL: JewsinGreen.com: U.S. Jewish Military Personnel Today – Part I

Writer Mindy Salazar speaks with Sarai Kashnow about the challenges of being a military spouse, the “toughest job in the military.”

Sergeant Joseph Kashnow, and his wife, Sarai, both in their twenties, did not have a typical “shanah rishonah” (first year of marriage). Only three months after getting married in January 2003, Joe was deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Far from family and her new husband, Sarai lived near the Fort Carson Army base, one of the few Orthodox military wives in the US Army.

The Kashnows have faced many challenges, yet they are proud of being able to serve their country without compromising their religious devotion. (An estimated 4,000 Jewish soldiers serve in the US Army, which has nearly 500,000 active members. That’s 4,000 who identify as Jews; there are, of course, those who choose not to identify as such.) When I sit down to talk with Sarai in her cozy apartment, she lovingly flips through the scrapbooks she made of Joe’s time spent in the Army, from basic training through his return from Iraq. The scrapbook is filled with photos of different Army bases, letters sent to each other, Joe’s order papers and newspaper articles about him and his injury.

On September 17, 2003, an explosion sent shrapnel through the floor of Joe’s Humvee, shattering his leg. Joe subsequently returned to the US and underwent a series of surgeries; unfortunately, he eventually lost his leg. Joe was awarded a Purple Heart for his heroism and, together with Sarai, established a special foundation to assist Jewish soldiers. The couple, who currently live in Baltimore, Maryland, have been blessed with a son.

Jewish Action: How did you meet Joe?

Sarai Kashnow: I knew Joe’s parents before I met him. I was living in Baltimore and I got to know the Kashnows, who were members of the community. They used to invite for me for Shabbos. I had seen pictures of Joe on the wall but I never expected to meet him. The Kashnows told me that Joe had signed up for the US Army and would be leaving for Kentucky for basic training. They asked me to write to him, and I said, “Great, I love the military; I’ll write letters to a soldier. Why not?” We sent three or four letters to each other. He came home and we decided to go out. After three weeks of dating, I knew I was going to marry him.

Continue reading here.