I’m a contracted Army ROTC cadet about to head into my MS III year come the fall. It’s been a pretty great if tiring experience this past year and I only made the decision to contract part of the way through (I joined as a new MS II). Anyways I just wanted to introduce myself. The Jewish demographics of our BN are surprisingly high, and in our platoon I think there are 5 or 6 including myself. Though everyone seems to downplay it pretty heavily, including one or two who either completely reject or mask it. I know I’m the only one who attends services, though some of others still identify themselves as Jews.

Not that I’m complaining! Just commenting on my observations. I’ve become more religious on the past year or so, not a full blown Baal Teshuva but I’ve climbed the ladder from Reform and I go to Chabad services when I can. I was raised in a typical suburban Jewish family and we went to our local Reform Synagogue but all of a sudden that wasn’t doing it for me, which is strange for a lot of reasons… but I digress! I’m looking forward to my career in the Army, I’m hoping to branch MI or MP, but I can only work hard and cross my fingers. I’ll be proud in any job I get, though maybe not anything with too much math.

I was wondering about the prospect of being able to attend services at LDAC. The services have become something that I’ve come to value and being able to attend them would be great. I was guessing though that the likelihood of having Jewish services at LDAC were slim considering the composite of cadets. But I figured it was worth inquiring about. I was also wondering about why more Jewish soldiers don’t offer to organize lay groups, or if there was some way to do this at the posts they are stationed at. If I was at a post that had some Jewish soldiers but not available Rabbi’s or Jewish community would I be able to make the effort of trying to have a Jewish service? Are there restrictions on this? I think I’d just want to make sure I could maintain some of that connection and I know there are plenty of groups that offer to send materials to help you lead a service if thats the only option available.

If anyone has any other advice or things to say feel free to say them!

I just wanted to introduce myself glad to be on here.

Hey man. Ive got the same question as you, only concerning LTC this summer. Are going you on LDAC this summer or next? If your going next summer, we can try to work together and see if we can get something over there.
I grew up orthodox, speak fluent hebrew, and a grandson ofa Holocaust survivor, so Judaism will always be important to me. Im hoping being inthe Army will make me more proud to be Jewish and become even more religious then I am.I got turned off recently because of a polotical community that seems to only focus on converts or those with limited backgrounds, which isnt at all a bad thing, however ifyou grew up orthodox and went off the derech they seem to not care.
PM if you wanna discuss more.

Eli

Hey Eli I’m typing this on the fly from my phone so ill pm you later, but its great to hear frrom you. For me LDAC is next summer, but again look forward to talking soon!

Sorry about the enormous delay I kind of forgot about my account, haha. But yes let’s discuss more, obviously there is no way of knowing when either of our Reg dates would be but we can try and inquire as to what would be possible. Do any members on here have any experience with that?