On 13-Nov-2006, "cindys" <cstein1@rochester.rr.com> wrote:

<flaviaR@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:ej9fk9$69e$1@falcon.steinthal.us...

On 12-Nov-2006, "cindys" <cstein1@rochester.rr.com> wrote:

You were a ROTC???? Wow! That is really impressive.

Gee, I don't think so.
To me what was impressive was the way I got out of it when
I realized that no one respected my right to be a Jew.

-----------
Are you willing to share the story?

It's not that big a deal.
My fellow classmates - future military commanders and my supposed
comrades-in-arms - decided on a weekend exercise that we were all
going to church. They didn't call it church, but when a preist leads the
services and invoked Jesus, only a moron would conclude it wasn't church.
And when I said that I couldn't go to church I was told, "Well, you're not
getting out of it." I decided to go but lay down in the back & take a nap.
And I decided right then & there that any military career I might have had
was over. So I "flunked out" by simply not showing up to any more classes
I have to tell you that i was a little scared, because I did sign a
contract to
go into the Army. But I also know that they had no right to do what they
did,
would undoubtedly keep doing it, most likely because of things like the
captain who asked me, out of 40-some cadets and the only open Jew, to
help decorate the HQ for Xmas, and who told *me* I was being "hardline"
when I said "I think you've asked the wrong cadet, sir." (Not, for instance,

"No, sir, I am not going to violate the Constitution by spending taxpayer
money on the religious observacnes of one group" - like I felt like saying,
just a simple reminder that his request was out of line, if not downright
rude). It was, however, most likely that incident that kept them from doing
anything at all. Perhaps they sensed that if they pushed it, they would have
been the ones facing an inquiry, not me. And I would have been the one
with the lawyers from the ACLU & The ADL sitting beside me. In the
end, all I got was an impersonal general discharge letter. End of drama :-)

Suzy