U.S. Military Personnel Trained as Jewish Lay Leaders in Iraq

The article about Jewish military personnel in Iraq training as lay leaders caught my eye on www.jewsingreen.com – an online resource for Jews in the U.S. military.

I clicked on the link to the July 10^th article in the Jewish Daily Forward by Richard Tenorio titled “American Soldiers in Iraq Enlist in a Different Kind of Service.”

Here’s the beginning of the article:

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.

The complete article can be read at http://www.forward.com/articles/13753/

And what especially caught my eye was this comment on JewsinGreen.com in connection with this posted article:

So glad to see organized training like this. Maybe this can spread to other bases, not just in-theater spots.

Why was this article of so much interest to me? Because in May of 1971 my husband Mitch became the lay leader of the U.S. Army Jewish community in Munich, Germany, when the orthodox Jewish rabbi who served as the Jewish chaplain in Munich completed his three-year rotation.

Mitch had a Reform Judaism upbringing and didn’t, at that point, know very much. He was given no training. But he did have the support of a Department of the Army civilian lawyer, Philip Bernstein (z’l), who had retired in Munich and who was a very knowledgeable Jew with a beautiful singing voice. Many of my letters home to my family describe when either Mr. Bernstein or Mitch led Friday night services.

The idea of lay leaders actually being trained – Mitch just winged it – is a terrific one. And I hope that, indeed, Jewish lay leader training does “spread to other bases, not just in-theater spots.”

Show Support for Deployed Military Troops by Donating BOOKS!

In an April post on the Los Angeles Times’ blog “Jacket Copy,” Tony Perry -- who covers the military for the LA Times -- reported on books he had seen being read by Marines on bases in Anbar province in Iraq.

Perry said that one way to show public support for U.S. troops in Iraq is “by sending them books, lots of books.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information in the post, nor did I get a response from an email, as to how to go about donating books to deployed military personnel.

Frustrated, I turned to “Andi H,” the wife of an active-duty soldier who in 2006 partnered with Military.com to create www.SpouseBuzz.com -- “a blog written by military spouses for military spouses.”

Andi’s email reply was prompt: www.BooksForSoldiers.com. I clicked on the link, and I immediately discovered that the slogan for this website is “Care packages for the mind.”

Go to this website and learn how you can send donated books to military personnel deployed all over the world. (There’s even a place on the website for individual military personnel to request specific books.)

Then I got an email from the president of www.YourMilitary.com about a relocation website specializing in community information and “now in over 240 military markets.” When I clicked on that link, the home page had the song “Thank You” by Brad Avery of Third Day and friend Scott Thomas for sale by www.AMillionThanks.org,“with proceeds going to wounded soldiers and their families.”

I clicked on www.AMillionThanks.org and learned that Shauna Fleming founded this organization to encourage Americans to write individuals letters to military personnel. Besides instructions on how to do this, this organization’s website provides links to other organizations helping military personnel.

One such link is to www.AnySoldier.com. This project started in August 2003 as a family effort to help soldiers in one Army unit. On January 1, 2004, the effort was expanded to include “any member of the Armed Forces in harm’s way.” Letters and packages are sent to military volunteers stationed in areas in harm’s way and addressed “Attn: Any Soldier.” Then these volunteers put the letters and packages into the hands of soldiers “who don’t get much or any mail. Everything is shared.”

Regardless of your opinion on the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, you can support individual U.S. military personnel throughout the world by sending books or thank you cards or letters or packages. Do show your support in some way for the people who serve to protect us.

(For more organizations that help military personnel and their families, go to my website at www.mrslieutenant.com and click on “support military families.”) Thomas

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Support for War Widows – Vietnam vs. Iraq and Afghanistan

I was reminded today of one of the most dramatic differences between the Vietnam War and the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. This difference is the same thing that enables me to write this blog:

The internet.

In an article on the website milspouse.com, Nikki Lomax-Larson writes about a young wife – identified only as Emily -- who two years ago at age 22 became a widow after being married less than a year. Emily’s deployed husband had been on patrol handing out pamphlets to encourage Iraqis to vote when a sniper’s bullet killed him.

The new widow posted a thread titled “My DH was just killed,” and the other members of the military spouse board responded online with comfort. Some of these other wives drove or flew in to attend the funeral.

Back in 1970 this online support would have been a thing of science fiction novels. And while the military personnel and families of that time would have been supportive, away from a post a new widow might have found little support from a country filled with anti-war protesters.

The additional beauty of the internet today is that two years later Nikki Lomax-Larson can write that Emily “graduated from college, landed her first real job, bought a house and started dating again.” And now Emily is engaged to be married.

Imagine if the internet had existed during the Vietnam War! It could have helped the widows of the Vietnam War as much as it is helping the families of deployed military personnel today.

Read the entire article at www.milspouse.com/young-widow.aspx