[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Question for Jewish GIs. (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 12/25/2011 12:03:16 PM EDT
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Some time ago when the GWOT started the services offered Jewish service members the option of changing their religion on their dogtags in case they got taken Prisoner.
I heard some idiotic Jewish group consisting of a group of intellectuals bellyached but I digress. The services offer stood. Anyway, I would be curious as to how many Jewish service people did change their dogtags. |
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I considered it but in the end decided against it..
End of the day, gonna die who I am. As I was often the only american around when I was in combat, my 9mm was for me. I had no intent on being captured. My biggest fear was just getting ambushed and tackled before I could kill myself. Mind plays tricks with you. In a way, knowing that death wasn't the worst thing to happen was somewhat liberating. |
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I don't know of any one who has done that, and to be honest, if they were captured by taliban, i don't think its gonna make the slightest difference what religion they have on their dog tags. True enough. The rules for combat in Afghanistan haven't changes since the Brits fought at Khyber Pass. Save the last round for yourself. |
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I served five years in the Corps and do not recall serving with anyone who claimed to be Jewish. Foster was Jewish. I never looked at his tags but he had a large Star of David tatoo. I don't think most people knew he was Jewish. Sgt. Foster Harrington, USMC http://militarytimes.com/valor/marine-sgt-foster-l-harrington/370952 Mrs. Evan Williams decorating his gravesite. 
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hmm very interesting, havent heard of this but I guess it sounds plausible.
Does anyone know if the 'accepted' Religous preference for a Jew is still marked Hebrew on modern tags? I cant imagine any self resepcting Jew would ever consider something like this and be able to call himself a Man and a Solider at the end of the day however. If it were me I'd wear them proudly and if anyone ever asked me why a simple cause fuck them that's why would more than cover it. I am willing to accept death however it is eventually brought to me, but I plan to do it on my feet. Plus at the end of the day, if when they are cutting your head off with a dull blade because you are an evil western occupier and a solider fighting for the great satan, does it really matter if they do it while calling you a filthy Jew Zionist or they don't? When those fucking animals were standing in that packed city center busy raping and molesting Laura Logan as she screamed out in agony and begged for help they were to busy calling her a Jew whore and a zionist spy for anyone to be able to even hear her. Of course it makes no difference that Ms. Logan is of course not a Jew at all. When Egypt was to fucking stupid to close down the beach after a series of like 4 shark attacks occurred in the same 200 square meter section of water 3 days in a row, the Egyptian Intelligence service 'could not say with certainty that it wasn't the work of a Zionist plot' they accused the fucking shark of being a jewish assassin for gds sake, what difference could it possibly make at this point. Things always get kinda hinky whenever the M.E., Judaism and the US government get involved. For example I can thing of very few instances where US Citizens are able to legally serve in a foreign Military Service without fear of losing their American citizenship. I guess because this may be one of the few times where the .gov is sometimes willing to look the other way for a moment with these kinds of issues for the sake of all involved. I know that I was able to get an official duplicate copy of my Passport not to long ago even though everyone told me up and down the line that it was absolutely not possible unless you were a Journalist or carried a black or red passport or the like. I ended up getting one anyway, if for no other reason just because everyone said it was a myth and that it would never happen and that those days no longer existed. It did require me to make a short stop in D.C. on my way home from College one trip to present my application and explain my need in person however. The only difference now besides the stamps obviously is that one is marked US state Dept. and one is marked US Passport agency or whatever. the expiration dates are also different but I'd have to go check to be sure. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I served five years in the Corps and do not recall serving with anyone who claimed to be Jewish. Foster was Jewish. I never looked at his tags but he had a large Star of David tatoo. I don't think most people knew he was Jewish. Sgt. Foster Harrington, USMC http://militarytimes.com/valor/marine-sgt-foster-l-harrington/370952 Mrs. Evan Williams decorating his gravesite. http://farm4.staticflickr.com/4022/4656641403_d4c3992d3d.jpg  |
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When we started everything up back in 2001, much advice was given out. The general consensus was that people with "no preference" and anything remotely pagan ought to pick a generalized "christian" to put on their tags, since supposedly the "People of the Book" would be treated better than those without religion at all. We were told this by all sorts of cultural "experts", including some SERE-qualified instructors from the SF group on Fort Lewis. My choice? I'd had "no preference" on mine because I didn't really care what rite they performed over my corpse, so my thinking was "Meh... I'm dead. I could care less whether it's a Catholic or a Baptist ministering to me––I'm just glad someone will be there...". Unfortunately, my concept of "no preference" didn't match the reality of how that's perceived in the Islamic world––To them, it's tantamount to claiming atheism, because they can't conceive of someone not having an intense religious identity. This experience is supposedly backed up by practical experience, per the SERE guys. Where the hell they got it, I do not know, I just know what they told us. As a POW, a generic "Christian" who's a little unclear on the details is going to be treated better by your generic Islamic captor than someone who is seen as pagan, atheist, or Jewish.
Jewishness didn't come up as a faith, very often. For one thing, there aren't a lot of diligently practicing Jews in the armed forces––The majority of them that I knew were entirely secular Jews, who didn't pay much more than lip-service to the faith. I can recall more than a few conversations over bacon and ham in the DFAC where someone would casually mention "Oh, yeah... I'm Jewish, kinda...". Quite a few of the secular Jews chose to re-mark their dog tags as generically "Christian" as well. |
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I don't know of any one who has done that, and to be honest, if they were captured by taliban, i don't think its gonna make the slightest difference what religion they have on their dog tags. True enough. The rules for combat in Afghanistan haven't changes since the Brits fought at Khyber Pass. Save the last round for yourself. +1 - "The Young British Soldier" Rudyard Kipling "When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. Go, go, go like a soldier..." |
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I considered it but in the end decided against it.. End of the day, gonna die who I am. As I was often the only american around when I was in combat, my 9mm was for me. I had no intent on being captured. My biggest fear was just getting ambushed and tackled before I could kill myself. Mind plays tricks with you. In a way, knowing that death wasn't the worst thing to happen was somewhat liberating. I have to respect that. |
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I served five years in the Corps and do not recall serving with anyone who claimed to be Jewish. I served 4 years in the army and never met a single person of the Jewish faith. Edit: No offense to those who did. Just saying the numbers are small or those who did were quiet about their background. |
| I'm of Jewish heritage and now a Lutheran. Back in my younger days I had No Religious Preference on my dog tags. Then some years later when I was getting a new set made up for my mobility records I filled out the form and the Airman making up the tags saw I put down No Religious Preference and he said, "Yeah, I wouldn't put that down on there.". He said the same thing as stated earlier. If they get you and see you don't have some faith, you're going to be treated even worse. So I shrugged and put down Lutheran. |
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Quoted: I've met more officers than enlisted. One had an ACU pattern yarmulke. My dad was a USAF Chaplain for most of his 20 year career in the air force. He was Methodist, but he was friends with the Jewish Chaplains he worked with. We'd sometimes visit their houses to eat delicious Kosher meals with them.  I can't really recall ever coming across enlisted Jewish people, but I certainly remember Jewish officers.BTW, its nearly 20 year later and I'm still craving some of the stuff those Rabbis made at their houses. Kosher food is awesome IMO. I used to hang out in their kitchen and watch them make stuff from scratch. |
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I've met more officers than enlisted. One had an ACU pattern yarmulke. I saw one of those. It reminded me of a comedian: "I saw another Jewish guy on the street wearing a pink yarmulke. I walked closer, not only was it a pink yarmulke, it was made to look like a slice of watermelon. I think if God is so easy going that he tolerates your summer fun, pink watermelon yarmulke, he'd probably be cool with no yarmulke. Take that off your head, slap it on a picnic table, and put a glass of iced tea on top. Would you do that for me?" |
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No Religious Preference Really? Was that so hard? Mine say "No Denom" for no denomination. I've always debated learning as much about Islam as I can and then "faking the funk" and gotten a "Muslim" tag so I could lie and say I'm not a dirty infidel, but then I realized that that would take a lot of work and might get me on a list or something. |
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I served five years in the Corps and do not recall serving with anyone who claimed to be Jewish. I served 4 years in the army and never met a single person of the Jewish faith. Edit: No offense to those who did. Just saying the numbers are small or those who did were quiet about their background. I didn't know many Jewish soldiers when I was in the Army either. I can only remember two who openly spoke about being Jewish....one in Airborne school and the other was my roommate in Germany. He was the Best Man at my wedding three years after we ETS'd and we're still good friends. He used to joke about being the Army's "token Jew" (his words, not mine). Yep, I'm sure there were a few who just didn't talk about it, but you usually pretty much knew everything about the soldiers in your platoon. Spend enough time in the freezing rain, sleeping in the mud with any anybody and you get to know them pretty well. Religion wasn't a taboo subject by any means. Ironically, when I got out and was trying to find money for college I took a look through "The Scholarship Book". It lists thousands of scholarships. The vast majority of veterans scholarships were targeted towards Jewish veterans. Nothing wrong with that....most were offered by Jewish organizations, but I had to wonder what percentage of those Scholarships were utilized. |
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What are red tags? Allergies / other medical info Ah, thanks. Now the "stupid people" makes more sense. I never really thought of my red dog tag as the Army's version of the short bus. I just thought it meant I was allergic to penicillin.
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In WWII the designation for Jewish was "H" which stood for Hebrew. As far as not having it listed if you were heading for the ETO, you were issued your tags long before you shipped out. Even when you shipped out you weren't sure where you were going. Case in point.....my grandfather was issued a duffel bag full of cold weather gear before he boarded a troop ship to Europe in WWII. As soon as they got to sea they were told to dump it all overboard. No need for cold weather gear in the Philippines. OPSEC. I asked him about the Holocaust....he said for the most part none of them had any idea what the Germans were doing to the Jews. That wasn't made public until after the war and even then the US gov't tried to keep it quiet so there wouldn't be widespread opposition to rebuilding Germany. Doesn't surprise me, the US gov't tried to cover up what happened at Japan's Unit 731, too. |
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In WWII the designation for Jewish was "H" which stood for Hebrew. As far as not having it listed if you were heading for the ETO, you were issued your tags long before you shipped out. Even when you shipped out you weren't sure where you were going. Case in point.....my grandfather was issued a duffel bag full of cold weather gear before he boarded a troop ship to Europe in WWII. As soon as they got to sea they were told to dump it all overboard. No need for cold weather gear in the Philippines. OPSEC. I asked him about the Holocaust....he said for the most part none of them had any idea what the Germans were doing to the Jews. That wasn't made public until after the war and even then the US gov't tried to keep it quiet so there wouldn't be widespread opposition to rebuilding Germany. Doesn't surprise me, the US gov't tried to cover up what happened at Japan's Unit 731, too. The difference being that we wound up hanging or imprisoning a whole bunch of Germans (Including a few innocent ones, like Dönitz, Raeder, and Jodl.) and didn't even bother to charge a whole bunch of Japanese war criminals. 
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I considered it but in the end decided against it.. End of the day, gonna die who I am. As I was often the only american around when I was in combat, my 9mm was for me. I had no intent on being captured. My biggest fear was just getting ambushed and tackled before I could kill myself. Mind plays tricks with you. In a way, knowing that death wasn't the worst thing to happen was somewhat liberating. That's funny, you don't look Jewish. 
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I considered it but in the end decided against it.. End of the day, gonna die who I am. As I was often the only american around when I was in combat, my 9mm was for me. I had no intent on being captured. My biggest fear was just getting ambushed and tackled before I could kill myself. Mind plays tricks with you. In a way, knowing that death wasn't the worst thing to happen was somewhat liberating. Makes sense to me. |
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Years ago you could have "Non-Denominational" abbreviated as non-dom stamped on your tag if you wanted it You can have whatever you wanted on your dog tags as long as you can convince the joe behind the keyboard to type it in. Hell, I have two sets that were engraved instead of embossed b/c the local RC machine broke and they had to issue tags for an exercise deployment. |
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Quoted: Quoted: no one i knew wore dogtags anyway at the risk of that just being a quip.. considering the purpose of dogtags... thats not so smart. I didn't wear them either, too loud, too inconvenient. But that's why I got meat tags before the Navy gave me a ride to the war(s). |
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In WWII the designation for Jewish was "H" which stood for Hebrew. As far as not having it listed if you were heading for the ETO, you were issued your tags long before you shipped out. Even when you shipped out you weren't sure where you were going. Case in point.....my grandfather was issued a duffel bag full of cold weather gear before he boarded a troop ship to Europe in WWII. As soon as they got to sea they were told to dump it all overboard. No need for cold weather gear in the Philippines. OPSEC. I asked him about the Holocaust....he said for the most part none of them had any idea what the Germans were doing to the Jews. That wasn't made public until after the war and even then the US gov't tried to keep it quiet so there wouldn't be widespread opposition to rebuilding Germany. Doesn't surprise me, the US gov't tried to cover up what happened at Japan's Unit 731, too. The difference being that we wound up hanging or imprisoning a whole bunch of Germans (Including a few innocent ones, like Dönitz, Raeder, and Jodl.) and didn't even bother to charge a whole bunch of Japanese war criminals. More Japanese were jailed and charged with war crimes than Germans. If you count the various trials in addition to the Tokyo War Crimes trials (some nations held their own trials on their own prisoners, and US military tribunals were conducted separately from the War Crimes Trials by MacArthur prior to the post-war occupation), far more Japanese were executed. Plenty of Germans got a free pass as well, because it was "expeidient" for Uncle Sam. Justice and morality was elastic in both theaters. |
