zum sein oder nicht

In my years of military service I have had the pleasure to serve with men and women from all segments of American society. I have also encountered my share of bigots one of these sticks in my mind as we approach Yom-Kippur I will not mention his name because after all I wouldn’t want to out him as the ignorant boob he is. We were deployed at Ft. Carson Colorado and many of us had just returned from leave. So this Sergeant walks up to me and shows me his new hunting knife and strike me dead on the hilt was what appeared to be a swastika. On closer examination it turned out to be the 45th infantry division’s old insignia and Indian symbol for good luck. But the knife itself was an exact replica of a Hitler youth knife. This really bothered me so I emailed and then called my Rabbi in Colorado Springs she of course had never dealt with such an issue before. I then talked to my squad leader and as I told him what happened he actually got really angry so he then went to the Sergeant major who told me that “you can’t be religious because you curse” This had little to do religion as far as I was concerned; this guy decided for whatever reason that it would be humorous to flaunt a symbol of tyranny in my face, after all everyone know I am Jewish and at times rather vocal about having time off to go to a synagogue. I can’t get kosher MRE’s without kvetching to someone outside of my chain of command, but this moron can decide what level Yiddishkeit I can or can’t display. He then goes on to tell me that I shove my religion down the throats of others, hmmm sounds like a bit of projection going on to me. I constantly have to deal with references to Jesus this and Jesus that. But if I try to educate people on why we Jews do the things we do then I am forcing my opinions on others. Now that I am back in Oklahoma and just a Guardsman I still can't get kosher rations I still have violate the Shabbos at least once a month and still have to deal with people who seem for all intensive purposes to be Stuck On Stupid.