By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – In honor of the centennial of the Armistice that ended World War I, members and friends of the Tifereth Israel Synagogue Men’s Club on Veteran’s Day Sunday hoisted a fresh American flag up the flagpole, pledged allegiance, sang “God Bless America” (composed by Jewish immigrant Irving Berlin), told of their service in and for the U.S. Armed Forces, and observed a moment of silence for fallen veterans.
The ceremony, emceed by Korean War veteran and Purple Heart recipient Bob Holloway, was held in the flag and memorial garden of the Conservative synagogue alongside its main parking lot. It illustrated the many ways that American Jews have participated in the defense of this country and in the care and support of military personnel and their families.
Holloway, who was injured in battle as a Marine Corps enlisted man, asked veterans who are members of the congregation, to tell their names, branch of service, and mention any of their particular duty assignments.
Among those who responded were:
Dr. Bill Sperling, a pulmonologist and lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy from 1965 to 1970. He was at the Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe, Hawaii, in the Medical Corps.
Dr. Bill Friedel, an Air Force captain and urologist, was at Fort Dix, and served in Vietnam where he was awarded a Bronze Star. He later was posted at Fort Ritchie, Maryland.
Dr. Ed Cherlin, a Navy lieutenant commander and psychiatrist, who was assigned to the U.S. Public Health Service’s contingent with the Bureau of Prisons in Oklahoma.
Dr. Dick Braun, a Navy surgeon, served alongside the Marine Corps in 1964 and 1965 in Vietnam, and later was assigned to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Balboa Park.
Don Chafetz, a 1962 graduate of West Point, who was stationed with the 24th Infantry Division in Munich, Germany, where “our job was patrolling the Iron Curtain.”
Steve Mishek, a former lieutenant and Navy pilot, who was based aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in the 1980s. Normally assigned to the Western Pacific (WestPac), the Enterprise patrolled the Persian Gulf at a time the Iranians were harassing shipping off the Strait of Harmuz. “We flagged a Kuwaiti tanker, so we could defend them, and we did in fact have to go up into the Straits and there was some shooting, and the USS Enterprise was involved in that.” He was separated from the service in 1989.
Jay Shirley, a recruit at the Great Lakes Training Center on the northside of Chicago, who was injured during basic training in 1961, and was given a medical discharge.
Kurt Walther, a six-year veteran of the Army Reserve, who served with special services. Later he transferred to the Navy, serving aboard the USS Ranger during Operation Desert Storm. “We were the first ship to go into the Persian Gulf during that war, with two British destroyers, and we went in to test the waters to see if we would be blown out of the waters. The [USS] Midway came in to relieve us, and they told us about that after we left.
Alan Goldenberg, a Navy electronics technician who served from 1968 to 1976, with two years in Japan, four years on the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima, which after the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt, participated in removing mines from the Suez Canal. “It was a proud moment for me, and I was happy to do it.” Goldenberg now works as a civilian electronics repairman for the U.S. Defense Department.
David Schlickman, a U.S. Naval officer for the first half of the 1980s. “The most surreal place I ever was, was at a desert airfield in Oman, just sitting around in the middle of nowhere, waiting for a helicopter to come before nightfall, because after nightfall you could be arrested. We weren’t allowed to be there overnight. I remember twilight and the stars were coming out and me and all the others were getting a little worried, and all of a sudden, we noticed that one of the stars was blinking. Finally, the helicopter landed and took us away.” Schlichman wore a hat from the destroyer, USS Ingersoll to the ceremony.
Judith Springer said that “during the Vietnam War, Travis Air Force Base was the place where so many people went out and unfortunately came back wounded. Teaching there, I dealt with the families that were left behind and the hardships that they faced. It was really, really a difficult time.” She recalled that at earlier Veterans Day celebrations, John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Field, used to be read publicly. The first stanza said: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow/ Between the crosses, row on row,/ That mark our place, and in the sky, /The larks, still bravely singing, fly, / Scarce heard amid the guns below.” Springer noted that whereas once crosses identified the graves of all the dead, the U.S. government subsequently replaced those crosses with Magen Davids for Jewish war dead.
Bob Holloway was an enlisted man in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1951 to 1954. He served in forces that “chased the Chinese and the North Koreans out of the [South Korean] capital city of Seoul,” and later escorted Korean President Syngman Rhee back to Seoul. On February 25, 1953, Holloway was wounded in action, and following medical treatment and recuperation, he returned to civilian life as a combat-wounded Marine. The license plate on Holloway’s car recognizes him as a Purple Heart recipient.
Tifereth Israel Synagogue’s program director Beth Klareich noted that the synagogue currently is collecting diapers and toilet paper for the families of former interpreters and other in-country assistants for the U.S. Armed Forces overseas, who left their home countries for the U.S. because their lives were in danger. The collection, which will last through the end of November, is in behalf of the charitable organization, No One Left Behind.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com