I write this on Veterans Day, 11/11/11, which for years after World War I was known as Armistice Day, marking Nov. 11, 1918, when the Great War, the “War to End All Wars” came to an end. As we all know, the First World War did not, as hoped by the idealistic President Woodrow Wilson, “make the world safe for democracy,” as horrific dictators like Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi would rise in the years since the Armistice. 

And so it is better to call this event Veterans Day, and it is appropriate to reflect with gratitude on those who have donned the uniforms of all branches of our armed forces to put their lives on the line to protect these shores and to resist the forces of tyranny and terrorism through our over two centuries of history. Of course we especially remember and thank those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, dying on battlefields around the world to serve their nation with valor.

The Jewish War Veterans USA, which has a very active Missouri Department serving greater St. Louis, is one of the oldest and largest veterans organizations in American history. Thanks to the efforts of the JWV, in cooperation with local Jewish Boy Scouts, American flags are placed on the gravestones of all known Jewish war veterans in all cemeteries in the St. Louis area, and the JWV holds a very moving annual ceremony marking Memorial Day.

American Jews have served, fought and died in all wars in American history, from the Revolutionary War up to and including the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. As reported by our Editor Ellen Futterman, U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Roslyn Schulte of St. Louis, was killed in action in Afghanistan on May 20, 2009. She was the daughter of Robert and Susie Schulte of Ladue. Recently, Lt. Schulte was memorialized on the Jewish National Fund (JNF) Wall of Honor at Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem, where Jewish soldiers around the world are honored for their courage while fighting in defense of their countries.

We have living among us numerous Jewish veterans of our nation’s various conflicts, including Allen Sabol, who served as a U.S. Army Air Forces pilot over Europe in World War II, whose plane was shot down. He became one of a group of Jewish prisoners of war in a Nazi German POW camp.

He shared his experiences with local Jewish historian Burton Boxerman in a 1985 interview for the Jewish Light. Sabol was often sent on bombing missions over Germany as a tailgunner in a B-24, part of a 10-member crew, consisting of four officers and six enlisted men. In a mission near Kiel, Germany, a combination of German war planes and ground fire forced the entire crew to bail out over enemy territory. He was taken into custody and transferred to a POW camp in northeastern Germany, which housed some 10,000 men.

Eventually, as the Russian Red Army was closing in on one side and the British on the other, the prisoners were forced to leave the camp on a harrowing march in which the guards “were always testing” the troops, Sabol said. Eventually Sabol was repatriated.

Locally, the Jewish War Veterans honored former Jewish POWs in a moving ceremony. In addition to Sabol, the late Gerald R. Rimmel, whose plane had also been shot down over Germany, was among those honored.

I can recall an especially moving reunion, which the Jewish Light arranged by telephone between a former Jewish G.I. and a British girl who looked up to him. Jack Meyer, a young soldier from St. Louis, was stationed in Great Britain on the eve of the Normandy Invasion in 1944. He was taken in by a Jewish family for Shabbat dinners and holidays. The child in the household was then 10 years of age, and greatly looked up to the handsome Yank G.I. Jew in his American uniform. Years later, she wrote a letter to the editor of the Jewish Light seeking information on his whereabouts. Eventually, his brother located him, and the Light was able to put the two in contact with each other via a telephone hookup while she was on a trip to the U.S.

Meyer was interviewed for the Light by the late Irv Breslauer, past commander of the local JWV, who served his nation in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

There are many, many stories of our Jewish men and women in uniform, far too many to include in a single Cohnipedia column. But please join me in saluting and warmly thanking all of our Jewish War Veterans and their non-Jewish comrades in arms who have protected this nation and served it with valor since its very inception.