When I was Jewish

In the spring of 1984, somewhere in the Pacific, the Jewish sailors of the US Navy's Battle Group Bravo gathered for the Passover meal onboard the USS Kitty Hawk, the battle group's aircraft carrier. Among the signalman of the USS Lewis B. Puller, Seaman Oseas and I donned our cranials-- US Navy flight deck head protection-- and vests and goggles, and we stood by on the Puller's helo deck as a big CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter hovered overhead. A crewman dropped a cable with a loop in it down to the flight deck, and one of the Puller's boatswain's mates grabbed it and waved me over. I ran, head low, through the windstorm created by the helicopter's twin rotors. The Boatswain's Mate jammed me into the loop and I was jerked upwards into the air, spinning around until the helicopter crewman pulled me onto the ledge of the machine's open hatch. I was dragged inside as the loop was lowered to pick up Seaman Oseas and the other Jewish sailors from the Puller. In all, we numbered only a handful. Once we were all safely seated on the CH-46, another Boatswain's Mate on the helo deck spun his hand around, then extended his arm, index finger pointing, to send the raucous machine away. It lifted and turned and I got a good view of the entire battle group in formation, and though it seemed large from the signal bridge, it seemed insignificant from the air, backdropped against the vast Pacific ocean. I looked at my Jewish shipmates, and among them, only Oseas also seemed to be enjoying the view. The others kept their eyes cast downward. After a short flight of just a few minutes, we landed on the flight deck of the Kitty Hawk. We were quickly shuffled off the CH-46 -- every aspect of navy flight ops is fast-- and we scurried out from beneath the windstorm of the big rotors. Once at a safe distance, we removed our flight gear, gave each other a dazed look, and heard a voice from the heavens.
"Shalom," it said, like a voice from God in a Biblical Hollywood film. Then it said, "Welcome to the USS Kitty Hawk."
In fact, the voice was from the Kitty Hawk's Commanding Officer, who was godlike if not God. It was delivered over the ship's 1MC-- the intercom system-- and was not from heaven after all. Nevertheless, we were awed to hear the voice, as it meant our arrival was deemed to be of special importance.
We were ushered off the flight deck and into one of the ship's wardrooms, which are usually meant only for officers to dine in. We were seated at a long table with other Jewish sailors from the battle group, and eventually a Jewish officer from the Kitty Hawk seated himself at the head of the table. We waited in silence for him to speak, and when he did he spoke joyfully. He told us about the Passsover, as related in the Torah, and about the customs and traditions linked to the meal we were about to participate in, called the Passover seder. Questions were asked-- Why the unleavened bread? Why the bitter herbs? Why dipping twice? Why reclining? Answers were given. We ate matzah ball soup and gefilte fish and a hard boiled egg, among other things. There was singing. There was even a glass of wine.
It was a joyous occasion, and even Oseas-- who had not wanted to come as he was not a practicing Jew-- enjoyed the time there, and seemed even to find some pride in his Jewishness. I also took pride in my own Jewishness. It was like being a part of a big, worldwide family. I had never felt so Jewish as on this occasion.

The only problem was that I was not really Jewish.

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I may have wanted to be Jewish even when I was a kid. The Jewish kids that I knew all seemed to be smart, and friendly. 'Fiddler on the Roof' made me believe that Jewish people were very special, and that they were the underdogs, and that they could sing well, and that they took hardship graciously. They were tough without being arrogant. They were funny. I wanted to be Jewish.

I don't remember the '67 war so well, though I am sure my father and mother would have spoken about it, and I may have understood that the Jews in Israel were fighting for their very survival. Later, I learned about the holocaust, and I decided not to like Germans. In elementary school I was in one class with a German girl who spoke with a heavy German accent. I joined in when many of the kids in the class surrounded her at recess and taunted her. We made her cry, and the teacher had some harsh words for us later.

I remember what happened in Munich in '72. I remember the war in '74 even better. The Arabs were dogs. They were throwing around their weight with all of their oil, and they were going to drive the Jews into the sea. But the outnumbered Israelis prevailed, and I remember seeing the news on TV and thinking the soldiers of the Israeli IDF were admirable.

When I learned about the raid on Entebbe through a made-for-TV movie, I was sure the Israelis had the most admirable fighting force on Earth. And they were all in it together. Even the women were soldiers.

In my early 20's, after having spent several years in the navy drinking and carrying on like a sailor, I decided to get religion. I was a little fed up with Christianity and all of the hypocrisy behind it. I had a few days off from the ship and I rented a little hotel room and instead of throwing a party I got some books and spent the whole time reading alone. I read a book about Judaism and decided then and there that I was Jewish. I also decided that Jesus was a Reform Jew. Reform Judaism appealed to me the most but I also decided that once out of the navy I would go to Israel to live on a kibbutz, and I would join the IDF. As Reform Jews weren't considered real Jews by the Israeli government, I decided I would be a Conservative Jew, and once off the plane, I would also be an Israeli citizen.  I bought a Torah and a book explaining the Talmud and a big set of cassette tapes to teach me Hebrew. I was on my way to being Jewish. I even believed in God.

While still in San Diego, I secretly attended a Reform Jewish service. I sat in the back of a small group of sailors being led by a Jewish navy chaplain in song and prayer. I liked that it was an informal group. When the rabbi asked what the group should do for Hannukah, one of the sailors said, "Get a Christmas tree!" and there was laughter all around. After the service I asked the rabbi for a few minutes of his time. I told him I wanted to be Jewish.

"In what faith were you raised?" he asked.

"Methodist, I guess."

"So what's the matter with being a Christian?" he asked.

"I don't know... too much hypocrisy maybe."

"So what about Jesus?" he asked. "What's the problem with Jesus?"

I think I must have shrugged at this question without a word.

"See me in another year," he said.

Rather than being put off by this, I was encouraged-- it was like getting on a good team-- they didn't take just anybody.

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So when the word was passed a few months later that all the Jews in Battle Group Bravo were invited to the USS Kitty Hawk for the seder meal, I saw this as an opportunity. I went straight to sick bay, where the medical records were kept, and I asked the hospital corpsman for my medical record, and I found that part in it that listed my religious preference, which was indeed 'Methodist', and I took out a pen and scratched it out and wrote 'Jewish'.

"I thought so," I said. "Says here I'm Methodist when I'm Jewish."

"You're Jewish, Schroeder?"

"Oh yeah."

"Strange..." said the corpsman, looking over where I'd re-written my religious preference. He then put the medical record back in its file.

I then had to request permission to fly to the Kitty Hawk for the seder meal, and our commanding officer was one to know all about his sailors, and he knew I wasn't Jewish, but  I was granted permission to go anyway, and the CO never said a word about it to me.


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After my Jewishness became widely known, some of my friends just laughed, some shook their heads, a few thought it was interesting that I was now Jewish, and a few showed an ugly side.

In the chow line I stayed away from pork.

"The ethnic Jew don't eat pork no more," said Parker, from Tennessee, eliciting laughter.

I'd driven with him from Tennessee to San Diego when we were both on leave, but now he kept his distance.

In Guam some of us went for pizza after a day of SCUBA diving. I wanted my pizza without bacon.

"It's fucking stupid, this no pork thing," said one of my friends.

While at sea I chatted with another friend.

"Why do you want to be Jewish?" he asked. "Where I live you see these Jews and on Saturday they won't even push the button to get the green light to cross the street. Are you gonna be like that?"

Another friend, from North Dakota-- a quiet type who seemed a little insecure-- now seemed emboldened. "Hey Jew!" he would say whenever our paths crossed, and he would laugh.

Yet another jestingly said, "Yoodah! Yoodah!" and pointed at me when we saw each other. He was imitating a Nazi or something. 

But in Hawaii I went to a luau and met some Jewish guys there and I ate everything but the big pig and they said I was more Jewish than they were because they ate the big pig. They had seemed a little afraid to talk about their heritage in the beginning but after seeing my pride in 'being Jewish' they seemed to have a little more pride too.

In the meantime, I studied Jewish history, and how the wealthy Christians, in order not to dirty themselves with Mammon, would hand over their money to the Jews to manage it, and the Jews managed it well, and so got a reputation for being money grubbers, though the money grubbing was mainly for the benefit of the Christians. I learned about 2000 years of persecution that the Jews suffered at the hands of Christians, culminating in the Holocaust, and I learned about the Balfour Agreement and Britain's false promises to both the Jews and the Arabs, and I learned about Jewish terrorism against the British and the Arabs, and about Israeli Prime Ministers and politicians who were former terrorists, who had bombed hotels and massacred Arab civilians, and about the terrorism waged by Arabs against Israel, and about the wars and right up to what was then the present-- the invasion of Lebanon-- and I thought even then that that was the end of the IDF-- that the most moral army in the world was now just another invading army committing atrocities.

Then I got married to a Catholic and that was the end of my Jewishness. 


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Nevertheless, while living in Portugal for fifteen years, I was a defender of Israel. When a young student commented that all of the problems in the Middle East were caused by Israel, I lectured the class for 15 minutes on how Europeans had driven the Jews to Palestine, so that whatever problems were caused by the presence of Israel were problems created by the Portuguese and Spanish and British and Germans and all of Europe. When a friend said something about the Jews killing Jesus I spent a full two hours lecturing him on who really killed Jesus-- those who hate anyone undermining a status quo based on fear and intimidation and on false gods like Mammon or Emperor (or flag or nation...). He couldn't escape my lecture because he was getting a ride from me. He was trapped in the passenger seat. He still talks about the experience.

When I walked from Portugal to the Middle East as a statement of peace I carried two mainly symbolic petitions: one for Hamas to resist injustice (because it is injustice) with non-violent resistance, and the other for Israeli settlers to stop building settlements on Palestinian land. Time and again, through Spain, Morocco, France, Italy... Turkey and Egypt, I defended my petition for Hamas, as many people thought it unfair to ask Hamas to resist non-violently when Israel was so brutal in its use of force. Everybody signed the petition to stop the settlements, but fewer signed for Hamas to use non-violent resistance. I argued with them that if they really wanted peace, they would want Hamas to stop using violent means to remedy injustice.

Then I was refused entry in Haifa.

I said all the wrong things.

"Walking for peace.  Palestinian rights. Quaker. Wanted to walk through Syria. Walking to Egypt. In Turkey for three months. A friend in Iran. Not much money."

"But I love Israel!" I said. "I was even going to be Jewish once!"

"And now?" my interrogator asked, "Are you going to become a Muslim?"

I was refused entry at the Taba border crossing in Sinai too.

"Why are you coming to Israel?" I was asked.

"I have an invitation from an NGO that works with Bedouins in the Negev desert," I said.

They looked a little harder at their computer, then asked, "What happened in Haifa?"

Which essentially meant, "Go back to Egypt."

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Now in Germany, I was recently on a Facebook page that was supposed to be about making peace in the Middle East, but what I found it to be was a page on which Israelis and American Jews shout down anyone who suggests that Israel is at all to blame for the misery there.

With this recent Gaza massacre I have become inclined to completely disassociate myself from anything Jewish. Israelis have been openly and gleefully celebrating the deaths of children in Gaza.

In America, where people seem to be out of touch with reality regarding what is happening in the world, people nod and say, "Regretable, these things, but there will always be collateral damage in a war."

I must say that if any nation were to collaterally damage my family, by killing them, for whatever ideology or cause, I would be inclined to join whoever opposed that nation. Think about that. Your three year old daughter killed by some trigger happy punk in a tank or an airplane who says, "Whoops! Sorry!" Or even worse, your three year old daughter killed by this guy who says, "Yeah, well, she would have grown up to be a terrorist."

Anyway, as I say, I have become inclined to diss anything Jewish. But I won't do that. Though Israel seems to be a mean and ugly place right now, I will always love Judaism-- real Judaism-- just as I will always love real Islam, real Christianity, real religion of any kind.

And what is real religion? Real religion is about loving God and loving your neighbor, even loving your enemy.

Meanwhile, I would go back to that rabbi if I could-- the Reform navy chaplain that I talked to in San Diego--  and I would sit in for a service of his. Afterwards, I would remind him of what we talked about some 32 years ago, and if he asked me what my thoughts were now on becoming Jewish, I would tell him that I already am Jewish, and that Allah is for everybody, and that God is love.

On Bicycle Violence in the Netherlands

Since I began my fierce Facebook campaign for gun regulation in the US, I have challenged, and been challenged by many gun aficionados with many different arguments. Here are some of the arguments that NRA members and "Second Amendment" people have responded with:

1) FUCK YOU

2) Here is one for you Kenneth shit head: Germany early 1900's ADOLPH HITLER disarms the Germans, takes over their country, then STARTS WORLD WAR1. Who was the country that stopped that bastard from doing that? The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Suck on that fact you NAZI PIG.

3)  We as Americans love our guns thank you!

4) Kenneth Lawrence Schroeder you make me sick!! Stay the fuck out of the US you weak ass pos!

5) The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. -Thomas Jefferson


I believe these are all very good arguments for going grocery shopping with semi-automatic rifles slung over one's shoulder, and I had a difficult time responding to them. 

However, when I recently posted my admiration for the state of Rhode Island, which apparently has the strictest gun regulation, the lowest gun rate death per capita, and has recently divested from the gun industry, I was challenged by an old friend and lover of liberty in a new and unparalleled way. 

When are they going to stop bicycle violence in The Netherlands????  he asked.

I immediately Googled bicycle violence in the Netherlands to see if there was some news about a man beating another man to death with a bicycle. When my search produced no results, I searched further-- maybe it wasn't a whole bike being used to commit acts of violence-- a whole bicycle would make an unwieldy weapon-- maybe it was bicycle parts-- maybe there have been a series of mass bludgeonings to death in schools with the perpetrators using handlebars or forks or deflated inner tubes. But I found nothing. 

Then it occured to me that my thinking was wrong. By 'violence', my friend must have meant 'death' or 'injury'. And it occured to me that there must be a relatively high rate of bicycle deaths and injuries in Holland, given that so many people ride bikes there. What I discovered was that, indeed, in 2008, nine out of a million people were killed in Holland while riding their bike, compared to only two per million in the UK.  I couldn't find the statistics for bike deaths in the USA. By comparison, when I checked the statistics for gun deaths in 2011, in Holland it was about 5 deaths per million, while in the USA it was about 100 deaths per million. 

So I considered my friend's argument, which seems to be:  Both guns and bicycles are mere objects, and the use of either of them can result in death. 

It also seems that my friend chose bicycles in Holland to make this point, rather than, say, jelly beans (which can also kill if you choke on them)  because bicyles in Holland are thought of as good things by peace freaks such as myself. 

Yet, I am not convinced by my friend. I believe that it is also important to consider the purpose of an object. While both guns and bicycles can be used for sport, a bicycle is ultimately made for transportation, hence the wheels, while a gun is ultimately made to kill something, hence the bullets. Furthermore, the bicycle is a relatively passive mode of transport. Most of the cyclists who are killed on the road, are killed by cars, which are objects used for transport in a less passive way. Walk down the highway sometime, and you will understand.  

In any case, a  person on a bike intends to go from point A to point B. A person with a gun intends, at some point,  to shoot something or someone. 

So, to answer the question: When are they going to stop bicycle violence (sic) in the Netherlands????

My answer is that I believe the Dutch are working on it. They have very good bike paths there, and I believe they are serious about bicycle safety. And if everyone decides to ride a bike there, then aside from the resulting quiet and reduced carbon emissions and better health of the population, I believe bicycle deaths will be reduced, as there will be fewer cars to kill cyclists. 

But my question remains: When are we going to stop gun violence in America?



 




 
   

Nothing like a Taco and a Glock 9 mm

I was in Stephanville, Texas the other day, and I'd gotten a nice Bacon Ranch Monster Taco and a Coke to wash it down, and I sat down to eat and enjoy the air conditioning, and I laid out my meal, and slapped my Glock 17 9 mm short-recoil-operated locked breech semi-automatic pistol on the table, and I thought I was in heaven, with that taco and my Glock there-- food for my belly and food for my soul-- and I praised the Lord and only when I glanced around did I notice that something was wrong.

I'd heard little whimpers and my peripheral vision had caught the movement all around but it had been stealthy movement, so only when I glanced around did I notice the abandoned burgers and whatnot on the tables, and the mom's running outside with their children in their arms, and dad's behind them, sheltering them, or ahead of them, already in the driver's seat of their cars. Then I saw employees of the very same Jack in the Box in which I had been savoring my good fortune sprinting out the doors. Why, I even saw that pleasant young lady who had served up my taco running with fear on her face and tears in her eyes.


Now, I am a veteran, the reader should understand, so I am prepared for these kinds of things at all times. And as a firearms owner, I mentally run it through my mind how I will react to situations like this. I drill myself constantly, asking myself questions like, "If they come in through the window, where is it best to place my Glock so that I can get it quickly and discharge the weapon?" or, "If they come in at night and I am sleeping, is it best to have my Glock loaded and under my pillow?" or even, "If I am having a monster taco at Jack in the Box, where is the best place to sit so I can see when they come in to rob the place or to do a mass shooting"? And having rehearsed that particular question in my mind a dozen times, and answered it, I was now seated in that very spot-- yet, I did not see the armed gunman who had come in to commit his foul deed, and who had caused everyone to run for their lives. 

I picked up my Glock and held it gently in my right hand while using my left palm to support the weapon from beneath its handle. I crouched and scanned the empty restaurant. Where was the bastard? I felt myself flush with... fear? No. Adrenalin. Adrenalin tempered by the knowledge that I had my weapon. I had trained with it for this very moment. It was up to me. It was all up to me. I stood just for a moment to wave to a few people in the parking lot, who were peering from behind cars. I wanted to let them know they were safe, that I had everything under control. I wondered how many of them were gun control liberals, and I wondered if they would change their minds now.

There was a noise on my right, movement, a door. I swung towards it and discharged my Glock, all 28 rounds from my G17 magazine. There was silence after the eight second barrage. I was sure I had got him. Then, a whimper.

"I surrender! I surrender!" a voice called out from behind the waste bins. I knew by the voice that the bastard was scared. I ejected my clip and inserted my smaller 10 round reserve clip. I chambered a round and I cautiously approached the waste bins, weapon extended, finger on the trigger.

"Please don't shoot me," said the coward.

"Slide your weapon out across the floor," I said evenly.

"I haven't got a weapon," he said with a trembling voice. Yeah, right, I thought.

"SLIDE YOUR FUCKING WEAPON ACROSS THE FLOOR NOW OR YOU'RE DEAD!" I said.

Then he began to sob like a baby.

"It's me, it's me..." he said.

What was that supposed to mean-- It's me. Who?

Then, the sirens. As always, the cops are way too late, I thought. This is why, I thought-- this is why we have our right to bear arms.

Then, two furry arms raised high above the waste bins.

"I surrender," said the sobbing voice. "It's me, Simeon, don't shoot."

"Simeon?" I asked.

And Simeon's chimp head appeared from behind the bins.

"It's me," he said.

"Simeon!" I shouted. "Get down! There's a gunman in this place! Get out! Get out now!"

"It's you," he said, almost crying. "You. You are the gunman."

"What? Are you deluded?" I asked.

Then the police barged in with their own drawn weapons. And they were pointing them at me.

Sigh.

What is the matter with these people?