West Point Story: Fact or Fiction?

Factual Questions
1

My brother recently sent me this email and I am wondering if the part about not teaching the Jewish Wars at West Point is true? Any military people out there care to comment?

**
In 1974, Rabbi Asher Wade, a US Army chaplain, befriended a Jewish American officer named Stuart. Stuart did not strike him as being a religious man and so Rabbi Wade was surprised one day to see Stuart wearing a yarmulke. Upon questioning Stuart’s reasons for donning this unconventional attire, Stuart told Rabbi Wade the fascinating story behind it.

As part of their first year studies, cadets were enrolled in a course called “History of Military Tactics & Field Strategies,” taught be a Three Star Lieutenant General with a Ph.D. in military strategy. The course surveyed the major battles in history, including those of the Ptolemies, the Romans, the Middle Ages, and down to the latest battles of our modern era. During the final two weeks of the course, which were devoted to reviewing the material, Cadet Stuart raised his hand with a question, “Why didn’t we survey any of the battles fought by the Jews, either of ancient times (i.e. Roman-Jewish wars) or of modern times (i.e. Arab Israeli wars)?”

“The normally friendly general snapped back with an order for me to see him in his office after class,” remembered Stuart. Upon entering the general’s office, Stuart was ordered to close and lock the door. “The general then told me that he would only answer my question in the privacy of his office,” said Stuart.

“Don’t think that the staff here at West Point has left the Jewish wars unnoticed,” began the general, "We have examined and analyzed them and we do not teach them at West Point. According to military strategy and textbook tactics, the Jews should have lost them. You should have been swept into the dustbin of history long ago. But you were not. You won those wars against all odds and against all military strategies and logic.

"This past year, we hired a new junior instructor. During a private staff meeting and discussion, the Arab-Israeli wars came under discussion. We puzzled at how you won those wars. Suddenly, this junior instructor chirped up and jokingly said, ‘Honorable gentlemen. It seems to be quite obvious how they are winning their wars: G-d is winning their wars!’

Nobody laughed.

The reason is, soldier, that it seems to be an unwritten rule around here at West Point that G-d is winning your wars, but G-d does not fit into military textbooks! You are dismissed," concluded the general.

“I left the general’s office,” continued Stuart, “I had never been so humiliated in my life. I felt about two inches tall. Wouldn’t you know it,” I said to myself, “that I would have to come to West Point and find our how great my G-d is from a non practicing presbyterian three star general.”
**

2

You don’t really think this has a chance in H-LL of being true do you? If God won certain wars for the Jews then he also must have been responsible for the Holocaust also, or at least allowed it to happen. That just doesn’t sound right to me.

3

The story: I would say Fiction.
God helps people win wars: I would say more Fiction.

But I can’t really be sure can I. For all I know I’m just a brain in a vat running a simulation. But given reality as I percieve it exists I gotta say this is hogwash through and throuhg.

4

Darn, I thought this was asking about the Jimmy Cagney movie, where the cadets put on a song-and-dance show. That was pretty certainly false.

As is the e-mail in the OP, which has a strange resemblance to the similar Christian ones a friend of mine likes to send, but seem never to be substantiatable. Anyone who wants me to embrace their religion had better have so many true stories to tell that they don’t have to make anything up.

As to the story itself, it makes as much sense as not teaching about the Battle of Midway, since (as another story has it) no war-game simulation of it has ever been able to produce an American victory. The American God must be Jewish, huh?

5

This is total BS. It’s an UL that’s been around for years and I don’t believe a word of it.

I was taught as a child that there was only one “Supreme Being” and that all of the various religions really all refer to the same entity… or energy… or whatever you make of it… only in vastly different ways. So the Christians are praying to the same God the Jews are, and the Moslems are praying to the same God the Chrisians are etc. It made perfect sense to me and helped me resolve some pretty sticky problems when you look at all of the various religions on the planet and try to make sense of it all.

If that isn’t true then the whole “which religion is right” problem pops up and, of course, since you can’t prove that one religion is the “one and only true religion” they must all be right (as I have suggested) or none of them are right (as the atheists believe). So did God help the Jews at the expense of the Moslems? Why would he do that since they are all His children?

6

A couple of posts here asked about the reasons God would do somethings: allow the Holocaust but enable Israel to win the wars, etc. But we can not know the reasons why God, if there be a God, would allow certain events to happen. I don’t know if there is a God or if there are two Gods. I am diagnostic. :smiley:

Further, it is said that God helps those who help themselves, and Israel is surely helping themselves to a lot of land. (Hey, just kidding.)

7

Lest we forget, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, and eventually overran Masada, where the last of the Jewish rebels committed suicide, rather than be captured or killed.

In short, God DIDN’T lead the Jews to victory over the Romans!

Now, I’m inclined to believe the story posted is nothing more than a legend. But if there IS a top instructor at West Point (a three-star general, no less!) who’s telling his cadets that God led the Jews to victory against the Romans, he should be fired for incompetence!

8

As just about the only examples of modern mechanized warfare prior to 1991, the Arab-Israeli wars were studied intensely by the U.S.

U.S. military people were very interested in the Soviet hardware that was used by the Egyptians and Syrians, particularly the anti-tank and -aircraft systems employed to such good effect in '73.

The Israelis were also the first (and as far as I know, only ones) to confront and defeat the Sword and Shield fortification system developed by the Soviets and applied by the Egyptians. I suppose America might have chalked that victory up to God, but I would prefer to think they asked Israel Tal and Ariel Sharon exactly how they did it.

I was taught that the Israeli victories of 1967 and 1973 were victories on every level: strategically, tactically, logistically. I learned that in southern Virginia, and I can guarantee you the former officer I learned it from didn’t pick it up from the newspapers.

9

Note to self: vat “dalovindj” is nearing the perimeter of wisdom. Must terminate experiment.
:smiley:
I’m hardly an expert, but I think the general unpredictability of many factors in war (training, eagerness and inventiveness of troops, surprise, the weather) make the notion that ‘studies show this war should have been won by X’ problematic to say the least. On top of that, Sofa King and astorian have made some good points.

dolphinboy, you mentioned the three major monotheistic religions (which, incidentally, share common roots) in your scheme, but where and how do polytheistic religions fit in?

10

Anyone who studies military history will know this: Real armies will beat ceremonial armies. All the Arab nations that Isreal fought with had cermonial armies. They look great on the parade ground, but are often corrupt, ill-equipped, and poor on the battlefield. Isreal, by comparison, had a real army that looked pretty shitty by the Creased Trousers Standard ™, but knew how to fight a war.

In the Yom Kippor war, the Egyptian army was finally a real army, and had a few other Arab nations had real armies as well Isreal might have been brought completely to its knees. But eventually, the long term experience & better logistics of the Isreali army won out.

God had little to do with it. The story, is of course, hraka. <—(not a Hebrew word).

11

Also keep in mind that at some point Israel obtained nukes and I believe would have been willing to use them if push came to shove. Not that the Arabs held back because of that but if Sadam had seriously threatened to destroy most of Israel I wouldn’t have been surprised if Israel retaliated with tactical nukes… bye bye Bagdad.

As far as polytheistic religions go… since you can’t prove there is only one God, you can’t prove there aren’t a whole bunch of them. So pray to as many or as few as you like… according to me it’s all the same thing anyway!

12

Was the OP asking if it was true if God was on the Jews side or was it asking if the story actually occured? If it was the former, then it probably doesn’t belong in the General Questions section. If it was asking whether the story was true, then I’d say no it wasn’t.

This is just my opinion, but I think it is true. First of all, as astorian pointed out, the Jews lost the Roman wars. Second of all, as Sofia King pointed out, the Arab-Israeli wars were not flukes; the Israelis won because they fought well. The strongest argument against the veracity of this story is, in my opinion, the fact that it reads like a joke. It has a set-up that is kind of uniformed and doesn’t refer to any one by name. It ends with what is obviously a punchline. The final line is pointless in the context of the story, it doesn’t make any sense as a serious story.

13

I think it depends on what you mean by “responsible.” If by that you mean “allowed it to be carried out by others,” then sure, why COULDN’T God be responsible?

I really don’t want to get into the nature of God as I understand him, but the way I see it, humanity is a pawn in the struggle between God and Satan. The deaths of millions could genuinely serve a higher purpose in that struggle. So why couldn’t God be responsible? This is the same God who completely annihillated Sodom and Gomorrah, just because a lot of homosexuals and “bad people” lived there, isn’t it?
I think that God serves his own best interests, at the cost of anyone’s life.

Oddly enough, this doesn’t bother me. But that’s for another thread. It’s not because I’m a Calvinist or “special,” though; I’ll say that much.

14

Personally, I found the idea of a three star general teaching a freshman class pretty hard to believe. IIRC, the commandant of the Naval Academy was only a two star admiral until a few years ago, when they brought back Admiral Lawson to help recover from several scandals. The salary of a general would make it pretty stupid to use one as a lecturer.

15

A neat assumption, which is itself unprovable.

This is like saying “Scientists can’t empirically PROVE whether black holes or aliens really exist, therefore they either both do exist or they both don’t.”

To me, this assumption is a way of “de-legitimizing” any power any specific religion may have. At heart, it says we have no hope of knowing the truth. Therefore our choices don’t matter, because we can’t possibly make the “correct” choice.

Well, who says we can’t? Why be so defeatist? Aren’t you giving up the philosophical war for lost without a fight? If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

And as for atheism, since the truth or falsity of any religion can’t be empirically proven OR disproven, atheism requires as much faith as any religion. Choosing the losing end of Pascal’s Wager never struck me as a good idea.

I don’t mean anything I have said as a personal remark. They are my internal opinions. (Well, external now)

16

Pun intended?

17

Au contraire…I think we all lose when someone puts aside their life’s work to do things merely because it makes them feel better. “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul” indeed…and what does it profit us to spend the last half of our careers working toward a possibly illusory goal, instead of working to better the very real lives of those around us?

Corr

18

Let’s answer the original question … I was able to find an answer to your question in about 10 minutes of research. Plug some of those proepr names into a search engine and see what comes up. Here’s the story as best as I can put it together.

Rabbi Baruch Lederman originated the story in a sermon* to his congregation ath the Kehillas Torah in San Diego, CA. Rabbis are famous for their allegorical stories (read: not true, but it makes a nice story). It was picked up by Carl Sherer’s Mail-Jewish Digest, a newsletter based in Israel. I could not find it in the online edition, which leads me to believe it is either older than 1993 or only in the rpint edition. However, other sources confirm that the story was published there. Well, you can only guess what happened after it ended up in the hands of hundreds of people - it became part of Inspirational SPAM! it’s appeared under various headings like “What they don’t teach at West Point” et cetera.

Even without research, it should be obvious that this is total bunk. As others have mentioned, the US has been intensely interested in any military conflicts in the Middle East - “our” equipment and strategy versus “their’s”. Any casual reader of military history or international politics should know this. Also note the demeaning tone and gentile stereotyping.

In summary - it’s not true.

Let’s leave the idea of a “god” tinkering in the affairs of men to GD where it belongs.

[sub]* Please forgive my ignorance of the proper Judaic equivalents to these terms.[/sub]

19

Thought I’d put the final nail in the coffin…

You can buy the West Point Military History Series book on the Arab-Israeli Wars at zShops!

Amusing story, though.

20

Thank you,** Elivhanz**. You provided the answer I was looking for.

I cannot understand how the other posters may have misunderstood my question:

But, in any case, I appreciate you recognizing that I was searching for veracity and not a theological debate. If I had wanted a debate, I would have posted this in GD.

I would also like to say that I am most impressed by your skills in research - you found out exactly what I wanted to know.