Fort Benning’s Army-Navy Jewish Lay Leader Team

EDITORS NOTE: The following is an article submitted by Neil Block (Capt USN Ret), the Navy-half of the incredible Army-Navy lay leader team at Fort Benning, Georgia. The story of the team is an amazing one and they are performing a truly valuable service to the Jewish men and women who serve and train at the base.

Each year the single most recognized college football classic is acknowledged to be the Army-Navy game.  In polls by sports television channels and magazines, that on-the-field event consistently is voted to be the most enduring sports rivalry in our country.  It is a classic event, once witnessed, never forgotten as to grit of competition, high level of sportsmanship by players as well as fans, and the enduring respect and admiration of the teams and their adherents on the field and off. The depth of emotion and passion of the play and the respect and comradery of the participants–cheering and playing–is unique in sports annals. John Feinstein, the reputed national sports columnist, devoted an entire book, The Civil Wars, to the history and color of this event.

The annual Army-Navy football game, as well as other head-to-head sports confrontations, are the only events when one team and their supporters or the other actually roots against the other.  In all other competitions between either Army or Navy and other opponents, supporters always include adherents of the other non-participant.  Such is the comradery of the Cadets and Midshipmen, each to each other, as is that of their respective alumni.

That same spirit of fused bonding is found in many other endeavors other than sports competition.  In the Chattahoochie Valley of southwest central Georgia that bonding has found a more unusual manifestation.  It is in the Chatahoochie Valley, hard pressed on the Georgia-Alabama state border, separated by the Chatahoochie River, that sits Fort Benning, the home of the U. S. Army Infantry Command.  At Fort Benning, the Army infantry sends its recruits and trainees to basic training and other specialized infantry training and parachute school.  Every three months there is a new cadre of trainees.  And among these cadres of several thousand troops in any given cycle there are anywhere from 30 to 50 Jewish trainees.  And it is there at Fort Benning that the Army-Navy relationship has reached an acme in the presence of the only Army-Navy Jewish Lay Leadership in the country.

Because of the paucity of rabbis in the armed forces, Fort Benning is one of the many installations doing without a uniformed Jewish Chaplain.  So into the void of Jewish program support and leadership two alumni of their respective military academies have descended.  The Navy representative of the duo is Neil Block, an Annapolis graduate class of 1961, a retired Seabee Reserve Captain, who recently settled in the area and learned of the deficient Jewish program.  Upon taking up the responsibility for creating and shepherding that program, Captain Block sought assistance and immediately turned to Richard Grifenhagen, a West Point alumni, class of 1954, also a local area resident.  On arrival in the Fort Benning environs in which he recently settled, Captain Block, whose wife Regina and family of many generations are from the area, joined Temple Israel of Columbus, Georgia, just a few miles from the main gate.  At Temple Israel Captain Block met Dick Grifenhagen, also a member.  When they learned of their common bond of having had their respective youths forged at the Military and Naval Academy, they became instant friends.  So it was natural that they both heartily signed on to ensure that the young Jewish troops could count on a recognizable modicum of Jewish-ness during their military training experience.  Both Block and Grifenhagen remembered with fondness and appreciation those programs at Annapolis and West Point which was available to them as Midshipman and Cadet.

They then looked to the local area small Jewish community for financial and further personnel support to ensure a Jewish worship service weekly during the allocated two hour religious observance set-aside by the Army on Sunday mornings.  Block and Grifenhagen take turns leading the weekly service and count on the assistance of a former Army Sergeant Major of Korean War era vintage–Sy Zimmerman–as well. Along with a post-worship oneg, funds for which are provided by the Columbus, Georgia Jewish Federation and the separate Jewish Ladies Aid Society of Temple Israel, is sandwiched some inspirational, and education and learning opportunities. The weekly experience, as Captain Block likes to put it, …is the best two hours of my week. He comes away so infused with admiration and inspiration for these low-on-the-horizon Jewish troops, who are more numerous than most people think, as to make him look forward to the next week with enthusiasm.

In this time of war, the troops are regular Army, reservists and National Guard.  They are college grads, some with master degrees, even some with or close to doctorates, as well as the high school graduate and dropouts.  There are even women–one of whom recently was en route to jump school.  They are husbands and fathers. Some are yeshiva educated.  Some have marginal identification with their Judaism. Many are grateful to be able to continue their religious dedication from their former family environments.  The troops are from disparate places and not from just the big cities.  They come from farms and ranches as well.  Yes, Jewish troops from farms and ranches.  They come from Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, as well as from California, New York, Florida and all the other many states in between.  In all cases they are far from home and hearth and very appreciative of the opportunity to demonstrate or participate in their existing or emerging Judaism.

When the program first began in mid-2003, Jewish troops didn’t have a dedicated under-roof place to even hold worship services.  And so during the spring and summer of 2003, with God’s divine intervention, each and every Sunday morning during which services were conducted outdoors it never rained.  Eventually Captain Block was able to overcome the benign neglect for the needs of the Jewish troops and obtain an indoor facility and find some prayer books and yarmulkas and other necessary materials for a proper Jewish program.  A portable ark and a Jewish Chaplain’s flag was placed in their newly assigned room in one of the many multi-faith chapels of Fort Benning and a troop congregation was born and continues to flourish with great fervor under Army-Navy guidance and tutelage..

Added to the great gratification as expressed by the thanks of many of the troops is the very wonderful satisfaction of knowing how much it means to their families as expressed in many notes and letters and financial contributions by families of the troops.

As a result of the overwhelming positive response and feedback of this local program, Block and Grifenhagen are undertaking a mission to present this format to the Jewish War Veterans with the objective of creating similar programs throughout the services, especially training commands where the care and nurture is particularly needed.  They urge anyone reading this article to see where and how they can make a difference.

Neil Block graduated with honors from the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland in June 1961 at which time he was commissioned an Ensign in the Civil Engineer Corps of the Navy.  He served in an active status for 10 years in stateside and overseas billets in the Far East and South America leaving active service as a Lieutenant Commander.  He continued his career in the reserves serving in many technical staff roles and as a Battalion and Regimental Commander of Seabees retiring as a Captain (0-6) in 1990 with almost 30 years of combined service.  He has served as a national trustee of the U. S. Naval Academy Alumni Association and was very involved in the program creation for the construction of a Jewish Chapel at the Naval Academy which is now underway. He can be reached at

Dick Grifenhagen was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Regular Army upon his graduation from West Point in 1954, and after postings to parachute school in Fort Benning where he met his wife of 50 years he went on to communications school and then on to Korea where he served until he left active) service to return to Columbus, Georgia and a family business from which he retired in 1990. He can be reached at: