Colonel Serves the Country That Saved His Parents

Story and photos by Tech. Sgt. Martie Moore

Public Affairs – Station Break

The Army Chaplain dressed in fatigues with a matching yarmulkes and sporting a full beard said he is “paying back” America by serving in the military.

Chaplain (Col.) Jacob Goldstein, Drilling Individual Mobilization Augmentee (DIMA) U.S. Army Reserve, Office of Chief of Chaplains First U.S. Army was born in Paris, France in a displaced persons camp after World War II. His family immigrated to the U.S. shortly after his birth. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York the Colonel recalls one of the results of his parents suffering in a Nazi labor camp. I remember when I was about 9 – 10 years old and asked my parents how come everyone has aunts, uncles, sisters and brother but we don’t? We don’t have a party when relatives come? His mother only said, “When you get older you’ll understand.”

He said his parents didn’t talk about their experience very much. And even by watching movies, reading books and talking to people you don’t get the full effect of what people in the holocaust went through, he said. I can talk about lunch and tell you how good it is, but if you don’t taste it you don’t really know, said Chaplain Goldstein.

Serving in the military since 1977 and now as the top DIMA he has seen his share of tragedies. He was everywhere, where anything was happening, anytime, said Chaplain (Capt.) Henry Soussan, MHS chaplain during the Holocaust Remembrance luncheon May 5. For example he was called to active duty for Operation Urgent Fury in Grenade and in December 1990 he mobilized with the 369th Transportation Battalion for Operation Desert Storm. He served more than five months at Ground Zero as the senior chaplain for all components and branches of the military assigned to the World Trade Center Mission. He deployed to Afghanistan and other countries for Operation Enduring Freedom; he served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and most recently was mobilized and served as Joint Task Force Katrina (Forward) staff chaplain in New Orleans, according to the colonel’s biography.

In the course of all these events there is one that holds significant meaning to him – Ground Zero. He described the pictures of the holocaust death camps where there is smoke coming out of the creamatorium. Coming out of the chimney were human remains. How people kept their sanity (seeing that) was always hard for me to understand. When I came to Ground Zero I was about four or five blocks away and entered an area of dark clouds, burning fires, dust and ash on the ground. I began to understand. Here I was in killing fields, walking through ashes, dust of human beings … it was the first time in my life I connected dots, said Chaplain Goldstein. The people there (New York) lived death day in and day out.

Before coming to RAF Menwith Hill the chaplain talked with his best source. I asked my mother what I should tell the Soldiers – Americans and English – when I see them? She said, Tell them thank you for my life; thank you for saving me. By serving in the military Chaplain Goldstein has without a doubt ‘paid back’ the country that rescued his family so many years ago.