{"id":16187,"date":"2012-02-28T02:46:38","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T05:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=16187"},"modified":"2012-02-28T02:46:38","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T05:46:38","slug":"us-soldiers-path-to-service-through-the-israeli-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/28\/us-soldiers-path-to-service-through-the-israeli-army\/","title":{"rendered":"US Soldier’s Path to Service, through the Israeli Army"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Department of Defense article highlights the unique story of Daniel J. Houten, an enlistee with the Georgia National Guard.\u00a0 He’s now in basic training — but he hardly took the traditional route<\/a> to get there:<\/p>\n

Houten…wanted to join the U.S. Army \u2014 but without a GED and 15 hours of college credit, he was ineligible.<\/p>\n

An acquaintance told Houten the Israeli Army recruited new soldiers simply because they were Jewish…
\n\u00a0
\nAlthough his religious faith had diminished somewhat, he still identified himself as a Jew and felt strong connections to Israel, the homeland of his people, culture and religion. He decided this should be his next step in life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Houten learned Hebrew and was a mechanic on armored personnel carriers in the IDF for nearly two years.\u00a0 His experience gave him self-confidence, and it also made him more fervent in his faith:<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in Israel and the homeland of my religion, ethnicity of my people and going to all sorts of holy and incredible places was amazing to see,\u201d said Houten. \u201cSince then, I would definitely say I\u2019m a much more spiritual Jew.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When his initial enlistment was up, he chose to come back to the US:<\/p>\n

As much as I feel a great affinity for Israel, I was born in Brooklyn. I\u2019m an American boy, but I do miss Israel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back in Georgia, he once again wanted to join the US military, but faced the same problem.\u00a0 He joined the Georgia National Guard and found himself in the National Guard\u2019s GED Plus Program<\/a> in North Little Rock, Arkansas.\u00a0 He earned his GED and, notably, was able to faithfully practice his religion.<\/p>\n

He read the Torah daily, observed the Jewish Sabbath and broke the traditional Sabbath challah bread with his fellow student warriors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Houten is now in training at Fort Benning.\u00a0 His story was also covered by Time<\/em>‘s website<\/a>, though it focused more on the differences Houten found between the two nation’s armies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Department of Defense article highlights the unique story of Daniel J. Houten, an enlistee with the Georgia National Guard.\u00a0 He’s now in basic training — but he hardly took the traditional route to get there: Houten…wanted to join the U.S. Army \u2014 but without a GED and 15 hours of college credit, he was ineligible. An acquaintance told Houten […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[88,2896,2897,1722,1876,888,39,2,11,17,10,171],"class_list":["post-16187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-army","tag-daniel-houten","tag-ged","tag-georgia","tag-hebrew","tag-israel","tag-jewish","tag-military","tag-prayer","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}