When I was a kid, I would play with G.I. Joe dolls. They would all be Jewish. In fact, this whole group of soldiers was all accountants and lawyers who were drafted into the war. Except for one Plastic soldier, he never did anything with his life. He’s the one soldier in the platoon who joined the army on his own, an act that left his mother disgraced. I called him Roger, which was also the name of my big brother.

The leader, G.I. Jew was the Patriarch of these soldiers who became the best of friends. They would sit together in the mess tent, which they called the sukkus hut, I would give them each a saltine cracker and they would break it as if it was matzo. I loved these dolls. It did not even bother me that they were all the same figure. They were all Stryker, the one with a beard. In the early days of play, they all called each other Stryker, and then G.I. Jew came along and gave them each Hebrew names. With his heavy Yiddish accent he said, “Strykev, what kind of a name is Strykev?” One by one, he gave new names to the soldiers.