The stories, beginning over 100 years ago, when Sokolka, Poland, my father escaped via and underground route, from his forced conscription into the Czar's Russian Army. The stories continue through the ensuing decades after he immigrated to America. The anecdotes describe how the family coped with ever the present stress and accommodations about their Jewishness. The tales reflect how my wife and I, collectively shared the joy and sadness in our family affairs, our career choices and achievements. Told in chronological order, the stories from my birth to the 20th century reveal the foibles, the fortuitous events and experiences during the many years when I was an officer in the U.S army. The experience describe when I was a clinician, an educator and research scientist, I relate how I encountered and coped with both professional accolades and overt anti-semitism from medical and dental colleagues here in America and abroad. The stories end with an ambiguous tale of the concerns of Jews in America, in Israel and in the world at large.