My wife Vicki and I were married during my nine-day delay in route from basic training to a port of embarkation. After we took our vows at my parent’s home, we went on a three-day makeshift honeymoon in Atlantic City. While we were there, the church bells started tolling, signaling the D-day invasion on June 6, 1944. And a few weeks after that, I was one of those citizen soldiers on a troop ship bound for the European theater. After eighteen-months overseas and active participation in four of the five major battles in Europe, I returned home in early January 1946 and took up married life in my parent’s home. Shortly after my return to civilian life, I became involved with my Prelacy Armenian Apostolic Church in Philadelphia. As time passed, I became a member of the church choir, along with many of the fund-raising committees that came along. I should also add that I served as a Board of Trustee and I was one of the founders of our church’s Men’s Club. Outside of being very active in my church, I also became active in Armenian philanthropic and fraternal organizations. But with all my many involvements, I never became involved with Armenian political organizations or those organizations with separatist undertones. I suppose it was when I became involved with the church unity movement when I finally came to realize the God-awful harm we were doing to ourselves. And in time, I also came to realize that all Armenian organizations or institutions, including our castles of faith which physically separates our people, regardless of how well intended or benevolent, are completely out of tune with the Apostolic Christian faith we were paying homage to in our divided churches. And in this regard, I found that the keepers of our religious flame were the greatest of all usurpers, regardless of how much love and faith they spewed from our altars. At present, my children are grown and they follow their own destinies. As for myself, I have little if any remaining ties with Armenian organizations and the least of all with churches. Yet I do not consider myself an agnostic or sacrilegious. And I might also add that I am still very optimistic with the hope that someday we are going to come together as a people. And when we do, we will revitalize our past, present, and future with one stroke. I have offered this little capsule of myself to demonstrate what I had to do in order to earn the privilege of writing objectively. And to cultivate this objectivity, I felt that I had to first divorce myself from all influences that might make me, or appear to make me, choose sides. And such being the case, I’ll use a modified line from a popular twentieth century lyric to better explain where I’m coming from: I (no longer) owe my life to the company store. In short, this was the only way I could think of to find the objectivity for which I was looking. As a serious-minded Armenian, I have an ultimate dream. And that dream is that someday we Armenians will come together outside our respective affiliations to exert all of our collective strength toward bringing ourselves and the world to fully understand where we’re at and where we should be going. The possibility of such a dream materializing, however, is less than encouraging today if the existing camouflaged antagonisms between our religious and political leaders remain guarded. And regardless of how our politicals try to justify why they have so many skeletons in the closet or if the actions of our Apostolic clerics remain out of tune with our Armenian Apostolic Christian faith, then all the speeches and sermons of love and faith they continue to preach will only tend to increase the rate of assimilation among us. Isn’t it ridiculous that, today, it’s our religiously one, administratively divided churches that continue to divide us here in America. Isn’t it also ridiculous that we, who are the descendants of those same heroic people who survived the Ottoman genocide along with the merciless gauntlet of time, still find ourselves surviving but allowing time to do what the Ottoman Turks wre unable to do? Isn’t it about time that we stood up and shed all those old crusty layers of nurtured hate and distrust? This is something we must all do individually because there are no fail safe road maps for this one. What’s more, I don’t think you’re going to get any affirmative support from our divided clergy or politicals either. But a good place to start might be to first accept reality and come to the realization that we Armenians have come a long way since the time when the only literate person in the village was a priest. After that, let your conscience be your guide. Joseph Vosbikian . .