Published December 2008
Star Gazette – Neil Chaffie

Like many other sailors, Michael E. Mize boarded a troop train out of Buffalo with the Great Lakes Naval Trianing Center in Illinois as their mid-December destination some 40 years ago.
Mize, 71, a resident now of Davis View Lane in Hector, recalled the troop train adding more and more sailors as it chugged through first one state and then another.
Ahead were two weeks of training for the reservists. And a Christmas gift that Mize recalls to this day-all 19 cents worth of it.
Jump ahead to December 24, a Christmas Eve.
Mize tells of a chief petty officer calling the men together with word that those not attending any one of several Christmas Eve Services would remain in their barracks for special assignments.
The petty officer was kidding nobody. A barracks housing dozens of men have latrines (heads in Navy talk) and floors (decks in Navy talk) always in need of scrubbing down. There was a sudden interest in the religious offerings of the training center, Mize recalls.
Men were asked to state their preference for the various religious programs by calling out, “C” for Catholic, “J” for Jewish and so on to help determine the buses that would be needed.
Despite the fact that he is Catholic, Mize called out a “J” figuring he would get to attend a service with a Jewish friend.
But the friend, reported himself as a Catholic so he could be with Mize.
“Somehow,” Mize recalled, “we got our signals crossed and here I am boarding a bus for the synagogue.”
Mize, turning to the sailor next to him, sought some pointers about the Jewish religion. And found very little to go on.
The sailor informed Mize he had not recently attended any services and also was unfamiliar with the protocol.
But all went well, Mize said. A Rabbi (captain in the Navy) addressed the sailors.
“As lectures and presentations go,” Mize said, the event “was informative” (Jewish holidays are in two groups).
With the completion of the address, the sailors were invited to a “kosher buffet of about 15 items. “Quite tasty,” Mize added.
Two elderly men were serving small glasses of Kosher wine. Another man, Mize said, presented him “with a tissue-covered item while saying something I didn’t quite understand.”
Mize waited to open the mysterious package upon arriving back at the barracks.
It was a plastic 19-cent BIC pen.
“But it could have been gold-plated to me,” Mize added. It was the lone gift among the 50 or so men in the barracks. A Christmas Eve to remember.
Mize spent years with the Navy and the Army in reserve and active duty roles. One of his assignments took him to Oman during Desert Storm, (active Army).
At home on Davis View Lane, he makes his own wine, serves in various community roles, cranks out cinnamon rolls second to none and is known as the guy who resurrected and rebuilt a popcorn making machine that once served troops and civilians at the former Seneca Army Depot in Seneca County.