Is it in the church they will torture me, when I refuse to kiss the cross?
They ought not to have told me those dreadful stories.

They were long past; we were living under the blessed "New Regime." Alexander III was no friend of the Jews; still he did not order little boys to be taken from their mothers, to be made into soldiers and Christians.

Every man had to serve in the army for four years, and a Jewish recruit was likely to be treated with severity, no matter if his behavior were perfect; but that was little compared to the dreadful conditions of the old regime.
The thing that really mattered was the necessity of breaking the Jewish laws of daily life while in the service.

A soldier often had to eat trefah and work on Sabbath.

He had to shave his beard and do reverence to Christian things.