He married his "child" bride, pledged his love to her and had his union blessed by a rabbi before he shipped out for the war.

The soldier's name was Irv. The teenage bride was named Rita.

If they were still living, my parents would have been married for 63 years last week.

It's been 63 years since Pearl Harbor, the terrorist attack on America that launched us into World War II. It was the war that changed the world, and it also changed my parent's marriage irrevocably for years to come.

I couldn't help but think of my parents the other day when another soldier, Steve Whiddon, Spec. 4, stood in front of me with his "child" bride, Kyra Howton, a former member of my synagogue.

Whiddon met Howton when she was a college freshman. She was corresponding with lonely soldiers in Korea. He met her by mail, became even more interested when they graduated to e-mail and then fell madly in love when he finally made it back to the states.

Whiddon is all of 21.

Howton is 19. She is now a sophomore at Georgia Tech, studying, of all things, military history.

As I looked at the fresh young couple, I asked myself, "What in God's name could she be thinking, marrying so young?"

But then it came to me.

My mother was also about 19 when she married my father, age 21.

In some ways Whiddon and Howton were startlingly similar to my parents.

Whiddon enlisted soon after a foreign attack --- Sept. 11 --- just as my father had done.

Whiddon was trained at Fort Sill, Okla., where my father was trained in 1943.

Whiddon was previously stationed in Korea, where my father had also done a tour.

And like my parents, Whiddon and Howton married young and will, no doubt, survive the loneliness and separation of war.

In truth, I have no problem with their whirlwind courtship and early marriage. Who am I to criticize someone's life, particularly when it so closely resembles my own family history?

My ambivalence goes deeper than that.

I didn't mind blessing the bride as she stood next to her groom. That was as theologically easy as falling off a log.

It was something else that was bothering me.

I was going to have a hard time blessing the Jew marrying the soldier.

You see, as Whiddon stood beneath the huppah, the Jewish wedding canopy, he was dressed in full military regalia: marksmanship medals, rank and insignia, unit commendations and formal uniform.

I wasn't marrying just anyone.

I was marrying someone who was one step away from a war zone.

This week at his wedding, I knew, he would wear a yarmulke on his head, stand beneath the wedding canopy and step on the glass for good luck.

But next week, when he is deployed to Iraq, he will wear a helmet into battle, crouch beneath a tent in the broiling desert and dodge the occasional sniper and suicide bombers.

So what was I to say to a young man about to fight a war --- a war that I question and oppose? Who was I to condemn the war, but give blessing to one of its combatants?

For centuries, religious men and women have struggled with the tension between war and faith.

At times, wars have been fought in the name of religion. And at other times in history, religious groups have opposed war on spiritual principles.

The Hebrew scripture allows war, albeit in a limited way.

"The Lord's people won my victory over the warriors" (Judges 5:13).

Even in war the Old Testament stresses compassion for prisoners and attention to preserving their cities (Deuteronomy 20:19).

In the Christian scriptures, too, there are numerous cautions against war and even violence. Jesus says, "I say to you, do not resist what is evil, but whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other, as well" (Matthew 5:39).

Perhaps even more to the point is that Jesus states clearly, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God" (Matthew 5:9).

In fact, the scriptures of almost all religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, caution against war and violence.

In the end, I simply had to put my theology aside.

Whiddon stood there with his bride, both of them unaware of the fortune that war brings.

I saw the soldier and I saw the soldier's wife. Who was I to withhold any blessing, since blessings come from Him and not from me?

So I opened up the scripture and I read these ancient Hebrew words, translating as I went.

"Yehi mvorach b'voacha, yehi mvorach betzetecha."

Blessed are you when you leave us, but blessed are you that you should return, for life, for health, for peace. Amen (Deuteronomy 28:6).

My father would have been happy.

I had learned to curse the war, but bless the warrior.