How often do you count your blessings? Or do you spend your low moments thinking about all of the bad things that have been happening to you? Anita Bloom Ornoff knows a little about that. Except, as great as the challenges became for her, as dark as some hours were, she put her faith in God and kept putting one foot in front of the other. For Anita, that wasn’t something that came easily.

At age 21, against the wishes of her family, Anita made up her mind to enlist in the U.S. Army WAAC (Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps), predecessor of WACs, when the United States entered World War II. She was proud to serve the land of her birth, to free a man stateside to go overseas to tend to U.S. involvement in World War II. It was exciting for her when she was told that she was officer candidate material. She never expected unsanitary conditions and negligent medical treatment to be a part of her basic training that would sideline her. And she couldn’t understand why some of her compatriots hated Jews.

In the infirmary, the germ-ridden razor blade that Five-by-Five used to lance Anita’s infected thumb led to a much greater problem when the gross infection spread through her hand, into her spine, and left her legs useless. She became a paraplegic. Emergency surgery saved her life, but she was still paralyzed. When others gave up on her, she found strength, persistence and determination to achieve the best she was capable of doing, and then some. Some of her decisions worked out well, even when her parents had given up. When she lost the use of her legs, her parents got rid of her belongings and her piano. Other decisions were not so good.

Encouraged by her children and her husband, she wrote her story, Beyond Dancing: A Veteran’s Struggle—A Woman’s Triumph. Anita loved dancing but she learned there is a more important dance, that of life. When she wanted to give up, she knew she couldn’t.

This book is a great read, a book difficult to put down. It is a story of encouragement and inspiration: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. From the very beginning this reads like something that should be a Hollywood movie property. The book is available Borders,, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com or Bartleby Press (Publisher), www.BartlebythePublisher.com. Autographed copies can be purchased from the Ornoff's. Visit their website at http://beyonddancing.tripod.com.

Now an octogenarian, Anita Bloom Ornoff and her husband Hal, live in Florida.

The book is available at: Beyond Dancing