During the First World War, non-Muslim citizens of the Ottoman Empire were drafted into the military, usually serving in labour battalions. This same situation continued during the Turkish War of Independence in the 1920s. Amele Taburu (‘labour battalion’) is the edited diary of one such conscript, Haim Albukrek. Albukrek, a poor Sephardic Jew from Ankara, kept record of his service in French between March and October of 1921, writing almost daily accounts of his unit’s movements and activities. The peculiarities of the non-Muslim experience during the First World War and the Independence War is exemplified by Albukrek’s journal. They are at once in the service of the state and at the same time excluded from participation in the nationalist struggle. Seen as potential defectors, the non-Muslim’s experienced hardships from certain commanders, but Akbukrek’s journal shows that the realities were more nuanced. As sources on non-Muslims in the Ottoman military are limited, Akbukrek’s journal is a unique account of this phenomennon.