A Rough-Ridin’ Rabbi

By Morris B. Margolies, Special to The Chronicle (of Kansas City)

In the summer of 1952, peace talks between the Americans and the North Koreans were in progress at Panmunjom. I was stationed near Taegu, not too far away, as a chaplain for the Tenth Army Corps. From my headquarters I set forth every morning in a jeep on the way to Army units miles distant, where I led Jewish soldiers in prayer. Because I covered about 300 miles every week along bumpy and narrow mountain roads, some cutesy soldier painted the legend “Rough Ridin’ Rabbi” on the back of my jeep. Above the words was a really rough sketch of a Jew wearing a tallit with his hands outstretched.

The week before I was to return to the states, I held my last service for the smallest of the congregations – four men and one woman, an Army nurse, who were also the farthest away from by HQ. For months our attendance had been at 100 percent. But at this final service, one of the men was missing – as I soon learned, permanently so. He had been killed by a land mine four days earlier. His body was already aboard a transport plane on the way home.

We could not get into a prayer mode in any routine fashion. The prayer book somehow failed to say what was in our hearts. The nurse, a lieutenant named Sarah, spoke: “Does God really listen to prayer, Rabbi?” And she wept. Almost immediately the rest of us broke into tears. The tears flowed freely, punctuated only by sobs that still ring in my ears. When all was quiet, I said, “Sarah, I think you now have the answer to your question.”

I then asked our tiny group to join me in reciting the Kaddish, even though we had no minyan. Our service ended. I remained in the tent for about an hour talking with the men. Sarah had had to leave.

I came back to my jeep and was stopped short. The outstretched hands of the Jew in the tallit had been replaced by wings. Sarah stood a few feet away. “Drive back carefully, Rabbi,” she said. And she waved farewell.