It was late August of 1959.

I had just graduated from dental school and I was flying to Korea to begin a 13-month tour of duty. The flight took about 20 hours. The plane landed in Hawaii and Wake Island and Japan.

For reading material I had a copy of Exodus by Leon Uris. It was inspiring reading and somehow as the plan landed in Kimpo Airport I felt that I had landed in Israel. Before too long I realized my geographical error.

I was a first lieutenant (one silver bar) and I was stationed at a clinic in Seoul. It was Rosh Hashanah Day and I was informed of a Jewish retreat in Ascom City. I asked and was granted the day of prayer at a synagogue.

Ascom City was a maze of Quonset huts linked together which formed a fabulous hospital and medical facility. It was the same MASH hospital which later become famous in the movie and television series MASH. Once you were inside the huts, the long corridors made it seem like any stateside hospital setting.

The Jewish retreat was held in a very versatile building. It could be a church and with a few adjustments it served as a synagogue. As I entered the chapel I saw about 50 Jewish soldiers of different ranks. There were officers and enlisted men all praying together with no emphasis on rank.

The rabbi was a captain (2 silver bars) or a chaplain in Army terminology.

I came from a Bronx Orthodox background. My shul on 174st St. (between Longfellow Avenue and Boone Avenue) was strictly Orthodox. Prayer services always seemed to me like controlled anarchy with everyone reading at his own pace.

I was usually lost and I depended on my father to find the "place" for me. I was always unsure of myself in the synagogue because I didn't know where we were in the service. I always asked my father. Without looking up from his own siddur book, he would point in my book to the exact spot where the "place" was. "Wie Halt Mann, Yetzt" was the cry in the synagogue. (Translated from Yiddish: Where is the place, now?") As a young lad all I saw was "shuckelling" (gyrating).

In the midst of the Ascom City service the rabbi (the captain-chaplain) exclaimed, "Turn to page 35 in the Siddur." I flipped. The mystery was solved. An epiphany was reached. A revelation!

I could now pray by myself. I no longer had to ask for help.

I could enter the synagogue and pray on my own.

God bless Conservative Judaism. It has made me a free man.