Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA) March 9, 2003
Deployment orders inspire prayers, vows
By John Simerman
They are invisible faces at the receiving end of crayon-laced wishes, sealed and sent across the globe by little suburban fingers.
They receive public prayers, like one this morning at a church service in San Ramon, and private ones in homes across the East Bay.
They get hitched now, in urgent bursts, at a courthouse near Travis Air Force Base. Marriage papers mingle with deployment orders and powers of attorney in a dossier of hope, duty and grim prudence.
Among the 300,000 American troops girding for battle in the Persian Gulf are tens of thousands of Californians, including many from the East Bay whose deployments have cast a quiet ripple through churches, homes and offices.
Aside from Fairfield, the Bay Area's last military town, the impact of the deployments is muted in the Bay Area. There is none of the camouflage exodus from military bastions like San Diego, where deployment of tens of thousands of airmen and Marines has left a big, empty imprint.
Bay Area deployments come in more modest numbers: 271 Army Reservists from Vallejo's 211th Transportation Co.; an additional 120 from the 349th Quartermaster Co.; 100 military intelligence officers from San Francisco; soon, 125 from Pittsburg's 870th Military Police Co.
Most are local active-duty personnel stationed elsewhere.
They come in "onesies and twosies," sons and daughters and husbands calling from bases or coming home to reveal their orders. Mike Ergo, a 19-year-old Marine from Walnut Creek, shipped out last week. Elizabeth Thompson, 22, a Navy petty officer from Alamo, just left aboard the USS Nimitz. Jason Myers of Livermore, a 21-year-old Marine, took off Feb. 5 for Kuwait.
"You don't have very many military bases anymore, but that's why families can feel even more isolated. It's a very intense time," said Lori Waidelich of Walnut Creek.
Waidelich and a group of friends bring dinner and support to a military wife whose husband was activated. They call it "Operation Help Over the Hump."
Waidelich sat down with her three children recently to write a letter to an Army soldier in Kuwait. They don't know him. They only read about him in the newspaper. At their Catholic school, where some fathers have been deployed, the principal says a prayer each morning before class.
"Usually she includes a prayer for peace, and then for the men and women," said Waidelich. "So the kids know they're not in conflict with those (troops), that what they're doing is admirable."
With the downsizing of the active military over the past decade, National Guard and Reserve troops have been assigned more critical wartime duties and make up a greater portion of the force buildup in the gulf, said Dale Davis, director of international programs at the Virginia Military Institute who now is in Kuwait.
The number of activated Guard and Reserve members nationwide has more than tripled since December, to 176,000. Many are on homeland defense missions. It is not clear how many are in the gulf. By comparison, the total number of Guard and Reserve troops mobilized at the height of the gulf war in 1991 was 265,000, with about 110,000 serving in the war theater.
Davis, who is serving as a military consultant to the Kuwaiti government, said citizen soldiers are being used differently this time. They are being absorbed into active units, to reach full staffing.
"Entire Guard and Reserve combat units are not being committed in any significant way to important combat roles for the coming campaign," said Davis.
"This reflects the lesson learned in the first gulf war that Guard and Reserve units are unable to maintain the necessary combat readiness and efficiency to conduct the sort of complex, highly coordinated offensive that is planned."
Compared with other states, California's Guard and Reserve members have been lightly tapped over the past few months and now make up just 6 percent of those activated nationwide.
Part of the reason involves the state Guard's difficulty in meeting the Army's strict rules for mobilizing units, said Maj. Gen. Paul D. Monroe Jr., who heads the California National Guard.
The Army also may be holding back some units, because "they don't want any rogue nations such as Korea to do any mischief, and if they see we're all tied up in one direction, that could happen," Monroe said.
That view was shared by Patrick Garrett, an analyst with globalsecurity.org, a nonprofit defense think tank that closely tracks U.S. troop movements.
"I think you guys (California) are the force package for North Korea," he said. Still, Garrett cited crucial roles for Air National Guard and Reserve units such as those being deployed out of Travis Air Force Base.
"They've been really the workhorses of Air Force deployments," he said. "They play a crucial role."
About half of the approximately 3,300 California National Guard personnel called to active duty have been deployed to the Middle East, with the rest serving homeland defense and other missions, officials said.
Locally, police departments, hospitals and companies have lost a smattering of citizen soldiers to the conflict. The impact has been greater on families.
Jack Batson, a high school teacher in Fairfield, took a loose poll Friday morning in his U.S. history class. Eight students said they had close family members in the military.
"They're kind of quiet about it," said Batson, whose daughter, Carrie, is a Marine officer who just arrived in Kuwait. "They don't know whether we're doing well or bad. They don't have the basis to judge."
Ed Blake, pastor at San Ramon Presbyterian Church, said he has spoken with about a dozen family members of deployed personnel.
"There's a deep sense of vulnerability and a realization that, 'I'm not in control of this,'" said Blake. "As a parent or spouse, it's learning to trust God in a situation that's so precarious."
The impact of the deployments is more earthly in Fairfield, where the sheriff has been roundly criticized for the demotion of a deputy who is on military leave.
At the courthouse, there has been a run on military marriages, with imminent deployments bringing on the rush for the 7-minute civil ceremony.
"They tell us they're going to be deployed in two or three days. Even if we're booked, we squeeze them in," said Lori Butler-Slappy, Solano County clerk manager. "A lot of them are doing it for legal reasons. Some were planning a wedding for the summer. They know they won't be back."
Copyright © 2003, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA)
