Still Plagued by Problems : Peace Marchers Back on the Road Again

The Great Peace March was on the road again Friday.

About 340 marchers set out in high spirits from Barstow at 6:30 a.m., leaving behind their campsite next to an auto junkyard where they had been camped since March 16, and walking to Yermo, a small desert community, 17 miles away.

The group, what is left of 1,400 people who set out from Los Angeles City Hall on March 1 on a walk to Washington for global nuclear disarmament, is still strapped by poor finances and sketchy supplies. For example, the marchers’ ability to resume the walk this morning hinges on continued availability of a water truck. The marchers Friday still weren’t sure if the leased truck will arrive on time.

Additionally, marchers sent out requests on citizen band radios to truckers to help them haul their trailers along the march route. Elizabeth Fairchild, a media spokeswoman for the march, said she thought there had been only one volunteer in response but said the march will continue regardless.

Resumption of the march came exactly two weeks after PROPeace, the original sponsoring organization of the walk, collapsed for lack of funding. In the interim, the number of marchers camped off Stoddard Wells Road south of Barstow dwindled steadily but also reorganized under a new sponsorship, Great Peace March For Nuclear Disarmament Inc.

Fund raising resumed under the new organization in an effort to get the march back on the road. Chris Ball, a media spokesman for the march, said about 100 marchers have left the campsite and are doing fund raising in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Jim Turturice, at the march’s offices in Laguna Niguel, said Friday that $60,000 had been raised, enough, he predicted, to see them through to Las Vegas.

“It’s been a long two weeks,” said Tim Carpenter, a marcher who is in Los Angeles where he is organizing. “We went through a real catharsis. It’s been painful, honest-dealing, of a sort that we would like to see the United States and the Soviet Union do.”

The marchers had been camped in the Barstow area since March 10. While they were welcomed by churches and peace groups, and Mayor Bernard W. Keller greeted them at a rally, not all the residents of the community of 20,000 were sorry to see them go by the time they left.

A few edgy merchants were tired of the marchers’ constant fund-raising attempts, referring to their efforts as panhandling or begging. Countless other residents, however, provided showers, beds, meals, laundry services and donations. In return, the marchers had started an errand-and-handyman service for the town as their way of saying thanks.

Bid Them Farewell

On Friday, some residents drove out to the campsite at dawn to bid the marchers farewell. A few fought back tears.

Debbie Byrd, who fed 50 marchers breakfast at her home one morning, was joined by three of her five children as she watched them walk past her home. “God, it’s like losing my family,” she said. “All my life I’ve been waiting for them.”

The day’s walk, which ended at 3:30 p.m., was uneventful. Most of it was along a dirt pipeline road under an increasingly hot sun. When they passed the Marine Corps’ Logistics Base rifle range, where the signs said “Danger Live Firing,” they passed four Marines in camouflage fatigues leaning on a fence. There were friendly greetings on both sides.

As they walked, they were watched by California Highway Patrolman Hank Roberts. He said the CHP will see them to the state line.

“We’ll see them to the border. But I sure hope they’re prepared for this. It’s 96 miles of open desert out there. They better have their act together,” he said.