Refusal to Salute Flag Sparks Protests : Santa Monica: Landlords and veterans call it unpatriotic. Rent board member and his supporters say it’s a heartfelt protest against U.S. policy in El Salvador.

Santa Monica Rent Control Board member Wayne Bauer knew that his decision recently not to salute the flag at the beginning of board meetings in protest of U.S. involvement in El Salvador would be controversial.

But he said it was an easy decision compared to the one he made nearly 25 years ago when, shortly before he was scheduled to be shipped to Vietnam as an enlisted Marine, he decided to go AWOL because he questioned U.S. involvement there.

“The decision to leave the Marines was infinitely more difficult,” said Bauer, who was absent without leave for nearly eight years before turning himself in to military authorities who subsequently granted him a General Discharge under honorable conditions as an unofficial conscientious objector.

“But this recent decision was easy based on my experiences since I left the Marines and traveled all over the country from Indian reservations to the inner cities. . . . It’s not enough to read the papers at night and just shake our heads. For me, the outrage I felt about the murder of the six priests in El Salvador was best addressed with what is right in front of me. In this case it was not saluting the flag.”

While some friends and foes of Bauer disagree with his decision to refrain from pledging allegiance to the flag, few question his sincerity.

Landlord James Baker said he disagrees with Bauer on most rent control issues and on Bauer’s protest of the flag, but said he believes Bauer’s feelings are honest.

“Wayne, in everything he does, is sincere but very emotional,” said Baker, who earlier this year was one of three landlords to negotiate with Bauer on major changes in the city’s rent control law. “What you see with Wayne is what you get. He has been consistently noted for having strong views which he passionately believes in.”

Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, a tenants rights group, said Bauer’s flag protest is in keeping with his practice of “speaking out on things he feels very strong about.”

Susan Packer Davis, chairwoman of the rent board and a close friend of Bauer’s, added: “He never runs away from discussion. He is quick to respond, but he is not irrational. He does not test the waters, he does what he believes is right.” Davis, along with board member Julie Lopez Dad, are joining Bauer in observing a moment of silence rather than saluting the flag.

And what do the flag and U.S. policy in El Salvador have to do with rent control and other Santa Monica housing matters?

Bauer contends that the issues are closely linked, particularly for people with “strong moral convictions about the poor and injustice.”

And although the decision by Bauer, Davis and Dad to refrain from saluting the flag is clearly offensive to some of the city’s veterans and others with strong patriotic convictions, much of the harshest criticism of the new policy is coming from familiar quarters--namely, the landlords who have been fighting the tenant-controlled rent board tooth and nail for years.

At Monday night’s board meeting, about 75 landlords and war veterans, including a makeshift color guard, shouted and jeered at Bauer and Davis (Dad was absent) when they remained seated with heads bowed as the flag was saluted.

“Shame on you,” some members of the audience shouted. “Salute the flag or resign,” shouted others. At one point, Bauer got into a shouting match with a man in the front row who was yelling through a bullhorn.

In some respects, the flag dispute is merely the latest in a series of controversies Bauer has encountered in his six years as a member of the rent board. He was vigorously attacked earlier in the year, for example, by landlords and tenants alike after he helped put together the city’s experimental “Incentive Housing Program.” Despite the criticism, Bauer regards the program as the city’s best hope for ensuring a supply of low-cost rental housing without driving landlords out of business.

“The bottom line,” said board Chairwoman Davis, “is that no one person has done more for rent control than Wayne Bauer.”

Bauer said his concerns about injustice, the rights of poor tenants and his questioning of American foreign policy have common roots, starting from 1965 when as a 17-year-old from New Jersey he dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Marines.

Bauer, now a month away from his 42nd birthday, said that at the time he had never heard anyone speak critically of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. “I never thought about the U.S. being wrong,” he said.

He completed basic training and was awaiting his orders to ship to Vietnam. But while on weekend passes from his base at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina he visited New York’s Greenwich Village, where anti-war sentiments were brewing.

Bauer said that at first he confronted the anti-war demonstrators, but eventually began questioning whether he could fight in a war that he knew so little about.

“The decision was becoming a moral question for me,” said Bauer, who was raised Roman Catholic and still attends Mass regularly.

He finally decided he could not fight in Vietnam, went AWOL and spent about a month in New York. He then boarded a bus for Columbus, Ohio, and from there he hitchhiked across the southwestern part of the country, never staying in one place for more than six months.

He said he was often homeless and hungry. He took odd jobs, including a nine-month stint with a traveling carnival. All this time, he continued questioning his decision and the United States’ role in Vietnam.

“I would talk to people all the time about Vietnam,” he said. “Everybody had an opinion, but no one really seemed to know what was going on.”

In 1969, Bauer moved to the Los Angeles area. Three years later, with opposition to the war growing nationwide, Bauer said he was tired of living in hiding, and with the help of a lawyer turned himself in to military authorities at Camp Pendleton.

Bauer’s attorney, Michael Somers, who specialized in representing military personnel, said in an interview that he was able to convince military authorities that Bauer all along had been an undeclared conscientious objector and that the eight years in hiding had left him psychologically unsuitable for military service.

Bauer was given a General Discharge under honorable conditions on Jan. 19, 1973.

“The military made a wise and just decision,” said Somers, who is now a real estate lawyer and broker in Santa Rosa. “I find Wayne’s conduct now is consistent with the sensitive individual who protested the violence of Vietnam as a matter of conscience. He doesn’t sound like any coward to me.”

Bauer’s second term as a rent control board member ends next November. He says he is uncertain whether he will, or can, seek another term. There is a two-term limit for board members, but there is some question whether the limit applies to Bauer because his first term was not for the full four years.

Regardless, Bauer says he wants to complete his law school studies and graduate next summer. He said he hopes to become a legal aid attorney to continue helping the poor and fighting injustice.

“America should stand for freedom,” he said. “Not just the freedom to make money, but for basic rights of medical care and shelter. Through all my experiences, I’ve tried to make a difference for people.

“I don’t hate my country. I still want to be proud of America. But if you can be run out of office for exercising your constitutional rights of freedom of expression, then America is going to lose.”