HOME-FRONT WATCH : Casualty of War

Oceanside is looking for a few good men--to fill its movie theaters, ride its buses, dine in its restaurants.

With Marines shipping out to the Middle East by the thousands, the merchants of this seaside town dominated by sprawling Camp Pendleton are suddenly pining for the military personnel with whom they have a historic love-hate relationship.

While wartime can rev up the national economy, towns such as Oceanside, in San Diego County, and Twentynine Palms, in San Bernardino County, where the Marines train for desert warfare, can be hurt. Their fates are linked to huge military bases, so they’ve lost significant portions of their consumer base and part of their moonlight labor force. Camp Pendleton’s 36,000 Marines and their dependents generate half of Oceanside’s sales tax revenue.

The troop deployment has hurt business at Oceanside’s barber shops, laundermats, shopping malls and barrooms.

War is not hell, by the way, if you’re in the quickie wedding business, which is booming. Chapels in Oceanside and Twentynine Palms report sizable increases in hastily arranged weddings for Marines expecting to ship out. These days, that means women as well. Some of them are doing extra duty arranging long-term child care.

The irony here is that, in recent years, Oceanside has been trying to shed its image as a seedy military town to win favor among tourists. But with the Marines suddenly AWOL, as it were, the breadth of the town’s dependence on the military is clearer than ever.