Some Eager, Others Wary as Southland Mobilizes : Local impact: Reservists brace for possible call to duty. Anti-war demonstrators raise voices in protest.

As the United States and Iraq confront each other half a world away, Southern California’s home front is mobilizing on a scale not seen since the Vietnam War.

Thousands of military reservists are bracing--some hopefully, some warily--for a possible call to duty by their commander in chief.

“I hope and pray this will be successfully resolved in a peaceful manner. But if that’s not to be, I hope to be part of the alternate approach,” said Los Angeles police Capt. Keith Bushey, who also holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps reserves.

Meanwhile, veterans of the anti-war movement in the 1960s are raising their voices--and organizing--against the United States’ strong military response to the latest Middle East crisis.

“We didn’t belong in Vietnam . . . and we don’t belong over there,” said Robert Elias, who is helping organize a march to commemorate the 20th anniversary of a massive demonstration in East Los Angeles that was aimed in part against the war in Vietnam.

In a world that wearily celebrated the end of the Cold War, the sudden prospect of major combat in the Middle East has been felt with a dizzying impact in Southern California. Some people here are eager to fight, some are eager to protest--and many are bewildered by it all.

The children of military personnel already deployed in Saudi Arabia ask troubling questions of their teachers. Reserve forces faced with calls to military duty worry not just about their own lives and the effect on their families, but also the disruption of careers and businesses.

President Bush’s decision to mobilize 40,000 reserve forces--and perhaps as many as 150,000--has brought the crisis closer to home. Medical personnel and cargo handlers represent the first wave; it is unclear who else may go.

“My wife was crying last night,” said Mark Little of Orange, a 34-year-old communications specialist with the California Air National Guard. “She’s afraid I’ll be called up and sent not just to another country, but to the crisis zone--and not for a week or a month, but six months to a year.

“I tell her I won’t be called. . . . I try to sound positive, but I’m not.”

If more reservists are called, civilian employers wonder how they will make do without them. Hospitals will lose doctors and, in a worst-case scenario, the city of Los Angeles could lose more than 400 police officers.

“You can anticipate . . . that there may be some hospitals that are going to find themselves short of some (medical) residents,” said Dr. James Todd, executive vice president of the American Medical Assn. Todd said older, supervising doctors would have to take up the slack.

More than 18,000 physicians in the United States are in the reserves; 7,500 of them could be called under the Bush Administration’s plan. There are 6,540 dentists and 25,886 nurses; of those, 2,458 dentists and 13,584 nurses could be called.

Nevertheless, hospital officials throughout Southern California predicted that the call-up would not significantly impair their ability to provide services. Enough medical professionals will be left behind to fill the gaps, they say.

“There just aren’t that many physicians from California in the reserves any more,” said David Langness of the Hospital Council of Southern California. Langness suggested poorer communities may be hardest hit because many physicians from lower-income areas signed up for the reserves in return for financial support in medical school.

Already the impact is being felt at the Naval Hospital San Diego, also known as Balboa Hospital. The shipping out of active-duty medical personnel has forced a 50% reduction in inpatient surgical services and a 20% reduction in outpatient services, a hospital spokesman said.

The spokesman, H. Sam Samuelson, said reservists who were putting in time at the hospital in recent weeks have been asked to stay on to help out, and more are likely to be called in four to six weeks.

He said the reservists likely to be called up in the coming weeks probably will not report to.

At the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in West Los Angeles, about 80 members of the 3,200-person staff are in the reserves. “I personally, at this point, feel there would be minimal impact,” Henry Maar, chief of personnel, said.

Law enforcement agencies--which include many retired military personnel in their ranks--also may be forced to cover for large numbers of reservists. The 8,400-member Los Angeles Police Department includes 450 reservists and the 11,000-member Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has 150, spokesmen for those agencies said.

“I don’t think anyone anticipates all active reserves would be called up, but whatever happens, we’d absorb it,” said police Cmdr. William Booth. “The police chief is a strong supporter of the reserves, and that means supporting them when they’re needed, not just when they aren’t.”

While some reservists know they will go, most wait for the call.

“I don’t have a clue if we’re going to activate or not,” said police Capt. Bushey. He commands about 250 officers at the Los Angeles Northeast Division, as well as a similar number in a Marine Corps reserve unit based in Long Beach that specializes in coordinating air and naval gunfire support for infantry units.

“Like all Marine units, we’re well-trained, prepared, highly motivated and determined to do the best job possible if the opportunity arises,” Bushey said.

Many career-minded police officers “are praying to Allah that I’ll be called. Then they’ll all get moved up a notch,” Bushey added, laughing.

Many reservists, however, see war as a bad career move.

Physicians with thriving practices--from orthopedics to obstetrics--suddenly find themselves facing the prospect of an indefinite tour of duty, proably not in the Mideast but as “backfill” in military hospitals throughout the United States.

Dr. Albert Kapstrom, a 56-year-old obstetrician-gynecologist at a health maintenance organization in Los Angeles, conceded he was feeling a bit frightened. “I’ve lived a good life, I’ve been married 32 years, I have five children,” he mused.

“I think about a lot of things,” said Kapstrom, a colonel and commander in the Air National Guard. “I think about the irrationality of the people who have put themselves against our country. I think about the loneliness that goes with separation from family.

“I wonder now, when those individuals in the unit would turn to me for nurture, would I be strong enough to give them the strength they need when I would be laboring under the same stresses?”

Another doctor in the reserves, Constante U. Abaya of Oxnard, said he will have to shut down his practice, fire two employees and take a drastic pay cut if he is activated.

What is more, he has two sons in college. “I just signed a lease for my boy’s apartment at USC,” Abaya said with a rueful chuckle.

“But if I did not have these responsibilities, I would probably be the first to volunteer,” added Abaya, who has been in the reserves for seven years.

Dr. Judson Schoendorf, a 48-year-old allergist in Long Beach who is chief executive officer of a 60-physician medical group, and a Navy reserve captain, said he fully intends to serve if called, but observed that the threat of war could have come at a better time.

His business, for example, is involved in complex legal negotiations over the sale of a building that has landmark status. And in the medical practice, Schoendorf is the only allergist, juggling as many as 80 allergy patients a day.

And then there is his personal life. “What do I do with pets?” he wondered. “Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I don’t have any obligations in the world. I have a parrot and a pond full of koi. What do I do with those? Let them die just because I’m going?”

Marine reservist Graham Morse, 31, of Santa Monica, is a sheet-metal contractor in civilian life.

“I’ve got a ton of business,” Morse said. “I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to get back to my business. But if it comes down to the wire, it’s got to be done.”

Lt. Col. Clifton Uyematsu, 45, an Anaheim resident who works as a retail store designer for Hallmark, is acting commander of the 56th Aerial Port Squadron at the 445th Military Airlift Wing, an Air Force reserve unit of 3,300 at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino.

His unit’s job is to load passengers and cargo on planes, a duty that the Pentagon on Wednesday said needs filling by reserves. So he figures he will go.

“As a civilian,” he said, “I think it’s going to cause some inconvenience because now our routine has been disrupted. But for the most part, I think our particular squadron has been focused on the training that prepares us for a situation like this.”

His wife and two sons, 19 and 17, “would rather have me stay home, but they support the program. They know leaving has always been a possibility,” he said.

Carolyn Emry, head of emergency nursing at San Clemente General Hospital, said she recently signed up for the reserves, with the hope that she would be called to active duty. But she said she does not expect to be called until October.

“I’ve always wanted to go since I got out of nurses’ training,” Emry said Wednesday. “But then I got married and had kids. . . . Now I can go have that adventure and excitement and not worry. There are no kids to raise and the house is taken care of--you know, all the things you would normally worry about if you were going. And I think I can share a lot of experience.”

The eagerness with which some reservists greeted the prospect of being called up was also reflected in recruiting offices and reserve training centers. Phone inquires have increased from would-be volunteers, but most never call back after hearing the requirements, such as a high school education and basic training, recruiters say.

“A lot of people think they can walk in and leave the next day,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Tom Richard at the Navy recruiting office in East Los Angeles. “You always have the gung-ho people who come out of the woodwork and say they’re ready to go.”

The threat of actual war in the Persian Gulf also has not scared off recruits, he added.

“I have not had anybody say, ‘Kiss my royal posterior, I’m not going over there,’ ” Richard said.

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Stephen Hernandez said the Encino training center has received a large number of calls lately from former servicemen who want to join up again. One call even came from a World War II veteran.

“Everyone wants to come back in. We’ve been giving out recruiters’ (phone) numbers like crazy,” Hernandez said. “There’s so much support out there, I can’t believe it.”

But anti-war sentiment already is visible.

More than 100 anti-war activists gathered inside the church of St. Augustine-by-the-Sea in Santa Monica on Wednesday to rally against the U.S. military buildup. Meanwhile, several counter-demonstrators protested outside and burned the Iraqi flag.

Staff writers Eric Lichtblau, Nancy Wride, Gary Gorman, Joel Sappell, Tracy Wilkinson, Kevin Roderick, David Ferrell, Louis Sahagun, Dave Smollar, Ron Smith, Jack Cheevers and Josh Meyer contributed to this report.

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