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The Battles May Change but the Lectures Stay the Same

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Three weeks ago I would have had trouble finding Kuwait on the map. I had no idea who (or what) the emir is.

I might have been able to fake it if asked the difference between King Hussein and Saddam Hussein (one is short, the other ruthless). But I was happily ignorant of Scud missiles.

Now, like the rest of the country, I’m in future shock.

I’m sitting Thursday in a large room--bar at either end, lots of garish lighting--in the Non-Commissioned Officers’ Club at Camp Pendleton. I’m listening to a chaplain brief Marines on what to expect from “our hosts, in-country.”

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Navy Cmdr. Stanley B. Scott, talky and informal, is giving a cram course to Marines on the mores and culture of Saudi Arabia. Reporters are invited to watch.

Scott is trying to explain a feudal monarchy drenched in Islam to young men from a rock ‘n’ roll democracy: “Be prudent, be courteous and be sensitive.”

His audience is sort of quietly intense.

Staff Sgt. Doug Jackson, 33, from a small town in Missouri, has picked up President Bush’s explanation for sending in the troops.

“We’re supporting our way of life,” he says. “We’ve fought and worked hard for that way of life for 200 years. It’s a good way of life.”

Cpl. Daniel Brevik, 27, of Tombstone, Ariz., says it’s a matter of economics: Saddam Hussein “is out to wreck our economy. We can’t let him do that.”

Navy Seaman Johnny McCall, 21, of Charlotte, N.C., says he’s not startled by anything that has happened:

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“I read a lot about the Middle East in my Bible. It’s had troubles for a long time.”

Chaplain Scott looks on the bright side.

“This is an opportunity for you to expand as a person, to have a greater understanding of your world,” he tells the Marines, “and to be a richer, fuller person when you go home.”

Scott has been in the military 23 years. Nearly a generation ago, he gave similarly upbeat lectures to the Marines in Vietnam.

Bring Your Own Crime

Current affairs.

* Sunny city, shady people.

From a Washington Post story about the Federal Witness Protection Program and mobster-turned-songbird Herman Martin, who died recently:

“According to the U.S. Marshals Service, which administers the program, more than 5,400 witnesses and 6,000 family members have been assisted since 1971, many of those relocating to San Diego, which was Martin’s home, because of the city’s weather, economy and relatively low quotient of organized crime.”

From the same story: 20% of relocated witnesses go to prison for new felonies.

* Of polls and men.

Sam Popkin, political science professor at UC San Diego, is not surprised that polls show a large majority of the public backing President Bush’s actions on Iraq.

Popkin is a pollster who has worked for the networks, the Democratic Party, and others.

He says strong support is part of a “rally-round-the-flag” factor, like the early years of Vietnam. But he predicts that support will decline quickly if American troops start dying.

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The comparison of Saddam Hussein to Hitler won’t wash, said Popkin: “Kuwait is not Czechoslovakia.”

* North County bumper sticker: Nuclear power is a bomb.

The Price of Defense

Investment means jobs and economic expansion, the good life that the President says needs defending. I know this.

Still, children at Camp Pendleton are being given “Daddy’s Days Away” coloring books to allay their fears as their fathers head for Saudi Arabia.

Maybe that’s why I find such tackiness in the title of a free seminar given by the Escondido office of the Dean Witter Reynolds brokerage:

“How to profit from the Middle Eastern situation.”

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