Active Duty Replaces Toys for Tots Work for Marines : Charities: With the company shipping out for the Mideast, civilian groups will gather donations of presents for the county’s needy children.

Normally at this time of year, Ventura County’s 150 Marine reservists would be canvassing the county looking for toys.

Their mission: to drum up support for Toys for Tots, the Marines’ program for bringing cheer to needy children at Christmastime.

But this is not a normal year. In three days, the young reservists will begin a new mission: to head for Saudi Arabia as battle-ready Marines.

Instead of collecting dolls, games and miniature cars, the men of Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines will be overseas this Christmas as part of Operation Desert Shield.

With the Marines gone, Toys for Tots in Ventura County will depend on the Marine Corps League, the Conejo Valley Board of Realtors and other business and civic groups to pick up toys at 168 locations, including all county fire stations.

“Naturally, we have other things on our minds right now, but we still think it’s very important,” said Capt. Richard Johnson, the company’s inspector-instructor. “In many cases, the toy we deliver is the only Christmas gift a child receives.”

Last year, he said, Toys for Tots collected more than 8 million toys nationwide--18,000 of them in Ventura County. This year’s county goal is 21,000 gifts.

Johnson said some of the reservists will make last efforts on this year’s toy drive Saturday, when they will take part in Camarillo’s annual Christmas parade and in the Channel Islands Parade of Lights.

Jenese Rosene, coordinator of youth programs for the Ventura Department of Parks and Recreation, said she received a hint that something might happen when she met with members of the unit two months ago to plan the distribution of toys in west Ventura.

“The reservists told us they might have to cut back this year,” she said.

“Still, I asked them for 2,000 toys this Christmas, twice as many as they gave us last year. I explained that the need is greater this year. Capt. Johnson told us we’ll have them.”

Sister Carmen Rodriguez, coordinator of the Community Outreach program at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, said the Marine reservists delivered 800 of the 1,200 gifts distributed last Christmas to children in that city’s Colonia district.

“The kids were overjoyed,” she said.

Of the impending departure of the company, she said: “I am so unhappy about it. I feel as if I am losing my own flesh and blood.

“I fear for their safety. I will pray for them.”

Sunday, the young reservists will report to the Port Hueneme Naval Construction Battalion Center, where they will be activated as part of the nation’s Persian Gulf mobilization.

The following day, they will begin training at Camp Pendleton. Later they will fly to Okinawa, Japan, their final stop before being sent to the Middle East.

Their platoon designations offer a stark contrast to the reservists’ roles as Toys for Tots organizers in the county.

“We have three platoons,” Johnson said. “They are the 81-millimeter mortar platoon, the Dragon antitank missile platoon and the heavy machine-gun platoon. The machine-gun platoon is armed with a .50-caliber machine gun and a MK-19 grenade-launcher machine gun.”

The company will provide fire support for a Marine infantry battalion, Johnson said.

Johnson said the young men, about 30 of whom are married, “seem to be taking it pretty well” since being notified last Friday that their unit will be activated.

“We’ve been telling them to be ready for some time, that they should get their affairs in order.

“To most of them, the timing was a big surprise,” Johnson said. “We’ll have a better line on their morale Monday, when they get on the buses and head for Pendleton.”

For a while at least, Johnson and several other full-time members of the company will remain behind “to clean up some details,” he said.