Americans Feel the Touch of War Half a World Away : Home front: Weddings are moved up; there’s a run on maps, flags and food; callers clog phone lines.

War has lobbed itself into American lives from half a globe away, bollixing up plans and separating lovers and generally keeping everyone on edge. It has turned a quick buck for some and picked the pockets of others.

Suzanne Mackay got married Friday, a long way on the calendar from the fairy-tale wedding she had planned for August. But her fiance was being called up for active duty. “If Brad goes to war, we may never see each other again,” she reasoned. And so the wedding was hurriedly moved up.

There was barely time to get a license, reserve a church and invite 40 of their closest relatives and friends. Mackay, a 21-year-old student at the University of Houston, managed the best she could.

On Wednesday, she hastily selected a white, off-the-shoulder wedding dress, hired a photographer, ordered a two-tiered wedding cake and a bouquet of pink and white carnations. By Friday, all the rushing had upset her stomach.

“I am stressing,” she said, sitting nervously in a hairdresser’s chair, an elaborate Victorian bouffant being shaped out of her long, blonde curls. It was four hours before she exchanged vows. “This has been a pretty rough week,” she said. “All of this seems unreal. I feel dazed.”

The morning of her wedding was spent with a roomful of Marine wives. An officer explained things that spouses need to know. Reservists have a special role in the Middle East, he said. Support groups are available for the family members left behind. And there are insurance benefits in case of death.

This was to be the weekend that Walter Haddad and his wife rendezvoused in Manhattan with old friends from Palm Beach. Tickets for a couple of plays, “Grand Hotel” and “City of Angels,” were already reserved and waiting at the theater box offices.

But the war’s start changed all that.

First, the Haddads live in Santa Monica and “my wife wasn’t too anxious to fly Thursday morning,” he said.

Besides, he thought he’d better take up his post in his corner office on the 40th floor of the Citicorp building in downtown Los Angeles.

Walter Haddad is a stockbroker, a senior vice president for Paine Webber. He knew that when hostilities broke out, the market would erupt as well.

Over the next two days, he got hundreds of calls. At times, four of his five lines were lit at once. “I got double the number I usually get. I just cut them shorter,” he said.

He worked 12-hour days. Lunch was a red apple. His voice developed a rasp. He hesitated when asked what his gross commissions were for Thursday, then replied: “$7,000 to $10,000.”

“If I was exhausted when I left,” Haddad said, “I was certainly happy.”

In Manhattan, any map with the words Middle East was gone. Sold. Out the door. When will there be others? Who knew?

Douglas Rose, manager of Hagstrom Map & Travel Center on West 43rd Street, asked his suppliers for 600 more. “I have orders out in a variety of places for a variety of maps,” he said.

Sales were so brisk that the store even sold the Middle East “crisis” map it had displayed in its front window in the days before Christmas. “If it weren’t for the Middle East, we wouldn’t have any business at all,” Rose said, half-jokingly.

In Honolulu, the war brought a run on rice.

Actually, there was no shortage--and no reason to expect one. But shoppers nevertheless loaded up on 100 pounds at a time. “What’s at work here is a bit of hysteria,” said food broker Fred Biven. “Once this sort of thing starts, it builds on itself.”

The explanation lies with Hawaii’s immigrant population, particularly Filipinos and Southeast Asians. They have known food shortages during times of war, Biven said. Hawaii’s isolation also feeds the fears. The islands are dependent on shipping for supplies.

Adele Yoshikawa, a supermarket manager, was fascinated by the rice-buying frenzy. “When people start doing something, other people see them doing it and they start doing it too,” she said. “Even the employees started doing it.”

Her store limited customers on their rice purchases--a maximum of five 20-pound bags Wednesday, then down to two Tuesday, then one on Friday.

Mike Chun’s family was one that stocked up. “We’ve got 90 pounds of rice in the house,” he confessed sheepishly. “That’s enough for the next six months.”

Operation Desert Storm brought a flood of action to a small Army recruiting office in a strip shopping center in West Miami. Usually, maybe three prospective recruits come through the door each day. But since the war “there has been a mob in here,” said Sgt. Steve Radziewicz, “plus the phone ringing.”

Recruiting was suddenly easy. A television was the perfect come-on. It was like a nonstop, breathless testimonial for American armed forces.

Ramon Calderon, 18, a high school senior, was one of the young men who walked in. Radziewicz looked him over. The sergeant has muscular, tattooed arms. He has been to jungle school, sniper school and assault school. He noticed the small, gold earring that hung from the teen-ager’s earlobe.

Well, OK. He told him the spiel anyway: “We train for a war which we hope never happens. Because we know how lethal we are. Because, let’s face it, people are going to die.”

Then he began the questions. “Tell me,” he asked. “Ever been inside a police car? Ever worn the silver bracelets? Any children you know of? When you see yourself in the Army, you see yourself in the office or the woods?” The woods, Calderon answered. He was sure. “I see myself doing something in the woods.”

For 10 years, Alvaro Santos, 55, has worked as a skycap at the Phoenix airport, but never have days been worse than since the war began. “This is thanks to Saddam Hussein,” he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration, taking precautions against terrorism, now forbids departing travelers to leave luggage at curbside. There goes 80% of a skycap’s work.

“We hope the war doesn’t last long,” Santos said. “Otherwise I’ll have to find a second job.”

The Atlanta Red Cross was overwhelmed. Giving blood seemed a way for the average citizen to fight the war. Donors poured in. Extra staff was called.

Charles Hebert was there on Friday. He lay back on the table. His arm was in the air. He held a piece of gauze where the needle had pricked the skin. “It sounds so corny, but we came because of the war,” he said.

Head Nurse Elzena Ellis was amazed by it all. “It kind of brings out the American in you,” she said.

Ordinarily, this is the slow time of year at the W.G.N. Flag & Decorating Co. on the far South Side of Chicago. But war has hastened the pace. People want flags. Lots of flags.

Patriotism generally plays only a small part in W.G.N.’s business. Most of its sales are for custom-made banners. But Old Glory is the hot item now. A popular model has “Desert Shield” silk-screened on the background.

The phone does not stop ringing. There is even a walk-in business, unusual for the small plant. Attorney Dan Nikolic, 24, drove across the city to buy a flag for his apartment on Lake Shore Drive. They showed him a large one.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s it,” he said.

A year in the planning, one of Houston’s biggest annual social events, the Winter Ball, was set for Saturday night. White and silver lame drapes hung from the walls of the Hyatt Regency Hotel’s Imperial Ballroom. More than 225 pounds of white chocolate mousse were already whipped to perfection. Eight hundred guests--some paying up to $10,000 a table--were expected. Then Thursday night, Iraqi missiles hit Israel, and Winter Ball organizers decided that they had a problem. “We felt it was inappropriate (to hold a gala) under the circumstances,” said chairman Linda Bertman. They canceled it.

Volunteers worked the phones until all 800 guests were informed. Down came the decorations. Back went the food to suppliers--all of it, anyway, except that mound of prepared mousse.

The rich dessert will now be served in the employee cafeteria. Norman Dillard, the Hyatt’s associate food and beverage director, said, “We will be enjoying mousse for some time to come.”

At Blockbuster Video in north Seattle, there were more employees than customers in the store Friday afternoon. Business was remarkably slow. Not as slow as Wednesday, perhaps. But slow.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Andy Rimorin had begun noticing that no one was coming in. “Then we turned the monitors (the ones that usually play movie trailers) to the news and we knew why,” he said.

With war to watch on TV, who needed to rent a video? Thursday was also a bad day. Then, Friday, things began to pick up again. Several people said they were getting tired of the constant network bombardment of news.

Margie Hennessey complained that it had her so “burned out” that she took time off from work to rent a tape. “Just anything . . . other than war.”

“Cadillac Man” was chosen to rescue her from Desert Storm.

Even though Richard French was working inside a windowless cinder-block building in Burbank on Thursday afternoon--away from any radio or television--he knew almost immediately that something had happened in Israel.

Numbers and symbols started flashing across his computer terminal. He heard tone after tone in his headset. All over Southern California, frantic people were rushing to telephone friends and family in the Middle East.

When they couldn’t get through--and hardly anyone could with U.S. calls to Israel rising 3,000% in the five hours after Tel Aviv was attacked--they turned to people like French, a bearded, blue-jeaned long-distance operator for AT&T.; But he had no more success than the customers.

All international circuits to the country you are calling are busy now. Please try your call later.

His supervisor made the rounds in the big computer room, telling operators to make only one try per customer. So many people wanted to get through, it would be impossible to help all of them.

French steeled himself to stay calm. He knew callers would be desperate and frightened. One man’s voice in the headset said, “They’re dropping bombs in Israel.”

“Yes, I heard something about that earlier,” French answered quietly.

Another customer asked why his call to Israel could not get through.

“Due to circumstances,” French replied.

“Operator, please,” a woman implored, “I’m worried.”

He wasn’t supposed to, but for her, French tried to make the connection.

We’re sorry. All international circuits are busy. Please try your call again later.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Barry Bearak, Doug Conner, Paul Feldman, Tracy Shryer, Edith Stanley, David Treadwell and Anna M. Virtue, as well as stringers Mike Clary, Susan Essoyan and Stuart Wasserman.