ON THE HOME FRONT : Fear for Family Brings War Home to San Diegan

As the Persian Gulf War entered its eighth day Wednesday, its impact continued to be felt throughout San Diego County--from Iraqi-born residents terrified that relatives in Baghdad may be dead to American military wives fearful that their husbands will be the next to be sent overseas.

Sabah Toma is an Iraqi citizen who has lived in San Diego for years. But his entire family--his father and mother, four sisters and a brother--remain in Baghdad. He hasn’t heard a word since Saddam Hussein took over Kuwait in August.

“I think we should have done harder praying,” he said Wednesday, his voice choked with emotion. “Maybe we didn’t pray enough. There’s no night in which I’ve slept more than two or three hours since the war started.

“I get up at 2 a.m. and turn on CNN (Cable News Network), and then I can’t turn it off. I’m obsessed with it. I watch it constantly. I wonder if my family is still alive.”

Toma said he never had trouble phoning Baghdad until Iraqi forces occupied Kuwait. Toma is one of 8,000 Chaldeans--Christian Iraqis--living in San Diego, but all his relatives are in Iraq.

“It’s very, very tough,” he said. “I’m worried sick. I’m heartbroken. I never dreamed such a thing could happen, and now I wonder if it will ever end. And if and when it does, I wonder if life will ever be the same.”

Connie Edwards is worried that her husband, a Navy dental technician, may soon be summoned to Saudi Arabia, but in the meantime, she’s mad about Julia Roberts.

The actress, who starred in “Pretty Woman” and “Steel Magnolias,” is featured on the cover of Preview Entertainment, a new, La Jolla-based magazine that Edwards works for and which makes its international debut Feb. 14.

Preview Entertainment will be shipped to 250,000 service men and

women nationwide, said Edwards, with 50,000 copies heading to Saudi Arabia.

Its parent company is the La Jolla-based National Preview Network.

Sending the magazine to the Middle East required Pentagon clearance, Edwards said, and a snag came up concerning Roberts’ photograph on the cover. It seems the Saudi government objected to the actress’ short-sleeved sweater, which revealed her forearms and elbows.

“The Saudis will permit only a woman’s face to be shown,” said spokeswoman Edwards. “She was wearing jeans and this tasteful, short-sleeved sweater. Being a woman, this makes me really angry. It’s so senseless.”

Edwards said she agrees with a vocal corps of feminists, who say a servicewoman fighting for Saudia Arabia is like a black man or woman fighting for South Africa.

But now that the photograph of Roberts has been doctored to reveal only her face and appease the Saudis, Edwards has high hopes for Preview Entertainment. Advance word from the front: Military personnel want the news limited to Hollywood and the music industry.

“They’ve told us right up front that they want nothing about the war,” Edwards said. “In the desert, confronted daily by battle, all they want to read is fun stuff.”

Directors for the San Diego branch of the United Service Organization (USO) are appealing to local businesses and civic groups for the thing they need the most--money.

The nonprofit group, which provides recreation, entertainment and support-related services to American military personnel and the families left behind, faces an immediate $70,000 deficit.

The shortfall is caused, executive director Terry Waldie said this week, by the needs of families whose fathers, mothers, husbands or wives have been deployed in the Persian Gulf. At particular risk are programs providing free meals and emergency housing, as well as social services and a family literacy course.

“Surely, we would die before we would close our doors, but we would hate to cut back our services just as much,” Waldie said.

Two-thirds of the local USO’s yearly budget of $360,000 is donated by corporations and individuals, and a third by United Way, Waldie said.

The recession has cut down dramatically on contributed income, he said, and the outlook is grim.

Waldie’s plea must have done some good. On Wednesday, San Diego Gas & Electric donated $5,000.

The California Highway Patrol announced Wednesday that, due to increased security at military bases, traffic in and around local installations has never been heavier.

The CHP recommends that San Diegans leave for work much earlier in the morning in the hope of reducing congestion. It is at its worst, authorities say, on freeway off-ramps feeding into the bases.

United States International University will hold a blood drive from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at Green Hall on the Scripps Ranch campus. Donated blood can be sent to the Persian Gulf in support of U.S. efforts or given to one’s own blood assurance plan or that of the university.

The blood assurance plan covers the donor and their family for the cost of blood replacement when needed in San Diego County and in more than 800 areas across the nation.

Sea World employees are now wearing yellow ribbons on their name tags in support of fellow workers serving in the Persian Gulf. Seven reservists have been activated due to the Mideast crisis, Sea World reports, with more scheduled to leave soon.

Three large yellow ribbons were draped last week from the park’s 320-foot Skytower in support of U.S. troops.

Winnie Hanford, the owner of Kensington Video on Adams Avenue, is one of several Kensington-Talmadge merchants who have raised the flag in honor of Americans fighting overseas.

Hanford said flags traditionally fly along Adams Avenue on holidays, as they do on many local thoroughfares. But now, 12 flags are flying daily on Adams from 10 a.m. until dusk, in a two-block area between Terrace Drive and Marlborough Avenue.

On weekends, Hanford said 30 flags are flying along a six-block area, throughout what she calls the Kensington shopping district. Adams is the “main drag” of Kensington, Hanford said.

She’s noticed a boom in war-related video rentals at her 7-year-old video store since bombs started dropping on Baghdad late last week.

“People are taking out stuff related to the Second World War,” Hanford said. “They’re renting ‘Strategic Command,’ ‘Battle Cry,’ ‘Hell in the Pacific’ and ‘Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.’ ”

The most surprising element of the popular new rentals? It’s primarily women taking them out, Hanford said.

Security has been upgraded at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, manager Bill Wilson said Wednesday. Wilson said the “extra precautions”--which he declined to disclose--were motivated by fears of terrorism stemming from the Persian Gulf War.

“First of all, we’re a public facility,” Wilson said. “We’ve been wanting to tighten security anyway. We have too many doors accessible to too many people with too many keys. I decided it was just a good time to be cautious.

“I held a meeting of my full staff, and so, we’ve doubled security. I felt we had to, with the world situation the way it is.”