SAN DIEGO COUNTY AND THE GULF WAR : 30,000 Well-Wishers Take Time Out to Show the Flag

An estimated 30,000 people packed San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium’s parking lot early Tuesday to form a human flag in a show of support for U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf.

The turnout so exceeded organizers’ hopes that most people had to stand in a huge circle and watch 4,000 others clad in red, white or blue T-shirts form the enormous flag. Shortly before dispersing at 8 a.m., the crowd sang the national anthem.

A photograph taken from a blimp will be made into a poster and sent within 24 hours to U.S. forces in the gulf area, said Cliff Albert, news director for KFMB-FM, which sponsored the event that was filmed by Cable News Network.

“Because of San Diego’s strong connection with the military, we felt it was time for people to come forward and stand tall and speak out in support of the troops,” Albert said.

And they did. Some showed up at the stadium as early as the night before. Others gathered at 5:30 a.m. to ensure getting their free T-shirt. By 7 a.m., the flag began to form, a process that took an hour.

The milling throngs surprised organizers and police, who expected a crowd one-tenth that size. Mike Fornes, a special events supervisor with the San Diego Police Department, said, “It was a lot bigger than the Padres (baseball) games we work.”

At North Island Naval Air Station, the phones are ringing as the Scuds fall. One woman called from the Midwest to find the location of the aircraft carrier Ranger because her son was aboard. Told that it was in the Gulf area, she responded, “I thought the aircraft carrier Independence was there and that you sent the ships over in alphabetical order.”

Another caller, a San Diego woman whose husband is aboard the Ranger, asked the Navy if any restrictions had been imposed on mail to sailors in the Middle East.

With mail routes swamped, officials now discourage the shipment of care packages. The U.S. Post Office also prohibits mailing religious or pornographic materials, she was told by Senior Chief Bob Howard, spokesman for the Pacific Fleet’s Naval Air Force.

Saying the item she wanted to send fit neither of those categories, she paused and blurted out, “It’s his toupee. He left home without it.”

Easing the financial burden for county employees called to military duty in the Persian Gulf, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to continue paying such workers their public salaries during active service.

By a unanimous vote, the board adopted a proposal by Supervisor Susan Golding under which the county will provide supplemental pay to employees who, as military reservists, are called to active duty because of the gulf crisis.

Under Golding’s plan, the county will pay the difference between employees’ county and military salaries during their deployment.

“No one should suffer a cut in pay because they’ve been called to active military duty,” Golding said. “This is one way to . . . lessen the financial and emotional impact military deployment may have on our employees and their families.”

Of the more than 200 military reservists who are county employees, about 40 are serving in gulf-related duties, according to Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Bruce Boland.

Over the next six months, county officials estimate that the supplemental pay program could cost the county up to $200,000. If the war with Iraq lasts longer, the program probably will be extended, Boland said.

Vice President Dan Quayle, once criticized for pulling strings to sidestep the Vietnam War, is scheduled to visit Miramar Naval Air Station on Feb. 8. Miramar is home of the famous Top Gun school for jet jockeys and fighter aces, many of whom are now in the Middle East.

At the downtown Marine Corps Recruiting Station, two heavyweights have been called in to woo recruits: Winston Churchill and John Stuart Mill, English philosopher. The two Englishmen were quoted on separate posters. One poster in the window reads: “If you cannot fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. Then may be even a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Directly beneath the British prime minister’s words, the poster says: “The Few. The Proud. The Marines.”

An Oklahoma evangelist donated a truckload of food to the 32nd Street Naval Station Tuesday to be parceled out to military families who are having trouble making ends meet.

Feed the Children, a charitable organization connected to Larry Jones International Ministries of Oklahoma City, delivered 30,000 pounds of rice, flour, prunes and pinto beans to base officials who will distribute it to struggling Navy and Marine families in the high-priced San Diego area, and to dependents of reservists called to active duty in the Persian Gulf.

“The reservists and National Guard are probably the ones having the most difficult time of it because they lose that regular paycheck,” said Jones, who estimated that 600 to 1,000 San Diego families need help between paychecks. “When a reservist says goodby, many of them are automatically in financial difficulty.”

The gap between a reservist’s civilian paycheck and military pay can be a rude shock in the San Diego area, where the cost of living is among the highest in the nation.

Capt. Jay Prout, the base commander, said most Navy families can get by without outside assistance, but moving expenses or unexpected bills for such things as car repairs sometimes torpedo a tight budget.

“People in the Navy have a job, and there is nobody who is going to starve to death,” he said. “Sometimes it just doesn’t stretch from payday to payday.”