Parents Draw Battle Lines to Protect Children From War

Pam Woody and Danny Brooks are fighting the same fight.

Different methods but the same fight: How best to protect their children from being hurt by the Persian Gulf War.

Woody, 23, was given a hardship discharge from the Marine Corps last week at Camp Pendleton so she could return to Corvallis, Ore. and care for her sons, Jesse, 9 months, and Christopher, 2 years.

A lance corporal in the inactive reserve, Woody had been ordered to report to Pendleton to fill the gap left by troops shipped out to Saudi Arabia.

This despite the fact that Woody is the sole support of her sons--she’s on welfare and gets no support from the boys’ father--and is still nursing Jesse.

She stayed at Pendleton only long enough for Marine doctors to confirm that she was lactating.

The issue of single parents is touchy. Discharges are considered case-by-case; Woody is not seen as a precedent.

“I feel bad that I couldn’t do something to help my unit,” Woody said, “but my boys had to come first. I couldn’t abandon them.”

As badly as Woody wanted out, Brooks wants in.

Brooks, 43, a 10-year Army veteran who mustered out in 1978, wants to rejoin the Army so that his son, David, 18, won’t have to go to Saudi Arabia. David is just finishing Army training.

“My son has not had a chance to elect the officials who made the decisions to go to war,” Brooks said. “If it’s anybody’s obligation to do something about Saddam Hussein, it’s me and my generation.”

Brooks, a federal radar technician stationed in Boron, is writing every member of Congress from Palmdale to Chula Vista. And talking to every reporter who’ll listen.

The Army isn’t interested in Brooks’ offer to go to Saudi Arabia in place of his son.

“I’m only trying to protect my family the best I can,” Brooks said. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do during war?”

Getting the Lowdown

Names and places.

* Words of wisdom.

Political consultants Jean Andrews and Rick Taylor, whose ties to Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt are under scrutiny, have decided they need advice on how to act when the district attorney asks questions about politics and money.

They’ve talked to people who’ve been through it: former insiders with ex-Mayor Roger Hedgecock. Including a long chat with Hedgecock.

* La Mesa Mayor Art Madrid has a personalized license plate that reads 9109. That’s how many votes he got last November when he narrowly won the job.

* A hot topic when the California Psychological Assn. holds its convention this week in San Diego will be rising violence against psychologists by their patients.

A panel discussion will include a psychologist who was shot and crippled, one whose daughter was stabbed to death, and the widow of one who died in an arson fire.

In each case, the attacker was a patient.

* The new mural in the cafeteria of Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Diego startled some German-speaking patients.

The mural is a painting of a nostalgic street scene, including the “Friedhof Diner.” In German, friedhof means “cemetery, graveyard, or burial ground.”

Cemetery Diner? An arch joke on the quality of hospital food?

Not really. There actually was a Friedhof Diner in San Diego in the 1950s; the muralist copied it from a picture.

* Buy a refrigerator, support the troops.

Aladray’s A.N.A. appliance store in San Diego has pledged $5 for a relief fund for the families of POWs and MIAs for every $250 purchase.

An NFL Fumble

As you know, the NFL is demanding that in order to be considered for Super Bowl XXVII, San Diego must show that it has not been tardy in recognizing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Not that the NFL, where two-thirds of the players are black and all but one head coach is white, is so speedy.

A recorded message at the NFL headquarters in New York last Friday said the office was closed because of Martin Luther King Day.

If so, it was a bit late: King Day was Jan. 21.