Promise of Peace Brings Relief, Joy to the Southland : Conflict: President’s announcement is greeted with pride. But some express sorrow and worry about what still might come.

The promise of peace came to Southern California on the edge of a rainstorm, delivered in 10 minutes that never seemed to end for some people and ended too quickly for others, a long moment that passed in a mosaic of relief, joy, sorrow and worry about what still might come.

The moment arrived with dinner in the oven, breadwinners stuck in traffic and family members scattered by happy hours, health club workouts and, in some homes, by the war that still wound down its final hours in the Persian Gulf.

A mother sat near tears in her living room and neighbors danced in the downpour. Delicatessen patrons interrupted the President and policemen kept a respectful silence. Aerobics buffs struggled to hear over the groans of their rowing machines, while a veteran of the nation’s last major war could hear his own breath as he stood alone and listened to George Bush talk of victory.

Standing alone in the lobby of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Long Beach, watching an old television set, Bill Rutledge, a 43-year-old Vietnam veteran, could not contain himself when he heard the President mention the words cease fire.

“Good!” Rutledge exclaimed. “Thank God.”

When Bush was done, Rutledge turned away from the set and said that he was glad that “we had the backing in this war that we didn’t have in Vietnam. That was gray--this is black and white.”

Even though the speech lacked the clarity of a permanent armistice, Rutledge spoke with certainty of cheering and celebrations and parades. “When these guys come back,” he said, “you’re going to see a lot more flag-waving and open arms.”

There were celebrations already under way in legion halls, taverns and homes bedecked by flags, yellow ribbons and framed photographs of young men in uniforms. At the noncommissioned officers staff club at Camp Pendleton, beer bottles piled up and a sergeant announced he could not wait “until my buddies come home.”

In Canter’s Deli’s Kibitz Room, the restaurant’s night manager, Olga Carney, 68, interrupted Bush even before he finished his speech.

“Amen!” she said. “I’m so proud of him and this country. I’m bursting with pride. I used to think he was a wimp, but I have the greatest admiration for him now.”

In Inglewood, at American Legion Post 188, old soldiers sat beneath clouds of cigarette smoke and applauded the end of Bush’s speech. Behind a row of shot glasses drained of tequila, bartender Wanda Schumachu watched the veterans roar their approval and spoke about her inner worries. Her 28-year-old reservist son, James Case, was somewhere in the Gulf. Pinned to her shirt was a flag button and a yellow ribbon.

“I still don’t feel it’s over,” she said. “I won’t believe it until he comes home. I still don’t trust Saddam at all.”

Only when her son arrives, she said, would she celebrate.

Iraqi Americans living in Los Angeles felt no joy at the announcement of an end to the combat. One 11-year-old Glendale girl, Nadia Omar, said she was relieved about its end. She hopes to find out whether her Iraqi grandmother survived the conflict. And she will finally feel free to identify herself as an Iraqi to her schoolmates.

“You can put my name in the paper,” she said. “Tell people I am proud of being from Iraq. But all this time, kids were saying how all Muslims are stupid and stuff like that. They were writing nasty things about Iraq on the blackboard.”

At an electronics store in Ventura, two Navy Seabees shopping for televisions stopped and cheered when they saw the President’s face fill a row of new screens. In Tustin, a Marine wife told her sons that their father would soon be returning home. At the UC Irvine campus, a stranger in the rain ran by a lone student who manned an anti-war “tent city” on campus, yelling: “The firing has stopped!”

In East Los Angeles, on La Verne Avenue, where a group of mothers of Latino soldiers were watching television, Rachel Reyes waited until Bush finished, then dashed out to her front porch and rang an iron bell she once used to call her son home to dinner. On this night, the bell served as her “Liberty Bell,” to call her son Timothy, 20, a Navy SEAL, home from his war assignment.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” she said. “I hope he heard his mom calling him home all the way from the Persian Gulf!”

Neighbors ran through the pouring rain into her home, yelling and hugging each other. “Did you hear?” they cried. “It’s all over!”

One mother, Maria Martinez, cried uncontrollably, worried about a reported death in the 82nd Airborne, where her son, William, 20, is serving.

“Its all over, Maria,” Reyes comforted. “There’s no need to cry anymore. Your son is all right. Gracias a dios!”

The Gabbard family of Grand Terrace have no relatives in the war, but at 6 p.m., they were clustered near their television console, gorged on day-old pizza. When Bush began talking of further negotiations, Darrell Gabbard, 62, a retired maintenance supervisor, could not restrain himself.

“Oh, no!” he moaned. “Don’t let the politicians do it!”

To the television set, he said: “We’ve got the upper hand now. Let’s do a little dictating of our own. Don’t leave it to the U.N.!”

His wife, Anita, concurred. “Many of the countries in the U.N. didn’t even send everybody. Russia didn’t contribute a thing. And Yemen, an Arab country, contributed nothing, and they’ve been the big mouths all along.”

Bush’s speech was greeted only by the sound of rain falling on palm trees as Judith Bjerke sat alone in her Palm Springs apartment.

Bjerke, 51, almost cried from joy as she listened to Bush’s speech. A day earlier, a friend had called to say that she had seen a fleeting televised glimpse of Bjerke’s son, Bradley Rogstad, 22, a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division, who was advancing somewhere in Iraq.

When Bush came on the air, Bjerke was on her living room sofa, accompanied only by her 25-pound cat, Fridgy. As she listened to Bush’s “warm voice,” Bjerke’s eyes darted to a framed graduation photograph of Bradley displayed near the television.

“I couldn’t help but think of Brad,” she said. “I’m always thinking of him, his handsome Norwegian face. I can’t wait until he calls me and says, ‘What’s up, mom?’ ”

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Scott Harris, Charisse Jones, Jeffrey L. Rabin, Patt Morrison, Paul Feldman, David Haldane, Dean Murphy, Nieson Himmel, Jessie Katz, John H. Lee and Louis Sahagan in Los Angeles, Ken Weiss in Ventura, Eric Lichtblau, Carla Rivera, George Frank, Tammerlin Drummond, Frank Messina and Henry Chu in Orange County and Ray Tessler and Tom Gorman in San Diego.