Oceanside Has Visions of Parades, Prosperity With Marines’ Return

The giddy certainty of victory sank in Thursday, turning fears of death and loneliness into visions of parades for returning Marines, joyous family reunions and economic normalcy for this community.

A city that virtually went to war along with the roughly 30,000 Marines and reservists from neighboring Camp Pendleton, home of the 1st Marine Division, is preparing a welcome.

“We’re gearing up and are ready and willing to celebrate and welcome our friends back,” said Mayor Larry Bagley. “Oceanside hasn’t had an opportunity like that since the Korean War.”

Most Marines who served in Vietnam came back and simply resumed their lives, resentful of their uncelebrated return from a sour war. This time it will be different.

“Vietnam is past history,” said Staff Sgt. Lee Crouch.

Despite driving rain Thursday, the coastal town of 130,000 seemed fresh with optimism and plans--some calling for romance.

Marine wife Diana Morgan, who had banged pots and pans outside her Camp Pendleton home Wednesday night to celebrate President Bush’s announcement of a cease-fire, said she has already decided how to greet her husband, Staff Sgt. Peter Morgan.

“My parents will take the kids for the first night and we’re then going to celebrate our wedding anniversary belatedly. I’ve already lined up a limousine, and we’re going to spend the night at a bed-and-breakfast inn in Carlsbad,” she said.

For many of the children in the community, the end of war promises an end to loneliness.

In the Oceanside Unified School District are 5,300 children of military families, many of whom have been depressed and withdrawn since their Marine fathers or mothers were deployed last August, district spokesman Dan Armstrong said.

“Today is the day that has changed,” he noted. “Children are walking around with big smiles and going up to adults and saying, ‘My daddy’s coming home.’ ”

Although no return date has been set for the 1st Marine Division, plans for celebration are already taking shape.

“We’re looking at putting on the biggest welcome-home party on the West Coast,” said Pat Heath, marketing director for base morale, welfare and recreation.

“We want to invite the Vietnam veterans. I feel it’s their party too, in a sense.”

Similar plans were being formulated in San Diego, where the Navy has been a major presence for more than 60 years. Mayor Maureen O’Connor announced that a victory parade will march down Broadway at a date to be set later.

In Oceanside, the promise of peace also meant recovery for the downtown business community, where many stores have lost half their clientele since the Marines left.

John Beauchamp, a salesman at Tropical Used Auto, said he was going to spruce up the lot for the return of the Marines, adding smaller, sportier cars than the sedans that graced it on Thursday.

To attract Marines’ attention, he joked, he might even set up a mock burning oil well on the corner, near the street. Before the deployment, he sold nearly 30 cars a month, a figure that dwindled to six.

“I anticipate sales will jump considerably once they’re back,” Beauchamp said. “Most of them have been over there long enough to save the better part of a down payment.”

Bagley, mayor of a deficit-ridden city, can’t help but feel that the Marines who saved Kuwait may now save Oceanside.

“It’s going to give an economic shot in the arm,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt they’ll be in more of a spending mood.”

Also anxious to see the return is Joe Torres, a ‘50s-era Marine who looks a bit like Telly Savalas and who owns a furniture store that caters almost exclusively to Marine customers. Some of his customers haven’t been around lately to make their payments and Torres figures he’s owed $50,000.

“We’re a little gun shy about going to the command (officers) to say that so-and-so is a little late on payments because they’ve been getting their butts shot at in Saudi while we’re over here asking them for money,” he said.

“Now I need to catch up. I’ll be knocking on their doors when they get back.”

Torres isn’t the only one waiting.

The California Highway Patrol, which sends Officer Jerry Bohrer from its Oceanside office to Okinawa twice a year to give Marines stationed there a refresher course on driving safety, is mapping plans for Marines returning from the Persian Gulf.

“They’ve been over there in the sand, where anything goes,” Bohrer said. “They haven’t necessarily been worried about driving on the right, or on the left, or in the middle--or even on the road at all.

“They may have acquired some very bad driving habits.”