Free Offers Pouring in for Freedom Fighters

The Goodwill Industries thrift shop in Santa Ana will knock 15% off their register total. Accountants will do their taxes for free. The San Francisco Giants are offering them complimentary tickets to all home games. And Disneyland will admit them to the Magic Kingdom at no charge.

From comedy show seats to discounted airline tickets and dental work, the offers have been flooding into military bases and congressional offices and popping up in storefront windows.

Thousands of Persian Gulf soldiers returning to Orange County are going to get one hell of a homecoming.

“This is our way of showing appreciation for all that the troops have done,” said Mike Mitchell, spokesman for America West Airlines, which along with Alaska Airlines is offering 70% discounts through Sept. 30 to military families. “It’s a way of expressing a ‘thank you’ and welcome home for the troops.”

In Orange County, where 80% of the 15,000 Marines stationed here must moonlight to make ends meet, job offers are perhaps the best show of patriotic gratitude.

“Now that they are about to come home we’ve had a lot of calls from people looking to hire Marines,” Maj. John L. Sayre, director of the family services center at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, said Friday.

“Job-wise, Marines in Orange County are a premium. They’re reliable, they are honest and they are drug-free. So there is always a demand for them.”

An estimated 8,000 Orange County Marines--Marines make up the bulk of the military here--will begin arriving home from the Mideast this weekend. Once they get settled in, a majority of them will need to work double time, Sayre said.

“So we’re going to have a job fair, sort of a ‘second income’ fair, that we are planning right now,” Sayre said. “We’re hearing from companies that want to be here. We’ll probably have it in May.”

But enough about work. Scores of bar owners and other merchants figure those soldiers are going to be long overdue for some fun. So places like the Swallows Inn, a San Juan Capistrano saloon beloved by Camp Pendleton Marines, is already talking about a welcome home blow-out.

Owner Tacy Lee said details are now being arranged but “we will be holding a party of some sort. . . . We had about five of our employees go over and when they’re (back), we’ll have some kind of fun and frolics.”

Disneyland will admit a Gulf soldier and one guest free to the park. The private Balboa Bay Club will admit non-member Gulf veterans at half-price--$20--to a Kentucky Derby Day party, the proceeds of which will benefit the El Toro base’s Navy Relief Fund.

The Improv comedy clubs in Irvine and Brea have been offering free admission for military personnel and their dependents Sundays through Thursdays since early January and will continue to do so.

“It’s been wildly successful,” said Pam Felix, general manager for the clubs. “We started doing it because we had a lot of military wives saying they needed a good laugh after their husbands went to war.”

Felix said the freebies will continue until at least the end of May to give the troops a chance to have a good laugh with their loved ones.

Peter Slen, press secretary for Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), said calls have poured in from people who want to help returning troops. An Orange County ambulance company, for example, has offered to transport any injured troops from airports to hospitals.

Many people have also asked about aiding in the rebuilding of Kuwait, and Cox plans to leave for the war-ravaged emirate on Wednesday to survey the situation.

In the same burst of patriotism, Congress members in Washington have rushed to author bills supporting the troops, according to Paul Morell, chief of staff for Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove). One of these bills would give four-star Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf, a fifth star. Another, of which Dornan is one of about 140 co-sponsors, would call for a parade for the troops in the nation’s capital.

Dornan has gotten on the bandwagon to cut phone bills for troops still in the Persian Gulf. Compounding the bills of troops, there has been a Saudi surtax of 73 cents a minute, Morell said, and Dornan is trying to get legislators’ signatures on a letter to the Saudi ambassador asking that the tax be dropped.

A group of tax professionals are volunteering to prepare federal and state tax returns for dependants of those participating in Operation Desert Storm.

The agents, certified public accountants, attorneys and tax preparers expect to prepare up to 2,000 tax returns in six days at the El Toro Marine Base Family Services Center. The returns will be filed electronically to allow for faster refunds.

Other offers run the gamut. A limousine firm offered to chauffeur prisoners of war returning to Camp Pendleton. The Music House in El Toro is offering a 10 percent discount for military personnel on all large items like guitars, amplifiers and drum sets starting today, said assistant manager Ralph Rudon.

DISNEY SALUTE:Disneyland offers free passes to triumphant Gulf personnel. D1