Gulf War Veterans Return Home to Find a Different Kind of Battle : Military: Reservists face such readjustments as getting used to family life again or dealing with financial difficulties.

Steve Haycook looked forward to the day he would leave the war behind in the dusty Saudi Arabian desert. He dreamed about seeing his wife again and relaxing in their Port Hueneme house.

But coming home has not been easy for the 33-year-old Seabee, who returned last week after seven months in the Persian Gulf.

“It’s not hard to readjust to home,” Haycook said. “It’s hard to readjust to relationships.”

Ventura County’s Gulf War veterans are coming back a group at a time. About 500 Seabees will be returning from Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and Thursday, joining the 1,200 sailors from Port Hueneme who have already returned from the Gulf.

As the excitement of their star-spangled welcome wears off, some are finding that returning is almost as hard as leaving.

Some veterans face financial problems, while others must start anew with the loved ones that they left behind. And some soldiers, caught up in the danger and the fast pace of the war, are having difficulty adjusting to everyday life.

“Some guys describe it as being a stranger in their own home,” said Daniel Sanders, a chaplain at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Port Hueneme. “It takes a while to make that adjustment.”

Tim Mead, a 24-year-old Seabee, said the hardest thing about returning was getting reacquainted with his 9-month-old daughter, Brianna, who was only 2 months old when he left. At first, she was leery of Mead. She wouldn’t let him feed her or even hold her.

“It’s strange, very strange,” said Mead, who returned to the base last month. “I’m just trying to get used to family life again.”

Sanders, who left a 2-year-old child behind when he was deployed to Saudi Arabia, said he warned the Seabees to expect changes in their children.

“You find that children change so dramatically, especially the younger ones,” Sanders said. “When I left, my 2-year-old was still a baby. Now she’s a little girl. Sometimes you feel like you missed out as a parent.”

“Every time you leave, something changes a little more,” said Seabee Alan Oostdyk, a father of three.

One daughter was angry that her father left for Saudi Arabia. When he called from the Middle East, she refused to talk to him.

Although she is warming up to him again, the experience has made Oostdyk think.

The 25-year Navy veteran, who has also served in Vietnam, said perhaps it is time to consider retiring.

“My kids are getting older. I want to spend more time with them. My attitude is now focused more on my family.”

While the troops were away, spouses also changed.

Margot Haycook, 34, said she became accustomed to the independence that she found in her husband’s absence.

If something in the house was broken, she fixed it. She absorbed herself in work and was promoted. She made friends in a women’s support group at the base and stayed busy.

Her new independence caught her husband by surprise.

“Sometimes I felt like I was almost intruding,” Steve Haycook said.

But the couple are adjusting.

“It’s like it was when we first got married,” Margot Haycook said. “You have to work at it. You have to give each other space. We’re doing a lot of talking and reminding each other of the things we need.”

Some veterans are also having financial troubles.

Dianne Kerekffy, executive director of the Naval Relief Center at the Seabee base, said she added more volunteer workers at the center after being swamped with requests for help from desperate sailors.

Two weeks ago, a young Seabee and his wife came to the center for help. They said they did not have enough money to buy food for their 2-month-old baby.

Many sailors want to rent apartments again but don’t have enough money to buy furniture. Others need help fixing their cars, which have been parked in the base’s “rot lot” for months.

Chuck Erickson, a Point Mugu Navy reservist who commanded a helicopter squadron for three months in the Gulf, has been away from his civilian job at Litton Aero Products Division in Moorpark for seven months.

He has been lucky. His wife, Penny, an occupational therapist at a hospital in the San Fernando Valley, has made enough money to keep the family comfortable.

And Litton has sent Erickson the differential pay to make up for the gap between his military and civilian salaries.

But he has other worries about his job, which he plans to return to later this month.

Erickson started at Litton as a senior marketing manager two months before the crisis erupted. He said he wonders if things have changed.

“I’m really not sure what to expect,” Erickson said.

Erickson said he feels as if he is starting over again.

In some ways, Erickson will be starting over, said Don Brandt, Litton’s human resource manager. “There is bound to be something that has changed.”

But Erickson will return to his old job, and he will get all his accounts back, Brandt said.

And Erickson’s co-workers are planning a welcome-back celebration, complete with cake, flags and yellow ribbons.

Another problem that veterans are facing is getting readjusted to everyday life, Sanders said. The danger of the war is hard for some to forget.

Mead, the 24-year-old Seabee, grew accustomed to grabbing his chemical suit and running for cover during Scud attacks. Now loud noises unnerve him, he said. At night, he grinds his teeth in his sleep.

“One night I was dreaming about a Scud attack and a car backfired,” Mead said. “I jumped.”

Dave Winger, an air-evacuation medic for the Channel Islands Air National Guard Base who spent six months in the Gulf, said he becomes bored easily now.

“I don’t want to go back to anything I had before,” said Winger, who was a student at Cal State Northridge before the war. “I want fast-paced daily changes. I want to go for the gusto. I enjoyed that.

“I want a whole new life.”