Peace Activists Fight for Jailed Gulf War Objector : Military: Amnesty International and local groups push for release of former Santa Ana schoolteacher whose wife is seriously ill.

A former Santa Ana schoolteacher and Air Force reservist, now serving a year in a military prison for refusing to fight in the Gulf War, has become a cause celebre with Amnesty International and a local anti-war group.

In June, Amnesty International included John M. Dickinson, a 34-year-old former second lieutenant in the reserve, as one of only 28 “prisoners of conscience” in the United States who were unfairly prosecuted.

Now, the Orange County-based Alliance for Survival, a peace activist organization, is fighting along with several other local groups to have Dickinson released because officials say his wife is seriously ill.

Air Force officials, contacted Wednesday, said they could not immediately comment about Dickinson’s case, according to a spokeswoman for Lt. Col. Fred Lynch at March Air Force Base.

“Our concern is for John to get an early release and return home and provide for his family and help his wife who is very ill,” Marion Pack, executive director for the 2,000-member Alliance group, said Wednesday.

Last month, Alliance for Survival officials began circulating letters seeking help from supporters and also inviting financial contributions to the family.

Dickinson’s wife, Carole, 47, is suffering from an ulcer in her colon, which has caused her weight to drop from 100 pounds down to 65 pounds, officials said. She says the ulcer, which has left her at times doubled over in pain, is due to stress related to her husband’s incarceration and led to other medical complications.

Two weeks ago, Dickinson’s wife says, ill health forced her to quit her job as an instructor at Christ College Irvine, where she taught in the social science and education department.

Without a job, she is without an income because most of the family’s savings had gone to his lawyers and her doctors, she says. The Dickinsons’ only son, Joe, 25, does the cooking and takes care of her.

“We have been fund raising, and some of our members have been making donations directly to Carole,” Pack said.

Recently, the Red Cross made a plea to have Dickinson released for an emergency leave to care for his wife.

“The problem is that my son has become exhausted of taking care of me,” said Carole Dickinson.

She said her weight loss--which has revived epilepsy that she had contained with the help of medication--has worried many friends, relatives and supporters.

“Before, I had enough energy to get up, go to school and do things. But now, I’m short of breath and have to sit down most of the time,” she said.

Her husband, a language specialist at Remington Elementary School, had joined the Air Force Reserve in California in 1988, when the couple moved from Illinois. He had spent five years with the Illinois Air National Guard Reserve.

In Illinois, his guard unit conducted community-oriented projects such as providing help in times of floods and other disasters. “He didn’t join the fight in combat because he just doesn’t believe in taking another person’s life,” his wife said.

In California, Dickinson was assigned to the 452nd Security Police Squadron, whose mission in 1988 was to protect the refueling of Air Force planes.

“But that mission changed to a combat-oriented unit because of budget cuts and the Gulf crisis,” his wife said.

While undergoing physical training in Texas, Dickinson collapsed and was later diagnosed by his civilian physician as having a lung disease, his wife said. When Dickinson’s unit was called up to go to the Gulf War, he sought a conscientious objector claim, but his wife says the claim was never processed. When the Pentagon ordered his unit to ship out, he refused to go.

“He was worried that he would again collapse because the military didn’t want to have him medically checked out. He was a commander of others in his unit, and he didn’t want to be unreliable and a burden if illness struck” in the Gulf, his wife said.

According to Dickinson’s conscientious objector claim, filed in February, he stated he was against participating in “any war for any reason, because all human life is sacred.”

Dickinson faced a court-martial in May, after which he was sentenced to a year in jail with a dishonorable discharge and no military benefits. He pleaded guilty to a charge of being absent without leave and a charge of failure to make a troop movement.

He is scheduled to be released on Jan. 9.

“I want him home,” Carole Dickinson said. “I want him out of jail. I don’t think going to war ever occurred to him when he first joined the reserve. Now, it looks like he’ll never be able to teach again and up until two weeks ago I could still work.”