COLUMN ONE : Marching Home--to Do Battle : Many of the reservists called up to fight the Persian Gulf War returned to find their lives disrupted by strained marriages, staggering debts, broken careers and other problems.

Many were in their 30s, 40s, even 50s--housewives, engineers, doctors, everyday people with mortgages and children, credit card bills and cable TV. Many signed up never expecting to go to war.

But a year ago, as the United States stormed into battle in the Persian Gulf, the “weekend warriors” found themselves in action. Plucked from their routines, nearly 240,000 military reservists were scattered across three continents, 106,000 of them in the war zone.

When it was over, they returned home--some immediately, some many months later--to carry on with their lives.

For some, the transition was no rougher than returning from vacation, and re-enlistments in the reserves are holding steady, the Pentagon says. But for many, coming home turned out to be the biggest battle of all, fraught not only with victory parades and parties, but also with failed businesses, huge debts and broken families.

A reserve force the size of an army itself dissolved into tens of thousands of individuals wrestling with innumerable private problems. A Utah doctor found himself an intruder in his own family. One technician who spent the war in Germany quit the reserves as a conscientious objector and is headed for the Peace Corps.

Another reservist trained in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare found himself assigned, inexplicably, to sorting mail for four months, then returned home to a young daughter who was suddenly terrified of him.

Untold numbers gave up their jobs or sold their homes, anticipating extended tours of service. In many cases, they were deactivated in only months, left with no job and no active-duty pay.

“They end up being bitter and frustrated without knowing who to be bitter and frustrated against,” said Ken Benesh, an Air Force reserve ombudsman, who described the scenario facing some reservists as “a double whammy.”

Robert Jones, a 44-year-old family physician from Springville, Utah, found the difficulties at home more of a triple whammy. After five months at a military hospital in Germany, his medical practice was in flux and his faith in his country shaken.

Even more painful, while he was away, Jones believes, his family learned to live without him. His wife found a job--and, it seemed, a new life. Jones now finds himself feeling like yet “another demand on her life.”

Their six children, too, seemed to have grown comfortable with Jones’ absence. They had learned to manipulate one parent, instead of two. They had expropriated Jones’ car and were reluctant to give it up. Even Jones himself, he confesses, had gotten used to the independence of a bachelor’s life.

With his oldest son embarking on a two-year Mormon mission to Guatemala, Jones has come to view his family in the months since the war “as a family at risk . . . for divorce, separation, etc. . . .”

Meanwhile, in his medical practice, Jones’ associate had brought in a new doctor--then moved across the street to set up a competing office. Some colleagues sympathized with Jones but others suggested he got what he deserved--for being stupid enough to get called up.

Already in debt from his absence, Jones fears for the future of his practice. He fears he will have to work even longer hours to compete--unless he decides to scale back or get out. He is also thinking--for the first time, he says--of running for political office.

“I’m still a flaming patriot, but I’m a little less idealistic,” said reserve Army Lt. Col. Jones. He is particularly bitter about U.S. treatment of the Kurds and believes that the Gulf War coalition forces should never have pulled back before removing Saddam Hussein from power.

“I think the American people were a bit indulgent in patting themselves on the back,” he said. “It was almost like winning the Super Bowl. . . . Maybe we should re-examine that record and have a little less in the sense of flag-waving.”

For Linda Welz, 34, of Apple Valley the call to Air Force duty came at an especially poor time, just weeks after she pressed an unsuccessful child-abuse case against her former husband. Her daughter, Gail, 10, who was forced to testify in the fall, suddenly faced Christmas without the only natural parent she truly trusted, according to Welz.

Though Welz had remarried by the time she was activated, her new husband’s job in Los Angeles kept him there several nights a week. Gail, meanwhile, had to move in with her grandparents nearly 90 miles from her home and adjust to a new school, new friends. She returned to Apple Valley with her stepfather only on weekends.

The strain piled up on Welz, who was in Saudi Arabia with a patient staging squadron for three months. Occasionally, she talked to her daughter on the phone, trying to offer reassurances. All the while, doubt and suspicion crept into a marriage that Welz had thought was strong. Somehow, she said, during one innocuous phone call, her husband came to believe that she had found someone else and was planning to leave him.

“It was the way I was saying things over the phone,” Welz remembered. “I got a letter from him a couple of weeks later saying, ‘If there’s a problem, just tell me.’ ”

The only problem was a lack of regular communication. For weeks after she returned, Welz struggled to redefine her relationships with both her daughter and husband. She was one of the fortunate ones--her daughter benefited from good psychological counseling and her marriage recovered.

“When your spouse is deployed and as far away as we were--and not able to talk--it makes room for a lot of insecurity . . . and a loss of everything you’ve built up,” she said. “I’m sure a lot of marriages have really suffered because of that.”

For many reservists, the problems were personal. For others they were professional.

Jeff Morrow, a 40-year-old technical writer from Garden Grove, was working full time at McDonnell Douglas, but only on a temporary contract. Unlike permanent Douglas employees who were able to go to war and return to their jobs, Morrow found out in May--four months after being activated as an Air Force major--that he would be out of work.

At the time, however, he was still on active duty flying cargo into the Gulf from Europe, expecting to serve at least a year, possibly two. The real jolt came when the military told him that he was being deactivated in August.

“The first thing I told the Air Force was, ‘I have a very definite financial hardship if you take me off active duty, because I lost my job over this,’ ” Morrow said.

Immediately, he filed for a waiver to stay on as an active cargo pilot. But the Air Force said, “ ‘Sorry, waiver denied,’ ” Morrow said bitterly. “They didn’t have to give me a basis. They just said, ‘We don’t need you.’ ”

According to Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Doug Hart, call-up orders projecting one or two years of service were written to set a maximum, not to promise ongoing employment.

However, that explanation is little solace to Morrow, who remains out of work except for weekend reserve duties, while bills pile up. During the war, Morrow benefited from federal regulations that lowered his mortgage, his credit card interest and other debts to 6%. Now, those interest rates are back up to normal, a fact that has hiked his house payment from $825 to $1,500 a month.

Meanwhile, his wife had to find a job and his three children are hoping that mounting financial woes won’t force them to move.

“Christmas was an absolute disaster,” Morrow said.

A disembodied voice on a telephone answering machine is all that remains of Dr. John Russell Clark’s medical practice in Chico, where he served as a successful neurosurgeon for 22 years.

“I left my office last December when called for Army reserve duty in Operation Desert Storm,” the voice states mildly. “And upon my return, I moved to central Utah. If you would like to contact me further, please send a note to my same Chico address. . . .”

Clark, 58, returned from three months at an evacuation hospital in the United Arab Emirates more than $100,000 in the hole, by his own count. His military pay had been far below his civilian earnings--while his loan payments continued, office expenses had to be paid and long-distance phone bills went through the roof.

In his absence, many of Clark’s patients had turned to other doctors. His malpractice insurance would have cost thousands of dollars to reactivate, he said. He would have had to train new staff to replace those he had laid off.

It could take years to catch up. Then it would be time to retire.

So Clark threw in the towel. He accepted a job at a hospital in Payson, Utah, an area where neurosurgeons are few and far between. It was a gamble: He was leaving behind family and friends to make an investment of time and money that might not pay off.

Clark has, however, held on to his house in Chico. He and his wife hope to retire there one day. In the meantime, she divides her time between Chico and Payson. And in the last few months, Clark has come to believe that he has made the most of a bad situation.

“We’ve made lemonade out of a lemon,” he said dourly.

Branden Morad, 45, a dentist living in Mission Viejo, is another who lost his practice and plummeted into debt.

A father of three with a comfortable home and a new car, Morad was only beginning to see steady profits from his year-old office when the Air Force made him an active lieutenant colonel. Abruptly, he had to cancel all appointments and lay off his two employees.

Bad luck turned his life into one endless root canal. On his way to San Bernardino’s Norton Air Force Base one morning, Morad’s car was rear-ended at a traffic light, injuring his back, his feet and a hand. Rather than flying out to the Gulf, Morad was flown, like a war casualty, to a military hospital in San Antonio.

Only weeks later, he sold his dental practice at a loss--a move that his activation had probably made inevitable. He spent much of his active-duty time on crutches and was deactivated in August, despite his protests that he was injured in the line of duty and therefore eligible for continued pay.

“I was shocked” at the decision, he said, but his appeals were in vain.

A civilian once again, Morad was left to deal with lingering back trouble, mortgage payments of $2,200 a month and unemployment. To get by, his family has had to reduce or eliminate movies, restaurants, after-school sports and vacations.

His wife has grown frustrated. He can’t sleep. His three daughters are forever asking him, “Did you find a job today?”

So far, he has not.

Morad said that “1991 was a bad year . . . a disaster. I’m starting from ground zero now.” He is thankful, at least, for his parents and siblings. “If not for them,” he joked, “I’d be a homeless person--or living in a box.”

First came the phone calls from the mortgage company: “Do you realize you are in arrears?” Then came the notices on the front door, then the threats of foreclosure if the entire amount due was not paid immediately.

As they tell it, Nancy and Joseph Seremet did everything right. A month before they were activated in the Army reserve, the Plano, Tex., couple advised all their creditors in writing. Later, they sent out copies of their orders, asking to reduce their payments as is provided for reservists under the law.

Joe’s military pay was going to be barely half what he makes as a civilian. Nancy’s would be down 10%. They were being sent to a military hospital in Germany, leaving behind two teen-age sons. Who knew when they would get their first military paychecks?

But the calls from bill collectors began months before the Seremets ever got home. Eventually, nearly two dozen creditors got involved, demanding payments on the house, three cars, credit cards and more. The mortgage company alone wanted $15,000.

According to the Seremets, every time they reached an agreement with a creditor on payment, another representative of the same company would fire off a threatening letter. No one seemed to communicate with anyone else in their office.

“I’ve cried several times,” said Nancy. “The kids have said, ‘Mom, are we going to lose our house?’ ”

Christmas was grim--a tree but no presents. Today, they said, most of their payments are up to date. They hope to have the house payments caught up by April--16 months after they were called up.

“What they should do, the bottom line, is freeze everybody’s accounts and pick up where they left off,” Joe Seremet said. “It will eliminate all the harassment.”

Like many reservists, Darlene Meservy calls 1991 “a traumatic year.” Her 14-week stint on active duty stretched into an entire year after she tore a ligament in her wrist while lugging a duffel bag through customs on her way home from Germany.

The Gulf War wasn’t the problem. Meservy had been proud to take part. A 58-year-old grandmother and University of Utah professor, she left home in early December, 1990, and was feeling patriotic about her work as her reserve unit’s chief nurse.

But the injury complicated everything. The Army sent her to Ft. Carson, Colo., where she was kept on active duty for eight more months while undergoing surgery, physical therapy and a painful and slow recovery.

Meservy finally went home Nov. 29 on temporary disability retirement, having lost, for the time being, much of the use of her right hand. Her condition will be re-evaluated in October; at that point, she will return to her reserve unit or permanently retire.

By a quirk of ill-timing and military regulations, Meservy is unable to qualify for a military pension even if she returns to duty. With only 11 years of service, her temporary retirement has left her unable to reach the required 20 years before she is forced to retire at 67.

Similarly, she was one of 75 nurses chosen in June to be promoted to “full bird” colonel. But she can’t be promoted while she is on the retirement list, and if she returns to duty, she will have to go through the selection process all over again.

“I think it’s unfortunate,” Meservy said sadly. “I feel I’ve given a lot to the military and I’m not pleased about that outcome.”

Not every reservist had such difficulties. Gene Schreckengost, 55, a Navy signalman who shipped out aboard the assault-landing ship Frederick, found the entire experience to be smooth sailing.

A father of five who lives in the Mojave Desert community of Ridgecrest, Schreckengost left behind a civilian job at the Navy’s Surface Readiness Division in Bakersfield. He spent two months in Gulf waters without seeing combat. He talks about the venture as if it were an Acapulco cruise.

“I was kind of happy to get away,” said Schreckengost, who saw only a few missiles etching the night sky--either Scuds or Patriots, he couldn’t tell which. “It was a relaxing situation for me, really. There really weren’t any tense moments, other than the fact we went through some mined areas.”

Upon returning, he enjoyed a homecoming party. He got his job back. Not even the pencils on his desk had been moved.

Though some of Schreckengost’s friends went through hardships, he plans to remain in the Navy reserve. For him, active duty went as it was supposed to, and he is apparently not alone. The military has had no difficulty maintaining its 1.1 million-person pool of trained reserves, a Pentagon spokesman said.

Spencer Stevens joined the Army reserve as a Utah high school junior--because his brother had joined. He became an enlisted medical technician, earning $120 a month for spending one weekend at a hospital--according to Stevens, mostly drinking coffee, reading newspapers and doing homework.

When college rolled around, his reservist’s pay rose to nearly $300 a month. Halfway through his senior year at Brigham Young, his unit was activated. The 23-year-old philosophy major, “philosophically and morally opposed to war,” found himself in a military hospital in Germany, believing war would never come.

But in January it came, and Stevens was plucked from the hospital lab. He was given a loaded M-16 rifle and a bulletproof vest. Guard the hospital, he was told. One day on the job was enough. The next morning, Stevens laid his gun on the captain’s desk and announced that he was filing for conscientious objector status.

“There I was, given orders to shoot at anyone coming through without proper authorization,” he remembered. “I wasn’t trained for that. That wasn’t part of the bargain. I thought I was joining a medical unit with the idea that I would be helping people.”

As Stevens tells it, there ensued several months of “extremely depressing” bureaucratic machinations. He moved out of the barracks and went to work for a German pacifist group. He was discharged in early April, flew home to Provo, Utah, and found the country in a patriotic frenzy. Disgusted, he traveled to Bolivia with an environmental biology class.

Stevens spent six weeks building greenhouses and digging wells--a period he describes as “a healing kind of time . . . actually helping a community.” Now he is back at Brigham Young and working in a psychiatric hospital. He is engaged to be married on Valentine’s Day. After that, he and his wife plan to enter the Peace Corps.

“The bottom line is I choose my enemies, the Army doesn’t choose them for me,” Stevens said. “I’m very, very glad I’m out of the reserves.”

The timing of the war could not have been worse for Elizabeth Proenza, who fled Cuba as a 23-year-old and came to the United States. For two decades, she tried to free her mother and younger brother from the Castro regime. Finally, in the fall of 1990, those efforts succeeded.

“Guess what?” she said. “We missed each other by a few days.”

Just before their arrival, Sgt. Proenza shipped out with an Army battalion assigned to purify water in the Saudi Arabian desert. Eventually, she wound up in Iraq, facing constant fear of missile fire, terrorist attacks, poison gas and desert snakes. For seven months of active duty, Proenza fretted constantly about being reunited with her family.

“I kept praying, ‘I don’t want to die,’ ” the Glendale woman recalled. “I wanted to come back and see my brother and my mom.”

But even after that delirious reunion, Proenza endured flashbacks and nightmares. The horns of garbage trucks sounded to her just like the air-raid warnings she heard as many as seven or eight times a day. “The first time I heard that horn,” she said, “I reached for my (gas) mask.”

The nightmares often involved gas attacks. The horn would sound, she would take cover in her gas mask, and open her eyes to find all her friends dead. Or she would dream of snakes, hostile desert snakes, so vivid she talked with her doctor about them. “He said, ‘They’re going to go away’ “--and eventually they did.

Like many reservists, however, Proenza remains committed--still the weekend warrior, still ready and able, she said, “to give up my life at any time.”