War and Remembrance : War: Men who fought in five conflicts recall combat and courage at the onset of Veterans Day.

The onset of Veterans Day today rekindled memories of combat for five of the San Fernando Valley’s 109,000 veterans. In interviews with The Times at the North Hills Veterans Administration Hospital, men who served in five American conflicts of this century, from the “war to end all wars” of 1914-18 to the Gulf War, reminisced about their wartime experiences:

A communications expert with the 3rd Battalion of the Marine Corps, Arthur Garcia of Sylmar was in the vanguard of the Allied Forces’ charge into Kuwait at the end of the Persian Gulf War. “We were the first unit to locate the minefields and go into Kuwait,” he said.

As if negotiating the Iraqi minefields weren’t dangerous enough, Garcia, 24, recalled that his unit had to do so in darkness--even though it was daytime. “We were where all the oil fields were burning. The smoke was so thick you really couldn’t see. It was like day and night at the same time.”

The unit made it through the minefields and, later that day, reached Kuwait City and helped secure the strategically vital international airport.

Garcia, now on inactive reserve, expected active duty to be a lot more traumatic, having heard the experiences of relatives and friends who served in Vietnam. “But this (the Gulf War) was nothing compared with what they went through,” he said. “We had the backing of other countries . . . and the government gave us the power to do things.”

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As it was for so many GIs, service during the Vietnam War was an exercise in frustration for Michael Lacock. “It was very frustrating not being able to confront the enemy,” recalled the Sylmar resident. “Sometimes you’d think, ‘God, I wish there was somebody there I can shoot at.’ ”

Lacock, now 42, was a Marine assigned to the China Beach area near the Da Nang air base in 1970-71. While supplies were his main responsibility, he participated in counteroffensives against Vietcong who mortared U. S. positions. The trouble was, the enemy guerrillas were usually gone before Lacock and his colleagues could reach them.

“They’d set up mortars a mile away and pop us for half an hour,” Lacock said. “But they were usually gone by the time we got there. Basically the war for me was the way it was for a lot of people.”

Lacock, like many other Vietnam vets, also experienced hostility when he returned home. “I was greeted with jeers and people saying, ‘You baby killer.’ ” But he now feels that the public has a more understanding view of the conflict.

“I think people understand that it wasn’t the veterans’ fault that the war went the way it did,” he said. “It was the upper echelons of the government and the military that determined the outcome of the war. The outcome was predetermined and it was a no-win situation.”

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Ray Calabrese’s first fight in the Korean War was an experience he was extremely lucky to survive.

Stationed with the Army at Pusan in what is now South Korea, he was part of a patrol guarding a radar station that was attacked by Communist forces in March, 1951. “About 30 of us got pinned down under machine-gun fire and heavy artillery for 12 hours,” said Calabrese, 63. “One of our guys got hit, and I had to pull him out of the gunfire.”

The patrol was outnumbered 3 to 1. But when the fog lifted, aerial support got through, and Calabrese and company were relieved. “I’ll never forget that. . . . We all survived,” including his wounded comrade.

Calabrese, who worked as a California Highway Patrol officer for 10 years after the war, now lives in Frazier Park.

Donald Blair claims an unusual distinction from his military service. “I was the last POW taken during World War II,” he said--even though he was taken prisoner by ostensible allies, not by any of America’s official enemies in that war, after the fighting had ended.

Shortly before Japan’s surrender in the Pacific, Blair, who was based on a U. S. Navy ship at Okinawa, was sent to Tsingtao, China, to train Nationalist Chinese sailors, who were at war with both the Japanese and Chinese Communists. He was captured by Chinese Communist troops in the closing days of the war, and held prisoner for 44 days, until after the war was formally ended.

“It was hell. . . . They beat me up so bad and tortured me so that I can’t walk,” he said Wednesday. Although he was able to walk and work as a painting contractor for many years after the war, the lingering aftereffects of his injuries as a prisoner came back to disable him as he grew older, he said. “It’s the reason I’m strapped into a wheelchair today.”

After Gen. George Marshall tried to negotiate peace between the Chinese factions, Blair regained his freedom in exchange for two Communist colonels.

Blair, 63, lived in Simi Valley after the war. But he is now at the Veterans Administration Hospital nursing home in North Hills, receiving physical therapy so he can walk again.

“I’m pretty much here permanently. I can’t afford to have someone take care of me at home.”

At age 90, John Pollock is a bit blase about another Veterans Day, even if it marks the 75th anniversary of the armistice that ended the war in which he served, World War I.

“I know it will pass, like they all do,” said Pollock, an Army veteran and resident of the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Medical Center in North Hills.

Pollock, who lied about his age to join the Army when he was 15, will be one of only two World War I veterans participating in the center’s parade Thursday on the hospital grounds.

Were it not for a savvy father, Pollock would have been in the Navy a year earlier, he said.

“My father, when I told him the night before that I was going into the Navy, he said he would come to see me off,” Pollock said. “What I didn’t know is he brought my birth certificate and he showed it to the guy behind the desk.”

The next time, Pollock was more discreet about enlisting, and got away with it.

A native of New York City, Pollock lived in La Crescenta for 39 years. Asked how long he’s been in the VA center, he said only: “Too damn long.”

Pollock said he had already received his 75th anniversary medal, and will either be wheeled in his wheelchair or ride in a car in the VA Center’s third annual parade Thursday.

Times staff writer Sam Enriquez and correspondent Geoffrey Mohan contributed to this story.