Sentry Corps Maintains Watch Over Holiday Shoppers at Mall : Security: On the lookout for crime, four men trade six-hour shifts in a tower that can sway like a ship above a parking lot at The Oaks.

From his sentry platform high above The Oaks mall parking lot, an accountant who once served communists blinked away the reflections of a thousand windshields as shoppers scurried toward Robinsons-May.

“It’s hard to start in this country,” said Vasile Savuleascu, 44, who until 1993 was an adviser for the national bank in his native Romania.

Now he is a part-time security guard for the mall on weekends--and an accountant for a health clinic during the week.

“I need money for my family,” the Thousand Oaks man said, referring to his wife and teen-age daughter. “I also am here to earn money for Christmas.”

Busied with the press of cars and bodies by day, cold and alone by night, a tiny corps of four watchmen trade six-hour shifts atop scaffolding that can sway like a ship above the mall’s east parking lot.

The men, bundled in neon-orange jackets and armed with walkie-talkies and binoculars, stand vigil as they scan the lot for car burglars and thieves. They also help start dead engines and lead disoriented shoppers to their cars. They help mothers locate lost children and rescue motorists who have locked themselves out of their cars.

“They’re people from all walks of life, people with good jobs beside this,” said Joe Baxter, 61, director of security for The Oaks. “Some of them have a lot better job than I have.”

In addition to Savuleascu, those who scale a steel ladder to the watch tower include an ex-Marine, a car detailer and a concert hall guard. One of them holds down three jobs, three of them hold down two. All work 60 hours a week or more. All must be painstakingly patient.

“You’re talking about being up here for hours,” said Newbury Park resident Corey Rhodes, 26, a Marine Corps reservist based in Port Hueneme. “But you’re always alert, and it takes special training to do that. It takes a special kind of discipline.”

As a corporal whose tour on Okinawa began on Christmas Day, 1990, Rhodes has put in his time on guard duty.

So has Savuleascu, who briefly served in the Romanian army.

Both have known the solitude and the monotony that bind sentinels the world over--and that can be punctuated by sudden bursts of action.

One recent incident involved a donnybrook among four teen-age girls.

Julio Vasquez, at 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 150 pounds, is built like a truck piston. But like any prudent security guard, the 22-year-old Thousand Oaks man knows his limitations.

“Four girls for me was too much,” he quipped.

After seeing two girls jump two others, Vasquez took off across the parking lot but made sure he immediately radioed for help. Both the mall security patrol and sheriff’s deputies responded, but not before Vasquez pulled one victim away from the melee and scared off an assailant who had been kicking and pulling the hair of another sobbing girl.

Ted Victorio, 29, of Oxnard said he too has had his confrontations--but from afar. One involved a carload of youths who appeared to be patrolling the lot for a car to burglarize or steal. Irked when they saw him, they sped away amid a whirl of curses and contemptuous salutes, he said.

“Crime probably slows down at Christmas because we have so many people working (security),” Baxter said.

The guard tower typically is erected in October or November and is dismantled after New Year’s Day. The 5-by-8-foot loft, guarded by plywood parapets and crowned by a wood roof, rises from a steel network two stories above the blacktop. And whoever walks it is cut to the bone by the night wind.

“They say it’s cold down there,” said Victorio as he watched a woman hurrying to her car, her shoulders hunched against the night. “They ought to see how cold it is up here.”

Rhodes, after taking over the watch with the arrival of nightfall, said his time is governed by the needs of his bosses. From 5:45 a.m. to just before noon, Rhodes supervises the stocking of merchandise at a nearby department store. From noon to 6 p.m., he works in the guard shack. Two nights a week, he attends Moorpark College. One night, he works the tower.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to do, to get background experience in security, to back up my military background,” he said.

Vasquez, who wants to be a full-time security patrolman, said he details cars at a Thousand Oaks dealership and works about 65 hours a week between his two jobs.

Victorio, eager to surprise his siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces with his Christmas bounty, has taken on security jobs at a concert theater in Ventura, a credit union in Camarillo and at the mall.

“I’m pretty much an all-work, no-play type of guy,” he said. “At least my bank account is ‘sufficient funds.’ ”