War Adds Deeper Meaning to USO Benefit

Saturday’s gala salute to the 50th anniversary of the USO, an event marked by a going-to-war tension not experienced in decades, included an inadvertent game of musical chairs in the International Ballroom of the San Diego Hilton.

During the program that opened the dinner, Maria Ostapiej, the reigning Miss California, followed her rendition of the National Anthem with a medley of choruses from “Anchors Aweigh” and “The Marines’ Hymn.” Each snatch of “Anchors Aweigh” brought the 26 active and retired admirals in the crowd to their feet, along with numerous Navy captains, petty officers and other veterans of the service.

The Marines, led by Brig. Gen. Mike Neil, the reservist-attorney called up to take command of Camp Pendleton at the begining of the Gulf War mobilization, snapped out of their chairs each time Ostapiej offered a line from “The Marines’ Hymn.” The good-natured rivalry continued right through the appetizer of shellfish ceviche.

The uniforms (there was plenty of braid on all the brass, and Neil towered Corps-straight in his Marine dress blues), the Big Band music played by the Dick Braun Orchestra and the unrestrained, loudly voiced patriotism reminded some in the crowd of World War II galas. One matron remarked that she hadn’t been at a party that felt like this one since 1945.

For all its decades of service to service people in a military town, the San Diego branch of the privately funded United Service Organizations staged its first fund-raising gala just last year. Saturday’s edition, scheduled well before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, uncannily coincided with the day the ground war in the Gulf began. Given the heavy military participation, it was less than surprising that the top-level patrons who kicked off the evening at a private reception in the hotel’s Presidential Suite gradually gravitated to a room that contained a television set, where watchers waited for word of battle. Among those with one eye on the screen was Connie Stevens, a veteran of Bob Hope’s USO tours and one of a company of celebrity guests that included television actors Dick Van Patten and Lyle Waggoner. Hope himself had been scheduled to attend, along with honorary chairs Gayle and Gov. Pete Wilson, but all were kept away by other business.

Event chair Fern Murphy said that the gala “came together in a hurry” and that she was working on the project at the San Diego USO the day the war began. “There had been no one there before the announcement, and then the place filled with young men and with service families. None of them wanted to be alone, they all wanted to share what they were experiencing.” Of the 540 guests, enough of whom purchased patrons tickets and items at the live and silent auctions to generate proceeds of some $60,000, Murphy said, “Everyone has opened their heart to us tonight.”

Local USO President retired Rear Adm. Herb Stoecklein, said that the organization found itself meeting a new set of needs when the build-up in the Gulf commenced. “Where 80% of attendance had been active military and 20% families, those figures are totally reversed now.”

“Tonight’s a very poignant evening,” added USO Vice-President Sharon Considine, who said the gala proceeds would pay for increased services to family dependents, whose daily visits have increased from approximately 150 to 450. “Donations have soared in the last six weeks, and thank God, because we were in dire straits.” The Coronado restaurateur encapsulated the appeal of the USO rather neatly with the comment, “Anywhere in the world, the USO is the one place where you can speak English and get a hamburger.”

While the mood of the gala was, in fact, unusually gala, the crowd stilled for a long moment of silence asked in honor of the service people in the Gulf. The program included the Starlight Players in a performance of selections from “For My Country . . . The USO Musical,” a new work-in-progress composed partly of favorites from the 1940s. Following the meal, auctioneer Bob Arnhym brought down the gavel on a selection of 10 choice items that included an offer tailor-made for this particular audience, the opportunity for a group of four to spend a day training with active-duty Marines at the Recruit Depot and Camp Pendleton. However, insiders said that a good portion of the training would take place at the Officers Club.

The formal proceedings concluded with a tribute to local businessman Morris Wax, known widely as “San Diego’s Mr. USO.” Wax, a board director of World Headquarters USO, became a director of the local organization in 1966 and is credited with obtaining the sites and building funds for both the old F Street USO and the present location next to the San Diego Convention Center. “He’s a very patriotic guy,” said longtime friend Jack Morse.

The guest list included county Supervisor Susan Golding; Rep. Bill Lowery (R-Calif) and his wife, Katie; Vangie and Dick Burt; Carol and Mike Alessio; Elaine and retired Rear Adm. Bruce Boland; Carol and retired Vice Adm. Harry Schrader; Alison and John Tibbitts; Jane and Lyle Gabrielson; Mim and Al Sally; Rachel and Judson Grosvenor; Marine Major General John Grinalds; Carolyn and Don Waggoner, and Maggie Schuman with Bob Watkins.

The previous evening, the Combined Organizations for the Visual Arts drew about 150 supporters to the Aventine Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency hotel for the third annual Mardi Gras Masked Ball.

The New Orleans-style Mardi Gras gala benefited COVA’s Arts-In-Communities program, which executive director Jennifer Spencer said sends artists into communities that are “culturally under-served,” and focuses on children, the elderly and the handicapped. Part of the proceeds were earned through an auction of masks, many “endowed with artistic symbolism that transcends the merely decorative,” as one contributor put it, designed and donated by local artists.

Models from the Equinox Dance Company danced about the room wearing the creations of feathers, papier-mache and other materials while former television sports announcer Phil Stone supervised the bidding. Other diversions included a meal of crayfish salad, “blackened” chicken and “dirty” rice, and dancing to a group called The Groove Daddies.

The committee included Carol Dunn, Jim Reiter, Penny Mowell, Richard Carter, Lonna Parker, Karen Rhiner, Laurren Pilarczyk, Eric Thomas and Harold Dopman.