Phone Bills With Saudi Surcharge Have Military Families Fuming

If your blood pressure is easily riled up, maybe you should stop reading right now and not risk the next paragraph.

Thousands of U.S. military troops will arrive home from Operation Desert Storm to find whopping phone bills for calls made from Saudi Arabia, made worse by a 73-cent-a-minute surcharge slapped on by the Saudis.

Case in point: Angela Ziegler, 21, whose husband, Marine Lance Cpl. Jesse Ziegler, 22, a howitzer specialist from Camp Pendleton, was in the thick of the fighting.

For 2 dozen calls in two months, the Zieglers were billed $1,408.54. About a third of that was the Saudi surcharge.

The Saudis imposed the charge on all calls, even though most calls were made on phones provided for the troops by American companies. The calls (more than 4,000 a day) were relayed by American satellites at no expense to the Saudis.

Angela Ziegler is furious. She works as a waitress and lives in Escondido with the couple’s 19-month-old son, Dakota.

Two of the longest phone calls, she notes, came when she and her husband grimly discussed what to do if he was killed in combat.

When the phone bill flap hit nationwide in February, Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan), powerful chairman of a House committee overseeing telecommunications, began growling. MCI and AT&T; (the long-distance companies serving the troops) then cut their rates.

Dingell wrote the State Department to protest the Saudi surcharge. So far, no response.

As she waits for her husband to return home, Angela Ziegler has written the chairman of AT&T; and her congressman in Indiana.

“My husband and the other guys went to Saudi Arabia to risk their lives to protect the Saudis from Saddam Hussein,” she said. “Now the Saudis want to make a profit because of calls they made to loved ones back home.

“It’s outrageous.”

More War Profiteers

War is hell. Profitable, too.

For crassness, it’s hard to beat a recorded message that you hear after responding to a “Kuwait consultant hotline” ad in San Diego newspapers:

“Most of us realize there must be a way to cash in on our Persian Gulf victory, but we’re wondering how. We know that wise men have always made fortunes during postwar reconstructions, as far back as our own Civil War.

“Kuwait will be no exception. Kuwait is a treasure trove of opportunity if you know how to take advantage of it. All the pieces of the puzzle are right there.

“Picture a country completely destroyed, and you know everyone has a chance to come out a winner: Anyone willing to work is needed, desperately.

“The choice is yours. Don’t wait and end up shaking your head and saying, ‘I knew that’ or ‘I should have.’ ”

The voice promises to sell you information (the kind you can get free) from the U.S. departments of Labor and Commerce and Army Corps of Engineers. The voice asks you to send $10 to an address in Colorado.

Presumably, the carpetbag costs extra.

Convention and Unconvention

San Diego, my San Diego.

* High on politics.

The San Diego County chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is back. An information table is planned for the Earth Day celebration April 20 in Balboa Park.

* Franciscan friars from around the world will meet in June at the University of San Diego, the order’s first convention in North America in 800 years.

Why are they coming to San Diego?

Because the order is particularly interested in spreading the faith on the populous West Coast. Besides, USD is just off Friars Road.

* Baseball Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews, 59, was arrested for drunk driving near his home in Del Mar. Arraignment in Vista is set for April 25.

* The J Street Inn in downtown San Diego, built with public money to provide low-income housing, offers cable television, microwave ovens and a weight-training room.

* I left my art in San Diego.

Anthony Benedetto, whose paintings will be on exhibit April 5-25 at the Simic Galleries in La Jolla, is better known by his nom de croon: Tony Bennett.