Clinton Aims to Win Over Wary Troops : Military: He'll visit their home turf amid uproar over gay personnel, cutbacks. Sailors, Marines at one base wonder just what he plans to do next.

By PAUL RICHTER

March 12, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NORFOLK, Va. — Don’t get them wrong: The Navy guys shooting pool at Mike’s Suds and Subs weren’t completely down on their commander in chief.

Some praised Clinton’s college-loan plan. Some liked his proposal to put police cadets on the street. And a few thought he looked pretty sharp on MTV the other day.

But overall? A pause, then: “The man’s got a lot of explaining to do,” said Mike Jeffries, a mechanic on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, now anchored in Norfolk harbor.

Clinton is scheduled to visit the Roosevelt today, for the first official foray of his presidency onto the home turf of the U.S military. Although Clinton has charmed partisan Republicans and proud potentates since he took office, this encounter may be the ultimate test of his human relations skills.

Interviews around the nation’s largest Navy base suggest that six weeks after the post-inaugural showdown over the ban on gays in the military, the armed forces’ anxieties about their commander in chief are not dissipating as the White House had hoped. And their concern is not just over that issue--although it is central--but over a constellation of problems, and the abiding uncertainty about just what Clinton intends to do next.

Their attitude suggests that in contrast to other groups that Clinton has disarmed and enlisted in his cause, the military may not come around easily. And with the strong influence they wield in Congress and elsewhere in society, they may make it difficult for him to carry through his plans to reshape their mission in the world.

These sailors and Marines are worried about the budget cutbacks affecting so many lives and careers. Some fret that this Administration may be too willing to commit U.S. forces to ill-defined overseas conflicts, such as the war in the former Yugoslavia, where the Administration has pledged to send troops to help enforce any negotiated peace agreement.

Underlying it all, they wonder how Clinton, one of the few presidents without a military background, really feels about the military culture they hold so dear.

Clinton has no military officers in his inner circle, and last month even needed a gentle reminder that as President, he is obliged to salute crisply when he passes a military uniform. And then, too, there’s his disputed draft record.

All these points came up again and again as sailors and Marines talked about their President in the fast food restaurants, Laundromats and stores on the highways surrounding the sprawling military complex at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

The reaction may be best summed up, said Mark Calamari, an electronics technician from the Biddle, by what the sailors say when Clinton appears on the morning news show each day. “It’s not favorable--it’s foul language,” says Calamari, shaking his head.

A sailor for nearly six years, Calamari says that he generally likes Clinton’s domestic policy and is willing to let him prove himself on foreign policy. But he believes Clinton’s problems with the military have actually been worsening due to a series of planned and unintended developments.

“First you have gays in the military issue,” said Calamari as he finished off lunch at a Taco Bell restaurant off Hampton Boulevard. “Then there’s a government pay freeze, so we don’t get a raise. And then we seem to be getting sucked into these wars that he doesn’t seem to understand--like L.B.J. and Vietnam.”

He said many in the military might feel more warmly about Clinton if he seemed to have closer ties to military brass, such as Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell, who in some polls has shown up as the nation’s most respected public official. In recent weeks Clinton has disagreed with Powell on the issue of homosexuals in the service, and there have been rumors of other friction.

Uncertainty is a major element in Clinton’s problem, he said. “With Bush, you always knew where he stood,” Calamari said. “This one never seems to talk to us.”

Many in the service fear that the new direction of events may threaten the professional respect that the armed forces gained during the 1980s, after the Vietnam War brought budget cuts and an outpouring of criticism. “We had gained respect, after a long, slow effort,” he said. “Now what?”

Such views have not escaped the attention of the White House, which planned today’s three-hour trip to the Roosevelt as part of a broader public relations campaign to improve relations with the military world.

The trip “is an important way for the President to show support for American men and women going over to serve,” said George Stephanopoulos,” Clinton’s communications director. And, he added, “It’s important for the American people to see that in a very tangible way.”

Clinton has recently sought advice on how to improve relations with the military. In addition to today’s trip, he also plans to personally greet troops returning from Somalia and, later in the spring, to speak to at least one military academy commencement.

But he faces an uphill climb.

For many, the central issue remains Clinton’s desire to allow homosexuals in the military, with conditions.

Clinton’s desire to lift the ban “simply shows he does not understand what it would be like to be living in such close quarters,” said a naval officer who asked to remain unidentified. “Let Clinton try that out for six months--or even three months--and he’d know what we’re talking about,” the officer said.

Not all the sailors have lost patience with the new President. Chief Petty Officer Keith Lamb, a 10-year man, said he abandoned Bush to vote for Clinton last year. He believes that the military will accept the President’s cuts, provided they seem “well thought out.”

“It’s no different than a CEO of a private company making tough decisions to cut,” said Lamb. “He seems like a common sense kind of guy.”

But Lamb’s lunch companion, also a chief petty officer, was shaking his head. He didn’t want to comment, he said, except to point to the bumper sticker on his car: “Don’t Blame Me--I Voted For Bush.”