Capt. Mohandas Martin (right), the commander of the 319th Transportation Company, and 1st Sgt. Willie Lynch, of Hephzibah, meet after morning formation at Camp Guam, part of Camp Coyote, in Kuwait. JOHNNY EDWARDS/STAFF

Troops await word of war

CAMP COYOTE, Kuwait - As the soldiers of the 319th Transportation Company awoke Tuesday morning, word spread quickly of the speech President Bush gave at 4 a.m. Kuwait time while they were sleeping.

The wait in the desert where the temperature is creeping upward may soon be over. The president's 48-hour ultimatum for Saddam Hussein to step down, and Iraq's defiant response, left the soldiers facing the reality that war could erupt within days.

Their adrenaline is pumping. They're nervous and scared, but they're ready to get the job done and go home.

"Anybody who tells you they aren't scared is either lying or they're insane," said Sgt. 1st Class David Uthe, 44, of Augusta.

"I'm always nervous," said Master Sgt. Walter Huewitt, 38, of Hephzibah, who has been in three other conflicts during his 21 years in the Army - the Grenada and Panama invasions and the Persian Gulf War.

"You always ask yourself whatever may occur, are you ready for it. I feel if you're not nervous, there's more room for error," Master Sgt. Huewitt said.

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Few soldiers, if any, stayed up to listen to Mr. Bush's address. In the morning, snippets of the speech were being played on Radio Kuwait, an English-language station soldiers can pick up through AM-FM radios. At Camp Guam - part of Camp Coyote, where the Augusta-based Army Reserve unit is stationed in the northern Kuwaiti desert - soldiers and Marines get most of their news from the radio.

There are no televisions with CNN or Fox News and no newspapers other than Stars and Stripes - a publication of the U.S. military.

When war starts, the 319th truck drivers will haul fuel into Iraq, moving it north as the Marines advance closer to Baghdad. The unit will support the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

"It's like we're lining up for a football game waiting for the coin toss," said Sgt. Ciaphus Rouse, 32, of Augusta, while packing his bag by his cot. Soldiers have been told to fit all their essential gear into one bag.

Sgt. Rouse is a correctional officer at Augusta's Regional Youth Detention Center, and a former player for the Augusta Silver Panthers football team. He left behind his wife, Rochelle, and four children to come to Kuwait.

"I've been in (the service) 12 years. I'll finally get to use everything I've learned," Sgt. Rouse said.

The mood at Camp Guam was noticeably solemn early Tuesday. The Marines who live and work around the 319th soldiers were more tense and grim. The teasing and hollering and laughter that have been common inside the 319th's crowded men's tent has toned down.

The 319th's first platoon spent Tuesday morning "hardening" trucks - putting sandbags on the floors and steps of the cabs to absorb the impact of land mines.

Later in the day, soldiers heard a briefing from a Marine lieutenant on how to handle an ambush during a convoy and drilled on how to defend the trucks.

Capt. Mohandas Martin, 33, has been the commander of the 319th for almost two years. A teacher and an assistant pastor in the civilian world, he has spent almost 11 years in the Army Reserve but has never been on active duty until now.

On Tuesday, he was coping with the fact that he could soon give his men and women orders to move into enemy territory.

"It's going to be something that I won't take lightly," Capt. Martin said. "There's some stress. There's some concerns and to a degree, there's excitement.

"There's the excitement that we can get this over with and go home."

At the motor pool Tuesday, where soldiers were busy loading sandbags into the fleet of trucks, Spc. Lavoda Anderson, 25, of Ninety-Six, S.C., was upset because at a briefing earlier in the morning, she had heard the convoys would have less protection than she had thought.

Staff Sgt. Bobbie Farrell, 32, of Augusta, assured her that she had misunderstood and that there would be cover on all sides and above.

"You're going home. I don't know how else to tell you," she told Spc. Anderson.

Spc. Anderson left her 3-year-old daughter, Dominique, at home with her mother, Shirley Anderson. She said the last time she spoke to Dominique, she told her she was at a drill. Her daughter broke down crying and kept repeating, "I want you to come home. I want you to come home."

"I can't take this no more," Spc. Anderson said. "I just wish everything could be resolved with no casualties. Us or them.

"I just want to go home and raise my daughter."

2nd Lt. Richard Kennedy, 33, of North Augusta, said he sees the road to Baghdad as his road home.

"Yes, I'm scared," he said, "but fear is what's going to keep these guys alive."

--From the Wednesday, March 19, 2003 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle