Officials Confirm Marines Have Left for Middle East : Deployment: El Toro and Tustin units are sent to embarkation points. Totals are unknown.

U.S. Marines from at least four bases in California, including two in Orange County, have left for the Middle East, officials confirmed Saturday. But the officials refused to say how many troops were involved or even when they left.

Units from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing in El Toro, the 1st Marine Division and 1st Force Service Support Group at Camp Pendleton, and the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade in Twentynine Palms have been sent to embarkation points for deployment to the Middle East as part of Operation Desert Shield, said Capt. Rose-Ann Sgrignoli, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton.

Lt. Gene Browne, a spokesman at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, added that troops from the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station have also been deployed from Orange County to embarkation points, “but beyond that we really can’t say.”

The 23-year-old wife of an El Toro Marine said her husband has been sent to Camp Pendleton to be on stand-by in case of deployment, an assignment that scares her. “This was so unexpected,” said the woman, who requested anonymity. “It’s a jolt to the nerves.”

While officials were tight-lipped about details of the operation, wives of Marines from Twentynine Palms identified the “embarkation point” as Norton Air Force Base, just east of San Bernardino. They said most had left by Saturday.

“They’ve been planning this all week,” said Laura Redlin, whose husband, Col. Robert Redlin, is a logistics officer with the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, based at Twentynine Palms.

“I haven’t seen my husband at all except last night before he left,” said Redlin, who said her husband left Saturday morning for Norton Air Force Base.

“There’s a lot of action here, going on all day and all night,” said Kenneth C. McFarland, a disabled veteran who lives in Twentynine Palms.

McFarland said he has seen large buses leaving the base with men inside. “There are some coming but more leaving,” he said. “It’s about three times the normal activity.”

Cheryl French, a 30-year resident of Twentynine Palms, said she lives near a side exit to the base that the troops have been using “all night and all day for the past few days.”

“We’re used to seeing convoys coming in and out occasionally, but nothing like this,” French said.

Apparently the Marines left the base in a convoy on a back road. One resident, who lives on that road, said the convoy lasted for 20 minutes.

Twentynine Palms runs a three-week training program for Marines, acquainting them with desert combat conditions.

A wire service report quoting unnamed Bush Administration officials said 4,000 Marines from Twentynine Palms were on their way to the Middle East. Friday, residents around El Toro were warned about an increase in aircraft noise at the base.

In Orange County, despite nervous talk in the last few days about having to make out new wills and prepare for battle, several Marines in Orange County said they had noticed nothing unusual.

“Everything seems the same as normal,” said a Tustin Marine who works on helicopters. “Everybody’s getting ready on stand-by, but we haven’t heard of anybody actually leaving.”

An El Toro Marine wife, whose husband hasn’t been sent anywhere, viewed the situation more stoically.

“I don’t think this thing is going to turn into anything big,” she said. “Most of the wives are having a fit over it, but I’m not going to cry my head off. That’s what my husband is getting paid for.”

Merchants in the immediate area around the bases said all was quiet Saturday.

But at Camp Pendleton, civilian and military sources said the level of activity there in the last few days hasn’t been so intense since the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

A recently retired Marine familiar with base operations at Camp Pendleton said the base can move out 7,000 troops in 48 hours.

In San Diego, sources said five C-5 Galaxy and C-141 Starlifter cargo planes, the largest in the U.S. military, arrived at North Island Air Station on Coronado about midnight Saturday to pick up helicopters and helicopter parts, leaving before sunrise.

The sources said both North Island and Miramar Naval Air Station have seen a steady outgoing stream of supplies--including airplane parts and medical supplies.

They also said some U.S. military medical personnel in the San Diego area have been notified they could be leaving Monday aboard the Oakland-based hospital ship Mercy.

In addition to the troops from the three Marine bases, units from the Army 101st Airborne Division in Ft. Campbell, Ky., have started making their way to an embarkation point, said Lt. Ronald Sharp, a spokesman at Twentynine Palms.

Already arriving in the Middle East, Sharp said, were units from the Army 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, N.C., a squadron from Shaw AFB in S.C., and transport aircraft from Pope AFB in N.C.

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Eric Lichtblau in Costa Mesa, Wendy Paulson in El Toro and Nora Zamichow in San Diego.