Pendleton Artillery Unit Waiting for Order to Fire

EASTERN SAUDI ARABIA —  The heavy guns of the U.S. Marine Corps are dug into the sand, silent for now, their sights not yet trained on the targets that lay ahead.

In the distance, British artillery lets go with a thunderous roar, breaking the quiet of the desert and then returning again like an echo.

“The Brits are at it again,” said Sgt. Frank Quinonez, an electronics engineer from Pico Rivera whose Camp Pendleton artillery unit is among those anxiously watching as the United States and Iraq edge toward conflict. “Just wait until we all let go at once.”

It will be these big guns, staggered behind the 1st Marine Division troops from Camp Pendleton, that will be called on to pummel Iraqi positions with a blanket of firepower if the order is given to retake Kuwait.

U.S. officials are depending on artillery units like these--combined with air strikes and naval bombardment--to render impotent the Iraqi positions that are dug in on the Kuwaiti side of the border.

Just 24 hours remain for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait or face what President Bush has called “devastating consequences.” Quinonez is certain that the order to attack will come.

“It’s going to happen, and I hope soon,” he said. “I’m sick of this place. Let’s do it and get out. I’m ready to get back to my girlfriend in Huntington Beach. I want to go home.”

On the eve of “K-Day”--or Kuwait-Day, as Jan. 15 is known here--Quinonez and other members of the 11th Marine Regiment Artillery from Camp Pendleton huddled under their panchos and plastic sheets, escaping a rare and cold rain that fell across eastern Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Monday.

Soldiers dug “jump holes” to escape possible incoming artillery rounds, listened to short-wave radio for developments in Washington and Baghdad, and talked with confidence about their artillery pieces, which will support the Marine “grunts” in the field.

“This stuff is outstanding,” said Quinonez, who works on the computer and radar systems that set the coordinates for the guns’ targets. “If the gun bunnies keep their job up, everything will be all right.”

Inside a metal container attached to a 16-ton truck, Chief Warrant Officer Gary McDonald of Oceanside surveys the computer system and explains the technology that he says gives the United States and its allies a decided advantage.

“Our radar can pick up incoming artillery, missiles and mortars and tell us exactly where they’re coming from,” he said. “We feed that to the gunners, they pull the trigger, and the enemy is suppressed.”

McDonald, one of the few Vietnam veterans serving with the artillery unit, said the radar can simultaneously track 10 incoming missiles while feeding target information to the men operating the 155-mm Howitzers and the 8-inch guns mounted on vehicles. After four months in Saudi Arabia, the system has proved effective, McDonald said.

“This is 1980s technology and it has been battle-tested in Lebanon. The Saudis have it and so do the Israelis. The Iraqis don’t know what they are in for,” he said.

Yet, for all their confidence in the weaponry, the approach of Jan. 15 has left some of the men in the artillery group anxious about what is ahead.

“We’re going to take some losses,” McDonald said. “But the majority of us are going to go home.

“We have better technology, better educated men and superior training,” he added. “If we hit them with everything we have, it will really be an exciting two or three days. Then we’ll settle down for some real fighting.”

Quinonez said he was certain that the war would be a quick one because Iraq only managed to fight to a stalemate against an Iranian army that was drafting the very young and very old by the end of that long campaign.

“The Iraqis aren’t prepared,” he said. “We aren’t a bunch of 14-year-old kids and 60-year-old men. I can’t see us having any problems with these guys.”

Cpl. Kim McLean, a radar technician from Oceanside, said he too hoped for a quick end to the fighting, so he could return home to see his son, who was born Oct. 29 while the corporal was in Saudi Arabia.

“After sitting around for four months, you figure something has to happen, and if it does, that’s fine because it means I’m going home soon,” said McLean, 22.

“Sometimes you worry that something may happen to you, and you wonder who is going to take care of your family back in the States. But you can’t let that get to you. You just have to get the job done and think of going home.”