An Anxious Vigil Begins at Ft. Ord as Troops Leave for Honduras

As more than 1,000 camouflage-clad soldiers from the Army’s elite Rapid Deployment Force based here were airlifted Thursday to Honduras, about 150 placard-carrying protesters marched outside the entrance to the fort, and worried spouses and girlfriends began an anxious vigil for news of their loved ones.

Convoys of trucks began transporting the first of the troops late Wednesday night to Travis Air Force Base, 50 miles east of San Francisco, where military transports were readied to fly them to Palmerola Air Base in Honduras. Five planeloads of troops and supplies departed before noon Thursday and an Air Force spokesman said he expected the airlift to “go on all day.”

Once in Central America, the soldiers were to join members of the 82nd Airborne Division from Ft. Bragg, N.C., in what has been described by the White House as a “measured response” to the movement of Nicaraguan troops across the Honduran border.

As members of the 7th Light Infantry Division, the so-called “Bayonet Division,” the Ft. Ord soldiers have been specially trained for sudden airlift to any part of the world to combat guerrilla insurrections or to fight in restricted areas, including cities and mountainous or closed-in jungle areas.

Although the White House has said the U.S. troops will not be deployed in areas of possible conflict in Honduras, the families of some departing soldiers said they were skeptical.

“This whole thing stinks,” said Mike Martin, the husband of an Army cook who was part of the troop transport. Martin’s wife telephoned him Thursday morning to tell him she was on alert.

“She was crying,” he said. “I am mad and scared at the same time. . . . They are taking my wife away for nothing. If she goes to war, I don’t know what I will do.”

Christine Sathre said her husband, part of a Honduras-bound helicopter crew, would only tell her he was on his “way out.”

‘Timing Was Pretty Bad’

“The military said this is just a training mission,” said the 20-year-old Sathre. “But they are making an awfully big issue out of it. I don’t like it. . . . I’ve been so worried.”

And Jan Griffith, who celebrated her third wedding anniversary Wednesday by learning that her husband, Hank, was bound for Honduras, said: “The timing was pretty bad. I’m very scared, but he’s gung-ho.

“I never thought this would happen. I thought after the Persian Gulf we were all through with this.”

As news of the troop movement spread, protesters quickly formed, with about 500 people massing outside the Federal Building in San Francisco and 150 outside the gates at Ft. Ord.

Waving signs bearing such slogans as “Remove Rambo, Don’t Risk the Troops,” and “Wage Peace,” the protesters were peaceful for the most part and no arrests were reported.

“We have no hostility for the soldiers,” said Alan Sacks of Santa Cruz, who marched outside Ft. Ord. “We’re just trying to make a statement by being here. We feel it’s a serious mistake to send troops to Honduras, and we don’t want to have another Vietnam-style war.”

Mindy Fried of Boston was driving from Berkeley to Big Sur when a feeling of “frustration” prompted her and a traveling companion to take a detour to Ft. Ord, just north of Monterey.

“We knew the protest was here so we decided to stop by and at least add our voices and energy,” Fried said.

Although military officials would say little about the deployment, personnel at Ord began organizing for it at midday Wednesday, before President Reagan’s order was publicly announced.

Officials said it is the third time in the past 12 months that troops from the fort have been sent to Honduras on training missions. In March, 1987, 900 soldiers spent several weeks in the northern part of the Central American country and in April, an additional 500 were dispatched there for training.

But this time, the family members said, the mood was different.

“He has been sent places before but that didn’t bother me,” said Kim Wagle, whose husband, Robert, is an infantry sergeant. “He could get killed over there.”