For Kin Back Home, It’s a Waiting Game : Families: Tears, fears and prayers consume those at home, powerless to free U.S. citizens caught in Iraq’s grip.

The Americans trapped behind Iraqi lines technically may not be considered hostages, but their families and friends back home certainly are.

All over America, people wait by telephones and watch television news, imprisoned by a rush of mixed emotions--hope, fear, anger, frustration--and, most of all, uncertainty.

In an all-too-familiar pattern that recalls the long nightmare of the American hostages in Iran, families here at home are looking for some word, any word, on the fate of Americans detained in Iraq and in Iraqi-occupied Kuwait.

Familiarity has not bred ease in dealing with the pain.

“We’re not getting any sleep,” said Edwin Davis, a retired Baptist minister in Koran, La., whose daughter, Martha, was vacationing in Kuwait with her husband and two teen-age children when the Iraqis invaded. “We’ve just been moping around here and sticking close to the telephone.”

Davis said his daughter, who is married to Kuwaiti-born Mahoud Ghareeb, an oil-field pumper, was staying at her mother-in-law’s house when the war broke out. “She called at 4 a.m. on Aug. 2 and said they had been invaded and helicopters were flying over,” Davis said. “They didn’t know what was going on and, of course, neither did we.”

Since then, Davis has heard nothing. “Not knowing is the torment,” he said, stopping from time to time to compose himself. “If we could just hear something. . . . “

Some news does trickle out. It is said that Americans are safe, that some are even enjoying the swimming pool at a Baghdad hotel, that many are free to go from place to place--but not to leave the country.

It is estimated that 3,000 Americans are in Kuwait, along with at least another 580 in Iraq.

In Jacksboro, Tex., Marjorie Walterscheid is angry. Her husband, Rainard, an oil-drilling specialist for Santa Fe International, has been detained at a Baghdad hotel. She has heard nothing from him.

“All the State Department ever says, when they do call, is that the men are fine and in good spirits,” she said indignantly. “I ask you, if you were detained in a hotel, would you be in good spirits?”

Some of the detained Americans’ employers try to gather and dispense information, but they run into difficulty.

In Pasadena, Calif., Debbie Williams, spokeswoman for the Parsons Corp., said that the firm has 12 Americans in Kuwait and that it is “piecing together whatever information we can.” However, she said, “Our last direct contact with the employees” was Aug. 2, when “we were able to account for all of them, and they were all safe.”

Amid the waiting, rumors grow, along with fears of the worst. Relatives worry about the detainees’ health and whether they will have such necessities as water and food.

“Yesterday there were reports of water shortages,” said Margit Omar of Los Angeles, whose 22-year-old son, Rayad, was visiting his father in Kuwait when the war began. Omar, a fine arts professor at USC, talking through tears, said she fears that an economic embargo of Iraq eventually will result in harm to Americans under Iraqi control.

In “starving Iraq,” she said, “the first thing we’re going to starve is the people in Kuwait.”

In San Francisco, Suzie Trinh said her father, Randall Trinh, has worked in Kuwait as an engineer and consultant for the last 5 1/2 years. The family survived the fall of Saigon in 1975, making their way to America, she said, but now she is worried about her father’s survival in Kuwait.

“The big concern is that his health is not all that good,” Trinh said. “He has an ulcer and high blood pressure.”

Several family members seemed stunned by the suddenness of events, noting that there had seemed to be no hints of trouble. Many also note that their relatives had long and good relations with Arabs and that some of those being detained are themselves of Arab descent.

Kevin York of Mount Prospect, Ill., said his wife, Faye, two months pregnant, was visiting family and friends in Iraq and has not been heard from for a week.

Faye York, who is of Iraqi descent, was trying to board a plane for home when she was told “the tickets were no good,” said her husband. “She was crying and said she couldn’t get on the plane.”

He had mixed feelings about how his wife’s Iraqi background will affect her fate. “It could make it easier because she knows the language,” he said. “She probably knows what’s going on; but it could make it more difficult, because if they find out she’s an American citizen and if they have something against Bush or something . . . you know?”

The relatives find many ways to cope. As in the Iran hostage crisis, many people across the nation are stringing out yellow ribbons. And all are expressing hope.

Beth Hanken moved to Kuwait, homeland of her husband, an investment broker, five years ago. In Monticello, Iowa, her mother, Nedra Hanken, said, “We’re trying to stay positive, and until we find out differently, we will continue to feel she’s all right.”

Davis, the retired minister in Louisiana, said his church has started a “prayer chain” in which one church congregation prays for the family, then calls another church to pray, and so on. “I don’t know what good yellow ribbons would do,” he said. “I’d rather have prayers than ribbons.”

For most, the best salve is some word about their loved ones.

In Spring, Tex., Patricia Hale’s spirits got a huge lift Friday when the State Department telephoned with a private message from her husband, Edward, a drilling supervisor for OGE Drilling who is being detained in a Baghdad hotel.

“The man from the embassy assured me that they had seen him and he was well,” she said. “At least today will be easier. I’ll carry that message with me, and it will get me through the day.”

Contributing to this story were staff writer Martha Groves in San Francisco and researchers Lianne Hart in Houston, Edith Stanley in Atlanta and Tracy Shryer in Chicago.