Immediacy of Middle-East Crisis Rings Three Times for This Family : Deployment: Three sons called home to say they were leaving for Saudi Arabia. A fourth is waiting to be called up.

The phone calls came within hours of one another.

“Hi, Mom? It looks like we’re leaving. Mom, if anything happens, I want you to know . . . you and Dad are the best parents in the world.”

That was Don and Audrey Burnside’s 25-year-old son Stacy, calling his parents’ Tacoma home from Camp Pendleton. Stacy has been in Marines for six years and his combat engineers’ unit was leaving for Saudi Arabia.

About 20 minutes later, the phone rang again.

“Mom? I’ll bet you and dad are watching TV. Then you’ll know what’s been going on. Don’t be surprised, but we’re leaving. Don’t worry, I’ll be OK.”

It was Donald, the eldest Burnside son. Donald, 27, is a staff sergeant in the Army, where he has served 10 years. He was calling from Ft. Sill, Okla., to say his artillery unit was being deployed to Saudi Arabia.

Three hours passed before the telephone rang again.

“Mom, my unit is leaving. Mom, I want you to know there’s nobody like you and dad. You gave us our way, but you’re always there for us.”

It was the middle son, Paulo, who just turned 27. Paulo, who has served 10 years in the Army, was calling from Ft. Riley, Kan. His armored division was being moved to Saudi Arabia.

That was how Audrey Burnside described the night of Aug. 10.

With her and her husband was the youngest of the brothers, 19-year-old Jason. Jason was sworn into the Air Force on June 20 and is waiting to be called up.

President Bush authorized the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops Aug. 7 to counter what the White House called an “imminent” attack on Saudi Arabia. If that word struck home to anyone in the States, it was the Burnsides.

Their house used to ring with the shouts of their four children. The brothers’ photographs hang in a place of honor on the Burnside’s living-room wall. Gently setting down a tray of homemade mango bread, Audrey Burnside turned to identify the pictures.

“This is Donald . . . Paulo . . . Stacy.”

During a visit last week with Stacy and his family in California, Audrey Burnside began to learn firsthand what “imminent” meant, she said.

“I’d made spaghetti for him. He’d said, ‘Mom, will you make spaghetti for dinner?’

“It was 10 o’clock at night when he called. He said, ‘Is my wife there?’ His wife answered the phone and said, ‘Yeah?’ and then started crying. ‘What’s going on?’ ” I said.

“ ‘Mom, I have to go pick up a few things,’ she said. ‘Will you watch the baby?’ I said yes.”

His wife went and got toilet articles; a toothbrush, toothpaste. . . . When Stacy came to the door, he was shaking like a leaf.

“ ‘Mom, I can’t tell you anything,’ he said. He had his will with him, that the military had him make out.

“And, then, I watched his wife take off his wedding ring from his finger. We were crying. I asked ‘Why are you doing that?’ ”

“ ‘Because we’re leaving now, Mom,’ he told me. ‘We can’t wear any jewelry once we’re called. He told his wife, Stephanie, ‘We’re in lockdown, so you’ll have to come take the car.’ ”

His unit was preparing to leave. He left with it several days later.

“It’s happening so fast,” his mother said Thursday, back in Tacoma. “You hear the news . . . but it’s all happening so fast.”

Don Burnside motioned to the television, where a graphic reading “Crisis in the Gulf” filled the screen.

“We keep the news on all of the time,” Don said. “At 5 o’clock we switch to local news. Anything, the slightest clue of what’s going on, we want to know.”

Jason wants to know, as well. He waits to hear from his brothers, to hear from the Air Force.

“My brothers told me, ‘Don’t go in the Army. Don’t go in the Marines. Go in the Air Force”’ said Jason. “Some of my friends don’t understand what I’m doing . . . but you take a risk and do something with your life. Yeah, my brothers influenced me a little.”

The Burnsides follow in the tradition of the “Fighting Sullivans,” five brothers who served together on the same U.S. ship in World War II. The death of all five at once spurred the Navy to change its policy on assigning siblings together.

However, there is no legal provision that prevents four brothers from serving at the same time, in separate military units or branches, according to a Department of Defense spokesman.

“They are proud of what they are doing,” said Audrey Burnside. “We’re with them all the way.”

Three yellow ribbons are tied around the juniper in the Burnside’s front yard--an allusion to the popular song.

“We said we’d hang yellow ribbons for them, and we are,” she said. “We want people to know. If we didn’t do anything, nobody would know, nobody would care that our kids are gone a long, long way from home.”