Marines Get Fast Course on Mideast Culture, Etiquette : Lifestyles: Servicemen bound for Saudi Arabia learn the do’s and don’ts of Arab customs in order to ease the clash of cultures prompted by the Persian Gulf crisis.

U.S. Marines bound for the Middle East are receiving, along with their chemical-weapons gear a fast Emily Post course on how to avoid ugly Americanism in a foreign land.

Don’t pass the bread with your left hand. Never give the A-OK sign. Refrain from gawking. If introduced to an Arab man--women are out of the question--stand close to him. Real close. And don’t be startled if he takes your hand.

That was some of the advice given to 50 Marines here Thursday--an almost non sequitur element of training that, for the most part, has focused on weapons and gas masks and acclimation to searing desert heat.

But for these Marines, sitting in rapt attention--some taking copious notes--in a large Camp Pendleton conference room usually reserved for entertaining officers, the advice was intended to ease the merging of cultures suddenly bonded by war.

Never cross your legs when sitting among Arabs, warned Navy Cmdr. Stanley B. Scott, because exposing the underside of your shoes to your guest is an insult something akin to swearing, “Camel dung on you!”

When Muslims set out their prayer rugs at midday in a public area, do not take pictures and do not gawk. Keep walking, but take the long way around their back side, he advised.

If you should be invited into an Arab’s home, don’t expect to see any women. They’ll be in the kitchen, strictly off-limits to visitors. And, if you come across an Arab woman in public, don’t even think about asking her what she’s doing tonight.

If you compliment an Arab on his headdress, expect him to promptly offer it to you as a gift. Not only had you better accept, Scott said, but you’d better offer a reciprocal gift--your own hat.

And so it went Thursday at Camp Pendleton, with Scott giving another of his two- or three-times-daily briefings to Marines about Middle Eastern culture and etiquette.

Scott, a United Methodist minister and senior chaplain to the 1st Marine Division based at Camp Pendleton, spent three years in Bahrain and traveled throughout the Middle East, marking him as a local expert of sorts on Arab customs and culture. So, for the past two weeks, he has been holding forth daily for as many as 600 Marines at a time about how they should behave off the battlefield as guests in Saudia Arabia.

His remarks mirrored the contents of a 40-page booklet produced by the Army and already distributed to U.S. servicemen overseas, covering such subjects as how to greet Arab men and warning that joining your forefinger and thumb and waving doesn’t mean everything’s A-OK. It’s a curse.

For his part, Scott talked of such things as Arab speaking patterns, native dress, marriage and family values, food, drink and religious practices.

He said he wanted to warn and sensitize Marines to what may lie ahead for them, and added:

“I’m worried about how we’ll be received. Not the short term, but how we’ll get along with them down the road, 10 years from now.”

He rationalized that the absence of women Marines in combat positions in Saudia Arabia would be welcomed by Arabs, given the subservient role of women in an Arab society. “I think the Marine Corps is showing a great deal of maturity and prudence,” he said.

Mostly, though, Scott focused on the cultural dos and don’ts, wanting to reduce the risk of an ugly American surfacing in a strange land where what seems right is wrong.

Men holding hands, or embracing, or exchanging kisses on the cheek? They’re friends, not homosexuals, Scott advised. Good to know, the Marines thought.

Ignoring women in public? That’s the best way to show them--and their families--honor and respect, he said. Aha, the Marines noted. “I thought they were treating them like dogs,” Lance Cpl. Jerris Marr said.

Don’t beckon an Arab by pointing at him palm up and curling your fingers upward. That’s how you get a dog’s attention, he said. For an Arab, turn your palm down, and then curl your fingers back toward you.

Don’t figure on sharing a bottle of wine or popping a six-pack of beer because the Koran has declared alcohol taboo--along with adultery, fornication, pornography and the eating of pork. If invited into an Arab’s home, figure on drinking coffee or tea. And to hold your empty cup out at arm’s length and to wiggle it won’t bring a refill. It signals the servant that you’re filled to the gills, so please, no more.

Never pass a plate or bowl with your left hand, Scott admonished. The left hand is traditionally reserved for sanitary functions, and to use it when offering food or drink is the most base of insults.

He advised Marines not to take any boom boxes and cassettes of rock ‘n’ roll music to Saudia Arabia, and the Marine Corps already has notified families not to send any photographs of nude or even semi-nude women to the men overseas--including even pictures of wives and girlfriends clad in bathing suits--because Middle Eastern culture won’t allow it.

So, will there be any fun to have in Saudia Arabia, the Marines wondered.

“Morale, Welfare and Recreation is going to have a big job on its hands,” Scott quipped. “We’ll need to bring in some Universal gym equipment.”

Lance Cpl. Ken Johnson acknowledged after the half-hour briefing that he and his buddies were a little put off about the prospects for enjoying free time in Saudia Arabia, if they’re destined there.

“The guys are asking each other, ‘What are we going to do with ourselves?’ ” he said. “I guess build sand castles.”