Combat Reserves Ship Out for Gulf : Mideast: Hundreds of the troops, in the largest such deployment from the West Coast since the Vietnam War, leave on a six-week voyage.

A 13-ship Navy task force set sail for the Persian Gulf from Southern California on Saturday, carrying more than 13,000 Marines and sailors to the Mideast in the largest such West Coast deployment since the Vietnam buildup in 1965.

Aboard the amphibious fleet were hundreds of combat reservists, the first to be sent to the gulf region from Southern California since the showdown over Kuwait’s fate began 17 weeks ago. Up to this point, reservists called to Operation Desert Shield duty were support-service specialists such as medical personnel and intelligence gatherers.

Altogether, 7,000 Marines from the 5th Expeditionary Brigade, formed at Camp Pendleton, joined 6,000 sailors on what is expected to be a six-week voyage to the Persian Gulf, with a few stops along the way.

Amid the tears of loved ones and some bravado on the part of the reservists, the unit commanders expressed determination as they prepared to board ships at the 32nd Street Naval Station’s Pier 2 in San Diego.

“We’re trying to demonstrate our resolve that we do not intend to back down,” said Rear Adm. Stephen S. Clarey, commander of the task force called Amphibious Group Three--10 ships from San Diego and three from Long Beach. “We have a real capability. These are not just paper ships.”

Brig. Gen. Peter J. Rowe, the Marine brigade commander, declared, “We all hope this fellow (Saddam Hussein) will come to his senses.”

That seemed to be a widely shared sentiment by those at the docksides Saturday.

Despite giddy displays of patriotism and flag-waving, many Marines, sailors and their families at the San Diego docks said they were worried. What made this deployment different, many agreed, was the uncertainty.

“Not knowing--that’s what’s so hard,” said Dorothy Green, who stood crying quietly at the pier. There, the amphibious assault ship Tarawa was waiting to take her husband, Marine Gunnery Sgt. Vernon Green, away. “Just watching him on this ship--it’s frightening. What do you tell your children? There are no words to describe it. It’s a terrible feeling.”

“Other deployments, you know when you’re coming back,” said Douglas Goodpastor, a Navy structural aviation mechanic from San Diego who held his wife, Sean, tightly as he spoke. “We don’t even really know why we’re going. It’s rough.”

John Baker of La Jolla, who had driven to Long Beach to see the departure of his cousin, Marine Reserve Capt. Larry Patzman, said: “I think we have to have the presence over there. But I hope all we have to have is the presence.”

While Patzman stood, hands on hips, with his men on the deck of the Mt. Vernon, his wife, Sarah, stood tearfully on the dock holding their child, 16-month-old Kyle.

“I’m a little sad but proud,” she said. “He found out one Sunday he was going to report on Tuesday. Now, I’m a ‘key wife.’ I’m going to be supporting the wives in his unit, get information out to them and get them together occasionally.”

A few of the men on board the Anchorage, like the Mt. Vernon a dock-landing ship, unfurled a banner as the vessel got under way. It showed Hussein inside a bull’s eye and was inscribed, “We’d go 7,000 miles to smoke a camel.”

Actually, Navy spokesmen said, it will be a 12,000-mile voyage to the gulf and the task force should arrive there about the time of the United Nations’ Jan. 15 deadline for the Iraqis to get out of Kuwait.

And the banner may not have been a typical sentiment, judging by interviews with a number of those going.

On Friday afternoon, during a press tour of the ships departing from Long Beach, Tim Conard, a 22-year-old Marine, expressed a more common view when he remarked:

“I’m a little apprehensive. We don’t really want to go, but it’s our job.”

Among those departing Saturday were members of the 45-man platoon of Battery A, 4th Marine Light Anti-Air Defense Battalion (Stinger missiles), which reported for duty in Pasadena on Nov. 13, becoming the first Los Angeles-area reserve combat unit to be called up in the crisis.

The combat reservists had been undergoing training since then at Camp Pendleton and just got their new orders for the gulf a few days before leaving.

A number of men said they were preoccupied by the details of what is apt to be the longest voyage of their lives. “I’m trying to get used to how we sleep,” said Lance Cpl. John Reyes of Los Angeles. “We’ve got four racks vertically off the deck, and only just a little space between them. I’m just a wee bit off the floor.”

But, Reyes said, he is looking forward to his first crossing of the Equator. “They get to harass you, when you cross,” he said of the traditional hazing that seasoned sailors impose on those crossing the Equator for the first time.

Times staff writer Shawn Doherty contributed to this story.