Thousands of Troops From S.D. Head to Gulf : Military: Families and friends bid tearful, anxious goodbys to Marines and sailors under gathering clouds of war. Those left at home anticipate a lonely Christmas.

Amid cheers, tears and whispered prayers, more than 13,000 Marines and sailors set sail from San Diego and Long Beach Saturday bound for the perilous waters of the Persian Gulf.

The largest amphibious task force to deploy from Southern California since 1965, the 13 ships will travel six weeks to join other U.S. troops in the region. If all goes as planned, 6,000 sailors, more than 7,000 Marines and tons of equipment should arrive just before the United Nations’ Jan. 15 deadline for the Iraqis to get out of Kuwait.

With no hope of being home for the holidays, the departing soldiers waved American flags and Christmas stockings. They did jigs to the beat of a Marine band and blew kisses to their spouses who stood in the chilly air on the piers below.

But despite the giddy displays of patriotism, many soldiers and their families said they felt worried. Extended absences were lonely, but familiar, they said. 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 32nd Street Naval Station’s Pier 2. There, the amphibious assault ship Tarawa was waiting to take her husband, Marine Gunner 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 Petty Officer Douglas Goodpastor, a Navy structural aviation mechanic from San Diego who held his wife, Sean, tightly as he spoke. Goodpastor said that in eight years of service, this was his most difficult goodby. “We don’t even really know why we’re going. It’s rough.”

Military officials, who were hugging their own families for the last time in months, said they hoped the unusual show of force would send a clear message to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“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, which includes 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 commander of Camp Pendleton’s Fifth Expeditionary Brigade, stood with his wife, Mary Helen, and their three children. “We all hope this fellow (Hussein) will come to his senses,” he said.

In Long Beach, a few men aboard the dock landing ship Anchorage made a confident prediction about what would happen if Hussein doesn’t pull out of Kuwait. As their vessel got under way, they unfurled a banner that showed Hussein inside a bull’s eye.

“We’d go 7,000 miles to smoke a camel,” the banner said.

Actually, Navy spokesmen said, it will be a 12,000-mile voyage to the Gulf--a long way for letters to travel. But on Saturday, several soldiers urged their loved ones to keep in regular touch.

At a bank of pay telephones next to the pier in San Diego, soldiers and sailors lined up four- or five-deep to make last-minute calls.

Marine Sgt. Frank Vega called his mother in Chicago to give her his new address and to make a few requests: razors, batteries, a portable tape player. He didn’t call his wife.

“We said goodby last night. I don’t like to go through all that sad stuff,” he said, fingering a photograph of his daughter, Jasmine, who will celebrate her first birthday while he is away. “This is my alarm clock--she wakes up every morning at 6 a.m. She probably woke up today wondering where I am.”

Seaman Nic Flynn’s family knew exactly where he was. After driving from Flagstaff, Ariz., they gathered on the pier, waving a hot-pink hand-lettered sign--”Nic!”--toward where he stood, dozens of feet up, on the deck of the Tarawa.

Becky Ingram, Flynn’s mother, said she brought her son his electric guitar and amplifier--”to pass the time”--and a small package to help him celebrate Christmas and his 21st birthday, both of which will occur while he is at sea.

Along with practical things, like socks and underwear, Ingram and her daughters packed homemade chocolate chip cookies and fudge, gummy bear candies, photos of the family and several Steven King horror novels.

“I wanted to give him something he could use,” said Ingram, who wore sunglasses to hide her tear-filled eyes. “I didn’t have room for a sweater.”

In addition to the families, the send-off party included other well-wishers. One was Chester Wheeler, a 71-year-old retired Navy officer who said he once served on the aircraft carrier Ranger, which is expected to join the deployment later this month.

“I think we’ll have them outnumbered,” the Tierra Santa man said as he gazed proudly up at the Tarawa. He said he had no reservations about the role the United States is playing in Saudi Arabia. “We probably should’ve already done something militarily. The sooner the better.”

Wheeler’s wife, Lillian, smiled.

“He’d give his eye teeth to go with them,” she said.

Just moments before the last ship departed, Connie Catha, 25, caught a last glimpse of her husband, Sgt. Robert J. Catha, standing on the deck waving down at her.

“Oh! I didn’t think I was going to find him!” she cried, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

Catha said her husband, a helicopter mechanic, was transferred to San Diego from New Orleans, La., on Nov. 6, one day after their second wedding anniversary. Only after they arrived in San Diego County did they learn he would be leaving Saturday.

“We’ve just been here three weeks. I don’t have nobody--I’m by myself,” she said, flashing for a moment on the lonely months ahead. But she said she has met a few other wives and has been “collecting phone numbers. I’m just going to call everybody. We’ll form our own support group.”