Kuwaitis Will Be Prepared to Fight : Military: A group of 1,200 volunteers is undergoing combat training in the eastern Saudi Arabia desert.

Rakam Salim al Sabah, grand-nephew of Kuwait’s exiled emir, thought the question odd but maintained his royal dignity.

“Of course” he was willing to die for his country, said the 19-year-old. “Do you think Kuwaitis are any different than Americans in that regard?” Rakam, one of 1,200 Kuwaiti civilian volunteers being trained for combat in a camp of tents outside Dhahran, spoke softly in perfect English. He had fled Kuwait a day after the Iraqi invasion in his Chevrolet Caprice with four relatives.

Now, nearing the end of the 30-day boot camp, he saw war as inevitable. “But,” he added, reaching for any ray of hope, “if Saddam Hussein withdraws, maybe we could let things go back to the way they were.”

His uncle, the former personnel director of the Ministry of Health, interrupted.

“This boy is young, too young to have learned hatred,” said Jabbar al Sabah, 38. “What we want is Saddam Hussein’s head. We want revenge. Nothing less.”

Young Rakam’s father, Salim, 45, standing in the cluster of civilian soldiers, nodded in agreement.

While many of the 1,000 members of the Kuwaiti royal family are with the emir--Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, who runs his government-in-exile from a Sheraton Hotel in the Saudi Arabian resort of Taif--these members of the Sabah family are living like Bedouin warriors, lugging water to their tent, praying five times a day, learning elementary military skills taught by Kuwaiti army officers and crawling into sleeping bags at night to keep out the biting desert cold.

“My grandfather lived in a tent,” said Rakam, “so the adjustment has not been difficult. Our history has always been here in the desert.”

“They are just like us, these Sabahs. They get no special privileges and they ask for none,” said one of the volunteers, Hadi Ajami, who studied at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.

Over the dusty encampment flew the black, red and green Kuwaiti flag. Posters had been placed about that showed a dove and the words, “Kuwait--Bloody but Unbowed.” In the center of rock-hard desert training grounds, squads of volunteers jumped in pairs out of the back of a pickup truck traveling 20 m.p.h. and took up firing positions with their rifles.

The men--most of them businessmen, teachers, students or government officials before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2--are in the second group of volunteers. The first, about 600, was sent to Egypt for more training after completing their basic course here.

Hundreds of thousands of Kuwaitis fled their country after Iraq’s invasion. However, only about 7,000 civilians have volunteered for military duty, according to the Kuwait Ministry of Defense.

Nauaf Nahar Matar, who owned a string of companies selling automotive spare parts, said that he volunteered after losing everything in the invasion.

“But I don’t care about money any more,” he said. “I just care about getting my land back for my children.” He rolled up his sleeve to show a bullet wound. “Maybe we weren’t tough enough in Kuwait. That’s what we are learning here--to learn to be tough so we can stand up to our neighbors.”

Although training appeared to be taken seriously by the volunteers, the encampment was no Parris Island. Most men had late-model Chevrolets and Toyotas in the parking lot, and many went to visit family and friends in Dhahran when training ended at dusk.

Tea breaks and prayer times consumed several hours during the day, though the volunteers lacked many of the amenities that American troops enjoy in the field.

“Everyone says they want to be the first to fight Iraq,” said the commander, Col. Saad Faleh Shamari. “But they’re not trained well enough to be front-line troops. Still, there is a lot they could do. They could function as guides if there is a battle for Kuwait. . . .”

In addition to the civilians, Kuwait’s army is training in Saudi Arabia and at several unidentified camps throughout the Persian Gulf region. It now consists of about 15,000 soldiers in three brigades.

At noon, the Kuwaiti volunteers retired to their tents. They beckoned American journalists visiting the camp to join them and were full of questions.

Then Mohammed Sabaiei, a teacher, announced, “We will all die so Kuwait can live,” and the volunteers in his tent laughed uneasily.