Unit Fights Mock Iraqi Foe in Mojave Desert : Maneuvers: National Guardsmen train for a war at Ft. Irwin and their performance is critiqued. A commander said the brigade will be ready for combat in the Middle East.

Army engineers have constructed elaborate Iraqi-style fortifications here to train reserve troops in the techniques that might be needed if a Persian Gulf war should turn into a ground campaign.

On Sunday--two days before the United Nation’s deadline for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait--soldiers from the Georgia National Guard’s 48th Infantry Brigade were pouring through a breach in the sand berm fortifications, dismounting from their Bradley fighting vehicles and assailing trenches filled with mock-Iraqi troops. A laser-tag system was used to assess casualties.

Lengthy group discussions followed each exercise as instructors stationed at this barren combat training base in the Mojave Desert, northeast of Barstow, critiqued the performance of the company-sized units. The units will undergo live-fire exercises today.

Master Sgt. John D. Fuller told 1st Lt. Kenneth Kirk, a platoon leader, that he should not have stood exposed in an open hatch as his vehicle came through the berm.

Even though Kirk said he had not noted any incoming fire and thought this was the best position to exert “command and control” of his men, Fuller said that a better place for him would have been in the closed rear of one of the vehicles, ready to dismount when the assault on the trenches began.

Standing in the hatch brought a higher risk of Kirk’s getting killed at an early stage of the battle and could best be left to “an E-5 (a sergeant),” Fuller said.

Instructors said it was a military secret how the berm had been breached. They said Army engineers were on hand to reconstruct the berm for additional assaults.

An Army commander said that some units of the 48th--one of the first combat reserve units called up in the Persian Gulf crisis--were practicing defense tactics Sunday. He said the 41 days of training the Georgia unit would undergo in the desert would deal with all major contingencies.

Lt. Col. William May, the base’s senior trainer of mechanized infantry, said he is confident U.S. Army units with their much greater reliance on vehicles, backed by air power, could do a far more successful job of overcoming Iraqi ground defenses and seizing the enemy’s positions than the Iranian army did in its war with Iraq in the 1980s.

“We will certainly be ready. I don’t know about eager,” said Lt. Col. Bill Thielemann, of Griffin, Ga., a battalion commander. “We all answer to the call, but we all hope there’s a peaceful solution.”

Some, however, did seem eager. Two guardsmen from the Southland, in fact, said they had driven 40 hours straight through to the brigade’s mobilization station at Thomaston, Ga., to fill vacancies in the unit.

“This is what I decided I’d like to do,” said Brian Hoffman, of Los Alamitos, who joined his buddy from the same Orange County city, Enrique Cayado, on the trip. “You either soldier at a time like this, or you don’t.”

Asked if he feared getting killed in a Persian Gulf war, Hoffman said: “I wasn’t ignorant of the fact. That’s the chance you take.”

Cayado said: “I thought this was (my) duty.” He added that he is doubly glad he joined up, because he met a woman in Georgia and they are now engaged.

Other volunteers from San Diego, Las Vegas and El Paso have joined the Georgians here.

“These men are all very positive,” May said. “They understand what’s before them. The reality isn’t on them yet. But they understand what lies ahead.”

Although the 48th has only been here a week, commanders expressed confidence Sunday that they--and other units from Mississippi and Louisiana scheduled for training--would be found fit for Persian Gulf duty if needed.

“We’re very proud of the soldiers in this unit,” said Brig. Gen. Wesley Clark, the base commander. “Their commitment and enthusiasm and obvious determination impress us.”