For Wives, Fear Follows Early Feeling of Relief : Families: The months of waiting are over. At least, spouses say, the start of action may mean there will be an end.

When the bombs first began tumbling from the dark skies of Iraq, Marine wives battling loneliness, anxiety and dread in this gritty desert military town felt something wholly unexpected--relief.

That ominous moment they all had been fearing--the commencement of war--had finally arrived. With it came a peculiar sense of deliverance, an end to five months of waiting, wondering and worrying about what would befall their loved ones hunkered down in foxholes in the sands of Saudi Arabia.

But by Thursday--day two--relief was competing with a flood of other emotions. The most powerful one was fear.

As news of Iraq’s attack on Israel spread, relatives of service members engaged in the conflict fought to regain the confidence they had felt after watching American warplanes pummel Iraq and occupied Kuwait. For many, however, it was futile .

“I feel awful,” said Maria Cruz, 31, whose husband of 148 days, Angel, is a corporal dug in near the Kuwaiti border. “I have to take pills so I can sleep. It’s so scary. I just can’t handle it anymore. I’m afraid something very bad is going to happen now to them.”

Only a few hours earlier, she had felt encouraged. “It sounds strange, but I’m glad it’s finally happening,” she said.

Her feelings then had been shared by Tamara Hall, 25, whose husband, Brad, left Twentynine Palms with his Marine artillery unit Aug. 15, “I feel like maybe there’s an end in sight.”

In San Bernardino, Teejae Wehunt, 25, said the sense of calm and optimism she had felt faded with the attack on Israel.

“At first, after the air strikes, I felt OK, like we were in control,” said Wehunt, whose husband, Shane, is a sergeant from Norton Air Force Base now serving in Saudi Arabia. “But now, I’m worried. This was the biggest fear we had, Israel getting involved. This changes everything. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more casualties and a longer war.”

For many, the Iraqi attack confirmed a haunting suspicion that the fighting had been going just a little too well for American forces. Early Thursday, Sharon Leyden of Redlands, who has two sons based at Camp Pendleton and now serving in the gulf, said she felt “pretty edgy today.

“Why hasn’t (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein responded, or shown resistance?” said Leyden, who wears chevrons indicating her sons’ rank--lance corporal--pinned to her clothing every day. “It all seems too good to be true. I’m sure we’re in for something.”

Along with the fear came anger, anger at the thousands of anti-war protesters rallying with their signs and speeches throughout the nation. If these people really cared about the troops, wives and mothers of the service members said bitterly, they wouldn’t be displaying the sort of disunity that might weaken President Bush in the world’s eyes.

“I am so upset with those people, because I feel that what the guys and women over there really need now is our support,” said Wehunt, a secretary at the San Bernardino County planning department. “I want to tell those protesters that the reason they can speak their opinion freely is because my husband and others are over there protecting that right.”

To cope with the stress, Wehunt attended a support group for wives at Norton Air Force Base Thursday night.

In Twentynine Palms, Hall remained in front of her television set with her infant daughter, unwilling to leave her apartment for fear of missing some crucial update.

Cruz, who married Angel just nine days before he was shipped off to Saudi Arabia, said she might attend a Catholic Mass and “pray that God would help us find a way out of this awful thing.”

In Long Beach, about 50 Navy wives found strength in numbers, gathering at Mum’s, a downtown restaurant that offered free lunch to spouses of locally based Navy personnel serving in the gulf.

One of the women, Beatrice Rodriguez, 20, was subdued and quite anxious: “I’m scared,” said Rodriguez, who has slept fitfully since her husband, Rene, a radio technician aboard the Paul F. Foster, left for the gulf. “I don’t like to admit it, but I am.”

In Redlands, Leyden fought to concentrate on her work but found her eyes straying repeatedly to her sons’ pictures, perched on her desk.

Leyden said she “lost my strength for a while” Wednesday after hearing news of the attack in a phone call from her brother. But now, she said, “I’m trying hard to be calm. Maybe I’m doing a psych-job on myself, but I try to remember that although I’m under stress and strain, what my boys are facing is much, much worse.

“Anyway, it’s really out of my hands. What else can I do?”

Times staff writer Bettina Boxall also contributed to this article.