Preparing to Bear the Worst News Possible to Marine Homes : Armed forces: No county casualties have been reported, but 200 officers are poised for what is considered the toughest duty in the Corps.

No word of any local casualties in the Persian Gulf War had reached Orange County military bases Friday, but teams of casualty assistance officers--”death squads,” as some gruesomely dub them--were nonetheless braced for what appeared to be the inevitable.

“We’re ready for mass casualties,” said Maj. John L. Sayre, who oversees 200 officers at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station who are assigned to notify county military families of any deaths or injuries.

During what could prove to be a protracted war, “there are bound to be casualties” among local troops, Sayre said.

“I hope there are very few, . . . (but) the Marine Corps is prepared for the worst-case scenario,” he said.

In a worst case, Sayre’s team would get word of local casualties within perhaps 12 hours, from either Washington or regional Marine headquarters in San Francisco. Then comes the difficult part, the task that Sayre said is tougher than any he has faced in his 19 years of service: Knocking on a family’s door to deliver the terrible news.

“I dread any time that I have to tell a family that their Marine has been injured or killed,” he said.

Sayre has performed that task perhaps two dozen times in his two years on the job as casualty officer, often after helicopter crashes or vehicle accidents.

Then, he was the only casualty officer at El Toro. But those were in peacetime. Now, 200 such officers were culled from the ranks as the nation approached war.

The officers can expect the most work if and when the war shifts to ground battle.

While the fight has been confined almost exclusively so far to air attack, the next phase could mean heavy action for perhaps 5,000 El Toro-based Marines using jets and helicopters to support ground infantry--many of them from nearby Camp Pendleton.

The casualty officers, almost all of them trained in recent weeks to gear up for Operation Desert Storm, are given guidelines for the fateful visit to the family’s home--to listen well, to accept silence and to offer an embrace or a hand if the situation dictates.

But even the most sensitive bearer of bad tidings can do little to counter the effect of the official military consolement: “I extend to you and your family my deepest sympathy in your great loss. . . .”

So powerful is the typical reaction that military chaplains are trained not only to console families but sometimes the casualty officers themselves.

After the notification, the casualty officer also delivers a $3,000 death gratuity check to the family and offers military aid in preparing burial arrangements. Several local mortuaries are under contract to handle funeral arrangements for county military personnel who may be killed.

With no news of casualties yet among local troops, it has been “business as usual” at Sayre’s family services support office, even with the outbreak of war. There has been no great increase in hot-line referrals this week, but counseling staffing has been increased as families seek to cope with the trauma of war.

“Less than a dozen times” since the start of Operation Desert Shield, a local Marine has had to be called back from the Persian Gulf because of “what we call failure to cope” on the part of a spouse, Sayre said.

But those breakdowns have not happened since war began, he added, and families generally seem to have managed well.

“I’m OK so far,” agreed 21-year-old Jennifer Claar of Santa Ana, the wife of a Marine in the gulf, as she took her baby Thursday to El Toro’s family services center to seek supplies and information. “No news is good news.”