Waiting GIs Cheer Air Raids, Hone ‘Combat Power’ : Military: Concern for welfare in the ranks is part of keeping the troops prepared for attack.

At the 5 p.m. staff meeting deep in the desert, the colonels and majors sitting around the folding table under a dirt-floored tent began by synchronizing their watches.

“Five o’clock . . . mark!” said the intelligence officer in what has become an afternoon ritual, a necessary part of the precision timing that would be crucial in any U.S. ground attack.

But here in the headquarters of one of the Army’s best-equipped infantry brigades, the close attention to the second hand struck a premature note as the allied air war droned on amid bad weather, and ground troops like these remained on standby in what others elsewhere in the Army have taken to calling Operation Wait.

“We’re still looking pretty bad for being able to go full bore in the air,” the intelligence officer said, summarizing forecasts that called for continued cloud cover over Iraq. As he spoke, two dozen other officers perched on folding chairs and cots in the crowded tent, jotted notes and listened intently, their combat fatigues and helmets casting martial shadows under the generator-powered electric light.

With bad weather limiting air attacks on Iraqi ground troops, it appeared likely that slow progress in the air could set back any U.S. movement on the ground. After days of rain that hindered both bombing raids and satellite surveillance, the officers at this meeting could report only incomplete evidence of damage suffered by Iraqi ground troops. And while officers within this still-arriving 1st Armored Division have made it clear they would welcome further time to train, the current no-war war posed challenges of its own.

“Get your soldiers on a near-war footing,” Col. J. C. Riley, the brigade commander, stressed to his staff and subordinate officers at the meeting late Wednesday afternoon. “But at the same time,” the colonel added, “take care of your soldiers. Get ‘em to the telephones. Get ‘em to some showers.”

Riley, a mild-mannered but commanding presence in crew cut and glasses at the center of the table, described such steps as crucial ingredients in “combat power,” the abstract quantity commanders in this unit appear determined to maximize in the coming days.

“Don’t leave your soldiers in the dark,” another staff officer urged later. “They’ve got to know what’s going on.”

With speculation about the time and manner of a ground offensive growing every day, the concern about welfare in the ranks is part of an effort to keep soldiers at top performance in preparation for what could now be a postponed kickoff.

Among senior officers in this unit, a 3rd Infantry Division brigade now attached to the 1st Armored Division, there appears little consternation about the prospect that the Air Force might continue for a time to be the star player in the war.

“We don’t need to be impatient,” one officer said. “Every day the Air Force hits them, that’s another day that things get easier for us.”

In the ranks, soldiers on Wednesday expressed anger and scorn at Iraq’s latest attack on Israel.

“You know what it’s like?” asked Sgt. Dexter Head, 25, of Iraq’s effort to bring Israel into war. “It’s like punching him”--he gestured to his buddy--”and then him punching you.”

But still, Head said in words that reflected the sentiments of others: “I’m not in any hurry. I love what the Air Force is doing.”

As soldiers wait, often knowing full well what lies ahead, what commanders now seem most to fear is a slip-up that might jeopardize the security of what Pentagon officials have described as a set-piece operation.

While urging that soldiers be permitted to call home from one of the satellite stations erected nearby in the desert, Riley, the brigade commander, warned that the stay-in-touch policy came with an imperative for soldiers to be extra-cautious.

At a home base in Germany, he warned, an account by an overly garrulous soldier of another unit’s desert position had apparently circulated quickly in what was regarded as a potentially serious breach of operational security.

“The soldiers have got to be careful about what they say,” Riley told the assembled battalion commanders. “Future intentions and things like that just don’t need to be discussed.”

And with the unit still at arm’s length from war, the twilight meeting--while having the air of a war council--still provided room on its agenda for more mundane issues of military life.

“It sounds like a stupid subject to talk about out here,” Brigade Sgt. Maj. Charles Dallas began apologetically, “but they’ve been getting on us about re-enlistment. They’re concerned that we’re not re-enlisting anyone.”

As the weary officers laughed in immediate understanding of the dilemma, Dallas, the powerful top-ranking noncommissioned officer in the unit, hastened to add that the problem had more to do with timing than with any lack of esprit de corps.

“You’ve heard them say it,” Dallas reminded the others. “They say, ‘Sure. I’ll re-enlist. But I want to do it on top of an Iraqi tank inside Kuwait city.’ ”

Despite the worries about grim weather, Thursday morning dawned clear and bright, only a lingering ground haze obscuring the first blue skies here since the war began.

Soon after sunrise, Spec. Kevin Hudson, 26, of Hancock, N.H., walked into a still-darkened tent bearing a progress report and a grin.

“On a clear day,” Hudson said, “you can bomb forever.”

This story was reviewed by military censors.