‘Super Monday’: Nonalcoholic Beer, Chips in Desert at 2 a.m.

Some things don’t change, even in war. And one of them is Americans’ love for a big game.

“Don’t you dare interrupt that game with a Scud,” Air Force Lt. Beth Clemow, 23, of Jackson, Mont., said, hoping for enough quiet on the war front to be able to concentrate on today’s Super Bowl.

Kickoff between the Giants and Bills will be about 2:15 a.m. Monday here in Saudi Arabia, but America’s fighting men and women are looking forward to some old-fashioned escapism nonetheless.

Out at the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing, they’ve passed the hat for a cash pool--a “humongous pool”--and at least some airmen and women are trying to rearrange their work schedules so they will be free to watch. Some of them say they have a larder of potato chips and nonalcoholic beer, too.

“It’s a little piece of home out here in Saudia Arabia,” said Lt. Kate Mangion, 30 of Foxborough, Mass. “I haven’t been following football that closely because my team is the New England Patriots.”

Asked about the record of the Patriots here--the Patriot air defense system that is the main defense against Iraq’s Scud missiles--Mangion brightened. “I’m keeping up with them, for sure.”

Staying up late is really nothing new in the war zone, given the almost nightly missile attacks. So the troops wait in what passes for happy anticipation.

“This Super Bowl matters a lot to me because it is the first time that Buffalo’s ever been in it,” said Lt. David Heppner, 24, who’s from the northwestern New York community. “I’ll probably be up all night anyway because of the Scud alert, so of course I’m going to watch it.”

In this fighter wing, the men and women are glad the game was not postponed or canceled. Said Capt. Steven Jacobson, 31, of Oak Ridge, Tenn., “If we didn’t have the Super Bowl, it would be like Saddam Hussein won one. He’d be changing the American way of life.”

This article was compiled from Pentagon pool reports reviewed by military censors.