REACTION: U.S. TROOPS IN THE PERSIAN GULF : Real Beer Missing--but So Are the Scuds

A pretzel in one hand, a near-beer in the other, Tech. Sgt. James Lee was ready for kickoff, wishing his Chicago Bears were playing but adopting the Buffalo Bills instead.

Staff Sgt. Joseph Morrison, a Bear fan in the Giants’ camp for this night, sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Staff Sgt. Doug Kline, a Buffalo fan for no other reason than that Bills’ quarterback Jim Kelly grew up in his native Pennsylvania.

There were bantering and boasting, and a few small bets, too. But something was wrong.

James couldn’t have the beer he wanted, settling for a nonalcoholic brand. And comfortable dress was out. The 30 men at this Super Bowl party were ordered to wear bulky chemical protective suits and gas masks strapped to their hips.

And most of the pregame speculation had nothing to do with the outcome.

The popular question: Would Saddam Hussein interrupt the Super Bowl, a brief break from the Persian Gulf war for many of the half-million Americans deployed in the region, with a Scud missile attack.

“I think he will,” said James, a 22-year Air Force veteran.

He didn’t.

The 30 weapons technicians for the fighter wing watched the game in a munitions bunker on a Saudi air base, standing or sitting on makeshift plywood benches not far from several stacks of missile cases.

Three quarters passed without a Scud launch, allowing the men to enjoy a game many back home had urged be canceled because of the war.

Doing that, these men said, would have been a concession to Hussein.

“Don’t let him disrupt everyone’s lives,” Morrison said.

The First Tactical Fighter Wing was here for the World Series, and many members of the small group watching the Super Bowl on Armed Forces Television predicted that they might be here for another one, too, and perhaps another Super Bowl.

“I hope not,” James said. “But we’re not going anywhere until the job is done.”

Although they disagreed on whether the Bills or Giants would win the NFL title, every member of the group boasted of being a Patriot fan--not the NFL Patriots of New England but the Patriot antimissile system of the Army, the front line of defense against Saddam’s Scud missiles.

The missile attacks have brought many sleepless nights to the troops, who at every launch are ordered to put on their gas masks.

Few tried to hide their anxiety that a Scud might one day make it past the Patriots, perhaps carrying a gas or chemical warhead. But so frequent are the attacks that the men discuss them with a bit of humor, too.

“When I go to sleep I don’t count sheep,” James said. “I count Patriots.”

So how had this Bear fan come to pick the Bills? Easy.

“I hear Saddam’s a Giants fan.”