Quayle Leads Star-Spangled Pep Rally : Pep Talk: Vice president finds friendly reception at Marine Corps base as he seeks to reassure families of Desert Storm troops.

The wives and children of Marines, many feeling lonely and frightened, crowded into a helicopter hangar at Camp Pendleton on Thursday to hear Vice President Dan Quayle praise their courage and strength.

It was an old-fashioned pep rally for an estimated 2,500 people, including a baby hoisted on his mother’s shoulders who held a tiny American flag in one hand and a bottle in the other. Some infants wore homemade camouflage outfits.

And there were scores of placards, most of them proudly alike, such as one reading, “Cpl. Sorensen, Andy/We love you, we miss you/ Come home soon, kick butt.”

The gathering included Marines who will soon depart for the Gulf War, but was made up mostly of military families who found Quayle’s visit a chance to unbottle their jagged emotions and cheer, yell and whoop.

“We need something to keep us motivated,” said one wife, Alanta Smith. “Right now, the wives are scared about the ground war. Anything he does keeps our strength up.”

Quayle said nothing new, and the oratory was boilerplate boosterism for America’s quest against Saddam Hussein, but the vice president won frequent rousing cheers for voicing his sympathy and encouragement.

“Your Marines are America’s heroes,” he said, telling these loved ones waiting behind in anxiety and uncertainty. “You, too, are brave. You, too, are making sacrifices for your country. You, too, are heroes of Operation Desert Shield.”

Even though his logic was sometimes fractured--”because we are right and Saddam is wrong, we shall prevail”--Quayle hit some sensitive emotional chords for this military audience.

“Operation Desert Storm will not be another Vietnam,” he said to accolades. “Our troops will not fight with one hand tied behind their backs.”

This was hardly the place to trumpet the probability of a massive ground engagement, and the only time Quayle delicately mentioned that sobering subject was to vow, “If a ground war is necessary, it will be fought on our terms and not the terms of Saddam Hussein.”

He touched heartstrings at Camp Pendleton, home base for Lt. Col. Clifford Acree and Chief Warrant Officer Guy Hunter, who became prisoners of war after their plane was shot down on a reconnaissance mission in southern Kuwait.

Declaring that Hussein’s treatment of allied POWs has violated the Geneva Convention, Quayle said, “Let there be no doubt about Saddam Hussein and his henchmen. They will be held responsible and accountable for their actions.”

For anti-war protesters, he said the Iraqi leader shouldn’t presume that they speak for America. “Protesters are a tiny but vocal minority. The overwhelming majority of the American people support the President of the United States,” he said.

After offering “three cheers for the Marines” and intoning a prayer for a quick return of U.S. forces and joyful reunion, Quayle shook hands in the crowd and disappeared for a private meeting with some special Marine wives.

He was expected to talk briefly with the wives of Acree, Hunter and some of the widows of 11 Camp Pendleton Marines killed in recent ground-level combat. Some of the casualties were caused by accidental friendly fire.

Many wives who came to hear Quayle were buoyed by his appearance.

“It made me feel a lot more secure about the situation, the troops are doing fantastic,” said Laura Conger, the wife of a staff sergeant.

Julie Choney said: “It helps us as wives that somebody is coming to talk to us. It gives us encouragement. This is a real hard time.”

But the vice president’s words weren’t completely uplifting to everybody.

Cpl. Jeffrey Cayford was frustrated that Quayle lavished praise but that Cayford was still stateside and hadn’t really done anything yet. “I think it’s more of a pep talk than anything. It is glorifying something we’re not part of,” he said.

Cpl. Robert Gill wasn’t electrified by the event, calling it “just the same spiel we’ve heard all along.”

For Quayle, it was a full day of spreading the gospel of America’s mission against Hussein’s conquest of Kuwait.

Earlier, he attended a prayer service at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, telling 2,200 parishioners, “St. Thomas Aquinas said: ‘In order for a war to be just . . . there must be an advancement of good and avoidance of evil.’

“Judging by these criteria, Operation Desert Storm truly is a just war.”