Marine Wives Get Word That Spouses May Return Early : Homecoming: Despite the lack of official confirmation, some Orange County families are readying the welcome-home festivities.

Marine wives from El Toro, Tustin and Camp Pendleton, their spirits already lifted by the quick end to the Persian Gulf War, got more good news over the weekend with word that some local units may be coming home within the next several weeks.

If the piecemeal news proves true, it would mark a far quicker return home for Marines than had been predicted even a few days ago by some military officials.

“I thought he wasn’t coming home till maybe June, so the end of March sounded great to me,” said Debbie Guddeck of Tustin. “I’m real excited.”

She got a wake-up call from her husband, Maj. William Guddeck, at 1:30 a.m. Monday, saying that his Camp Pendleton-based artillery unit might be home by the end of the month.

The major’s first wish upon his return home: a trip to Las Vegas, without the kids.

In addition to Guddeck, at least five other area Marine wives reported Monday that their husbands--each in separate units in the Gulf--had called in recent days and said their units would be coming home within the next several weeks.

As recently as last week, in the wake of the quick cease-fire after just 100 hours of ground-war fighting, military officials had predicted that it would take several months--perhaps longer than a year--to bring the troops home.

Military officials have reportedly been mulling over a “first-in, first-out” plan that would send those with longest deployments in the Gulf home first, but that could cause some logistical problems in finding manpower for certain duties.

Military officials in Orange County and Washington could not confirm the families’ reports about quick departures.

“A lot of the wives have said that they’ve talked to their husbands and they’re coming home real soon, but we haven’t received any word on it,” said Cpl. Lynda MacTavish, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton. “We know they’re coming home soon, but not when.”

Officials at Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro and at the 63rd Army Reserve Command, headquarters for reservists in Southern California and elsewhere in the West, also said they had no updated word about return schedules for deployed troops.

And Chief Warrant Officer Rando Gaddo, a Marine Corps spokesman in Washington, said: “You can assume safely there are plans in the works to bring them home, and I’m sure (military commanders) are developing schedules . . . but nothing’s official yet.”

Despite the lack of official confirmation, some Orange County families are already readying the welcome-home festivities.

Betsy Dayton--whose husband, a crew chief for a helicopter unit out of Tustin, called Saturday to say he would be home by the end of the month--said she’s planning to put up a big banner on their home and cook him a favorite meal of barbecued steak and baked potato.

Sharon Kneip of El Toro, whose husband, Jeremy, called over the weekend and said he expected to be home by April 15, knows that he and his El Toro-based Marine buddies will want plenty of alcohol on hand to drink upon their return.

And Nancy Bailey of Trabuco Canyon, whose husband works on bombs in an El Toro logistics squadron, plans to go with the corporal on a second honeymoon trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Bailey said her husband indicated in a phone call Monday morning that he might even be home as soon as a week from today.

“A week ago he was saying he wouldn’t be here until September, and now he’s saying it’ll definitely be by the end of the month,” the 24-year-old Bailey said. “I’m extremely excited--I just can’t believe it.”