Day 2: It’s Quieter, Just as Satisfying : Reunion: Troops come home with only a fraction of Saturday’s fanfare. ‘Better late than never,’ one says.

It was dark, late and cold, but Kim Watrous and three of his buddies would not budge from their post on a dirt shoulder along Cactus Avenue early Sunday morning. The four Vietnam veterans had gone to the gate of March Air Force Base outside Riverside with a clear purpose in mind.

“We wanted to let these Marines know they’re welcome home just as much as those who arrived yesterday,” said Watrous, standing beside his red Chevrolet truck adorned with an assortment of American and military flags. “We also wanted to give them the homecoming we never got.”

Day 2 of Operation Homecoming in Southern California got started beneath moonlit desert skies with only a fraction of the historic fanfare that welcomed returning Marines the day before. In one instance, the welcoming band was scrapped because it was too dark to read music.

The crowds and excitement grew throughout the day, however, as a continuous stream of planes and buses arrived at military installations from Edwards Air Force Base to El Toro Marine Air Station to Camp Pendleton, including the first contingent of Navy commandos treated to an uncharacteristic homecoming reception at the normally secretive North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado.

But most well-wishers and returning servicemen agreed that quality--not quantity--was the buzzword of the day. With fewer cameras, reporters, politicians and onlookers, it was almost easier to savor the moment.

“Better late than never,” said Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew Jones, after a 23-hour flight in a noisy, windowless military transport jet ended at March AFB Sunday afternoon. “Some of the troops got to come here on a 747 and have stewardesses walking up and down the aisle. . . . All I cared about was that it had seats and they were going home.”

There was also a lot of waiting at Camp Pendleton, where 300 friends and relatives gathered on a drill field. They broke into cheers when returning Marines from Charlie Company finally rounded a barracks, marching in formation, and then stood at attention.

Both the Leathernecks and the red-and-yellow company standard that blew crisply in the chilly wind were still coated with the grime and sand of living on the front line. The company was the second of four that trickled back to the San Diego County base Sunday.

“Welcome home, and thank you for an outstanding job,” Marine Col. Robert Tilley told the men, who were among the first U.S. troops to be deployed along the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. They were also part of the Marine contingent that secured Kuwaiti city one week ago.

“There are two ways to spell Marines,” Tilley said. “One way we already know of. The second way is P-R-I-D-E.”

Lance Cpl. Frank Wursthorn, a 19-year-old bachelor, dodged enemy fire and land mines while pushing north from Saudi Arabia to Kuwaiti City.

Flush with victory, Wursthorn returned home to Garden Grove, with a book of tales to tell and a deep suntan earned from seven months in the Saudi desert.

“Right now he’s really an American hero,” said Wursthorn’s 18-year-old brother, Robbie, during a noisy welcome-home celebration at the family’s Brookside Drive home.

“I was worried for him,” Robbie Wursthorn said. “Just the thought of him being there scared the hell out of me.”

Two weeks ago, Wursthorn was part of a squad of U.S. Marines that moved across the Kuwaiti border, camouflaged only by the ink-black sky and the acrid smoke of burning oil fields.

Two days later, after braving enemy fire, a gas attack and deadly land mines on his dangerous trek northward, he caught his first glimpse of Kuwaiti City.

“We could see everything going on,” Wursthorn said. “We could hear the gunfire.”

Wursthorn was one of 100 Marine troops who returned to Camp Pendleton on Sunday. After the Marines triumphantly marched in front of their barracks, they were mobbed by frenzied relatives and friends waving American flags and showering the soldiers with carnations.

For Wursthorn, once a starting quarterback for the Garden Grove High School football team, the emotional homecoming continued into the night as he talked to relatives and former high school buddies about his exploits.

“Did you shoot anyone?” asked Chris Silva, who was Wursthorn’s wide receiver in their senior year.

The answer was no. But Wursthorn and a fellow trooper, Jon Peters, an Oklahoma Indian, explained the perils of the war to the civilians.

Wursthorn’s tour of duty began on Aug. 6. While others who followed the first Marine troops to the Persian Gulf set up virtual military cities in Riyadh and Dhahran, Wursthorn and Peters lived in foxholes and traveled back and forth along the front line in armored personnel carriers.

“Our main thing was to watch out for terrorists,” Wursthorn said about his first few months of duty.

At March Air Force Base, a flight scheduled to arrive at 1:30 a.m. was delayed about two hours, making a late night even later for about 100 well-wishers, but they waited patiently in the dark anyway. The small crowd broke into cheers when returning Marines boarded buses and finally rolled out the front gate.

“The looks on their faces was well worth the waiting and the cold,” said Vietnam vet Watrous, 41, of Corona.

It had been very different 20 years ago, Watrous and others said.

Bob Scott, 44, who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, recalled how quickly he shed his uniform when his flight home touched down at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Wash.

“You didn’t want people to know you were in the military back then,” Scott explained.

“But you still got spotted because of your haircut,” Watrous interjected.

“In a way,” Scott said, meeting the eyes of his buddies, “supporting the troops now takes a load off us, too.”

Cathy Rosenberger, 30, also of Riverside, spent the night on the side of Cactus Avenue with several Girl Scouts from Troop 541. The girls passed out yellow balloons to onlookers and handed Girl Scout cookies to servicemen in passing buses.

Murphy reported from Los Angeles, Lait from Riverside. Times staff writers Nora Zamichow and James Gomez in San Diego contributed to this report.