Marine Group to Make Crucial Repairs to Somali Airport : Aid: Departure orders for 120 troops come after days of anxious waiting. Although eager to leave, some are fearful of unknown.

A contingent of 120 rifle-toting Marines, mostly from Camp Pendleton, were preparing to depart late Saturday on a critical mission to ready the battered airport at Mogadishu for the influx of civilian and military aircraft rushing aid to starving Somalis.

There was a burst of relief after the Marines, having waited for several days for word on their departure, finally received orders to board the buses taking them to military transport planes at the Marine Corps air station in El Toro.

“The mood is, we’re anxious to go,” said Staff Sgt. Juan Ramirez of El Paso. “We’ve been on standby for quite a while.”

Suddenly, it had all become very real. The Marines were confident and believed in the importance of their task, but they also harbored some fear of the unknown.

Going to Somalia, said Sgt. Ricky Long of San Marcos, “is like going into a dark room.”

Wariness over conditions in Somalia were echoed by Sgt. Michael Murzynski of Oceanside. “Nobody is going to be nervous until we get there. I believe it’s worse than what they’re showing (on television). I think it’s going to be culture shock.”

Corporal Jeff Evans, a combat corespondent stationed at El Toro, thinks this may be the most harrowing of his many deployments.

“It’s the first time that I’m going into a potentially hazardous environment,” said Evans, who has served in Okinawa and Micronesia. “I try not to think about that stuff. I just do it . . . you have a mission and that’s what you focus on.”

Marines were particularly concerned with the threat of diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, which are rampant in the drought-stricken area.

Navy corpsman Jennifer Calhoun, who will be responsible for monitoring the health of the troops in Somalia, said she is looking forward to this assignment.

“I think it’s going to be quite an education from a professional standpoint,” Calhoun said. “I think we’re all a little bit nervous, but this is my job. Everybody has got to handle it in their own way.”

The 86 members of the Marine Wing Support Squadron 372 from Camp Pendleton, still among the first to leave for the East African country, are transporting trucks, water-purifying equipment, forklifts and other gear needed to establish a base camp at the airport, according to the unit’s commander, Lt. Col. Dean Johnson.

The international operation to feed Somalia depends on the ability of Marine support units such as the one that left Saturday to lay the groundwork for the infantrymen and supplies.

Even in the hours before their departure from Southern California, it was not clear where the Marines, which included troops from Twentynine Palms and the Naval air station in Yuma, would be making stopovers, if at all, before reaching Somalia.

Neither was it clear Saturday when the main force of Marines will leave, with military officials saying only that “we’re planning to leave in the next 10 days.”

As the Camp Pendleton Marines prepared to leave for El Toro, a cacophony ensued.

Sergeants barked orders, one yelling at a Marine, “Get that bayonet off your rifle and put it safely in its scabbard.”

Meanwhile, a dozen feet away, a few family members had come to see off the Marines. A child asked his mother about her father, who is a staff sergeant. “Why does daddy have to go?” the child sobbed, clutching at her mother’s leg.

The unit’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Dean Johnson, believes the reason for the absence is clear, at least to adults.

“This is a humanitarian operation, and I personally think it’s the right thing to do.”