Troops Still in Gulf Chafe at Delays on Getting Home : Military: Anxiety grips many Americans in the area. Central Command dismantling to start soon.

RIYADH AIR BASE, Saudi Arabia —  For many of the 365,000 American men and women still posted in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait, it is time to go home. Past time.

Far from the political debates that rage in Washington and at the United Nations, soldiers, airmen and reservists throughout the Gulf region are increasingly eager to return to friends and families in the United States--and less able to understand, or at least accept, the reasons why they are still here.

Many thought the end of the Persian Gulf War meant it was time to start packing their duffel bags. But five weeks after hostilities ceased, a new wave of anxiety is setting in as servicemen and women have free time on their hands to contemplate their lot.

“Most of the people in my unit are losing it,” said Specialist James Hudson, 19, a National Guardsman from Staunton, Va., who works as an MP at the Riyadh Air Base. “Everybody gets an attitude. . . . They’re pretty frustrated.”

American troops are being sent home at a rate of 3,000 to 5,000 a day, the U.S. Central Command says.

Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the “bulk” of American troops should be out of the Gulf in 2 1/2 months, although some naval and air forces will remain.

Some military sources in Riyadh speak privately of April 15 as a target date for beginning to dismantle the Central Command, paving the way for the departure of the Desert Storm commander Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

For those left behind, “show time”--the time they are required to report for the flight home--can’t come soon enough.

“I missed Thanksgiving, I missed Christmas, I missed New Year’s, I missed my wife’s birthday, I missed Valentine’s Day, I missed St. Patrick’s Day, and now I missed Easter,” said Cmdr. Frank Evans, a Navy reservist from Denver.

He does not want to miss the Fourth of July.

“We are being held hostage,” a reserve nurse from Alabama who is stationed at a hospital in King Khaled Military City complained with half a laugh. “We are just twiddling our thumbs.”

At the same medical compound 250 miles north of Riyadh, where five field hospitals were erected to treat hundreds of battle casualties that never materialized, patience is wearing thin among some of the staff. The doctors and nurses find themselves treating scores of Iraqi civilians, many wounded in Iraq’s civil warfare.

“We were not prepared for this,” said Gary Farmer, another reservist working in one of the field hospitals. “They need to give this mission to regular army . . . and get us out of here.”

A MASH group from Kentucky even contacted its congressional delegation to grouse about the delay in redeployment.

Many in the field say things were easier during the war, when the workload and the long hours kept people busy.

Now, their task completed, newly idle members of the rank and file watch uneventful day turn into uneventful night. Hoping to relieve some of the boredom, the military has been granting its personnel brief breaks to go on shopping trips or, for those on more remote bases, to spend a night on the town in Riyadh or Dhahran.

The lucky ones, those told they are going home soon, may encounter delays of three or four days as they wait for a flight that has room for them. Delays can be expected, officials say, given the huge volume of equipment and people that must be moved.

At the cavernous tent that serves as the military passenger terminal at the Riyadh Air Base, soldiers staggering under the weight of their backpacks mill about around the clock. At night, giant floodlights cast a white glow over the waiting GIs; by day, troops swat flies and try to escape the searing heat.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Greg Payseno was sprawled atop his overstuffed duffel bags one day last week, reading a 1958 paperback copy of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” He had been bumped from a morning flight and expected to wait another eight hours for an evening C-5 cargo carrier to take him home to Phoenix.

Payseno, 27, had kept tally of the time he spent in the Gulf, marking the number of days with a pen on the cover of one of his bags.

“One hundred and eighty-two,” he said quickly.

Payseno said his position on the Air Force command staff helped him to get a ticket home promptly, but some of his buddies have to wait, listening to Armed Forces Radio announce upcoming flights and the number of seats available.

“I see people’s eyes light up, wishing (they) can go,” he said.

Across the waiting room from Payseno, Tech Sgt. Bill Godair, 35, waited for the flight that would start him on a 36- to 48-hour journey home to George Air Force Base in Victorville, Calif.

“It’s a mixed feeling,” Godair said, describing the mood of his fellow troops. “People who were deployed originally are ready to go home. Those who came later are ready to stay awhile. And there are others who were ready to go before they even got here.”