FAMILIES OF GULF SOLDIERS IN REGION FEAR WAR AT HAND

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Ken Johnson always intended for his son, Brad, to become a lawyer. Instead, while in his first year of college, Brad took a flying lesson. Afterward, he told his father he'd never done anything he loved as much as flying.

After graduating from Southeast Missouri State University in 1987, Brad joined the Air Force and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Flight School at Del Rio, Texas.

Now a fighter pilot, Tuesday will mark the beginning of the fifth month he has been stationed in Saudi Arabia.

As President Bush's Jan. 15 deadline for military action against Iraq draws near, Ken Johnson finds himself contemplating almost daily his son's decision to become a military pilot.

"I know what he does is a dangerous thing," he said. "But I always thought he'd do his eight years in the military and then get out and apply for an airline job.

"In my 50 or so years of living, I've learned that what you've got today isn't always what you've got tomorrow."

President Bush said Saturday that although military action against Iraq would not necessarily begin soon after the Jan. 15 deadline, even if Iraq failed to leave Kuwait, he warned that "time is running out."

"I've heard that (in case of war) 30 percent of our pilots won't make it," Johnson said. "It's hard to say what that does to a parent's stomach."

But Johnson knows, as a parent of a serviceman, he's not alone.

"I know that my son is getting ready to maybe pay the ultimate price, like about 300,000 other young men and women over there," he said. "But if we don't stop Saddam Hussein, who will?"

Johnson said his son, in his last telephone call to his parents, reported that the pilots stationed in the gulf are ready if the United States goes to war with Iraq.

"As a matter of fact, he said the pilots are just waiting for the balloon to go up; they are waiting for the president to say go," Johnson said.

Brad was part of the second military unit to be sent to the gulf, his father said. He flies an F-16 plane called the "Fighting Falcon."

For Laverne McNeely, of Cape Girardeau, a late Christmas present from her son, Chris, served as a reminder of the purpose of her son's tour of duty in the gulf.

A corporal in a Marine Corps artillery unit, Chris sent his family a videotape of himself from Saudi Arabia. The family received the 15-minute tape Dec. 28.

In it, he told them that after the first of the year, the troops `might have to go in and do something," McNeely said.

"He said he'd like to do what it is they were sent to do and come home," she said.

Chris was sent to Saudi Arabia Aug. 17.

He was able to make the tape during a three-day visit to a city in Saudi Arabia, she said. He's normally stationed in the desert.

"It was a town where American workers had stayed," she said. "A couple of American companies got together and let American servicemen make videotapes to send home. He was at the right place at the right time."

Chris sent the tape to his wife, Lisa, who was staying with her parents in Jackson over the holidays. She made a copy of the tape for Chris' family. Lisa McNeely is now back at the couple's home in California.

"He said it's getting very cold there, down to about 30 degrees at night," his mother said. "He also told us that he probably won't be able to call us anymore because his unit was moving north, closer to the Kuwaiti border."

She said her son is still able to write letters home, though they take weeks to arrive.

"He's in really good spirits," she said. "And he's supportive of why they're there. He's not a complainer."