Waiting hardest part for troops.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

Kevin Renner was 19 when he drove an armored personnel carrier into battle and celebrated his 20th birthday in the Iraqi desert, where burning oil wells stood in for birthday candles in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.

Twelve years later, as U.S. troops again roll into Iraq, Renner remembers the days and moments before the first gulf war as "the worst part" of his battle experience.

"You finally get a real sense something major is going to happen," he said Wednesday.

Every war is different, but for the soldiers, "the emotions are probably the same," he said. "Anticipation ... fear ... it's nerve-racking."

Focusing on the job and the mission at hand keeps troops from dwelling on their anxieties, he said. The men and women preparing to invade Iraq are dealing with weather extremes and devilish sandstorms.

"Those sandstorms are no joke," he said. "You had to clean your M-16 once a day."

Renner, now 32 and a Eugene resident, remembers the briefing before the gulf war. He was told how many casualties his unit could expect to suffer and about the threat of chemical weapons. And he remembers his commander telling everyone to write their last letters home. "That's a scary thing," he said. "I didn't write one. I didn't know what to say."

Renner works for a home health care company today. In the gulf war, he was an Army specialist in the 1st Armored Division who drove an armored personnel carrier armed with four Sidewinder missiles.

His unit was among the first to invade Iraq. They reached a point halfway between Kuwait City and Baghdad and waited for orders to keep going or make a U-turn. They finally got the word to turn around - and ran straight into the entire retreating Iraqi army.

What resulted was the Battle of Medina Ridge, in which the 1st Armored Division destroyed a brigade of Republican Army tanks and armored personnel carriers in a matter of hours.

Renner said he doesn't know whether the Iraqi army will put up a stronger fight in this war, especially defending its capital city of Baghdad. "It's tough to tell," he said. "What happened in the first gulf war, we bombed with unrelenting pounding until they were bleeding out their ears and shell-shocked and ready to give up."

The war was over by the time Renner turned 20, but there wasn't much of a celebration. "The war had ended and we were just kind of cleaning up," he said.

A sandstorm blasted through the desert. Oil well fires blackened the sky and blotted out the sun. "It was a bleak day," he said.