CAMP BETIO, NORTHWEST KUWAIT

The wind is howling tonight at Camp Betio.

Marines are coughing and gagging. Others have grabbed their M-16 rifles, breaking them apart to brush away the fine desert sand from the weapon's inner workings.

Welcome to life at Camp Betio.

The inside of the large tent where photographer David Bauman and I sleep along with Marines from the 7th Engineer Support Battalion is smokey and hazy under the flourescent lights.

Outside, the wind kicks up sand that looks like rain through the beams of our flashlight. No one dares go out to the Port-a-Potties, just 20 feet away. The dirt stings the eyes and makes it impossible to see.

The big yellow circus-like tent we've called home for the past few days weaves and rocks with every gust.

The Marines are starting to look worried.

This is the worst of the six sand storms they've seen in a month and a half.

"We almost lost one (tent) the other night," says Cpl. Nick Vaughn, a heavy equipment operator.

As the winds whip furiously outside, David is in our tent using a paintbrush to whisk away the dust from his plastic-wrapped laptop computer. In a few minutes, the dust cakes easily on top of the computer keyboard, your bed, hair and everything else in the tent. The air is beginning to smell like dirt and I wonder whether our tent will turn into giant sandbox by morning.

Just a few days ago, David and I were lounging in our two-bedroom beachside apartment at the Hilton in Kuwait. It's the kind of place where the bellhops and housekeepers call you by your first name.

"Yes, Mr. David. Yes, Mr. Michael."

We're only a few days in on our months-long assignment, though it seems much longer.

Ready, but homesick

Camp Betio is a ¾-square-mile city of tents. The chow hall, doctor's office, operations center and sleeping quarters are all in a tent of some kind.

The camp is filled with 19-, 20- and 21-year-olds. Some even command scores of other soldiers. For many, it's their first time away from family. The desert camp is far away from everything, the way Marine commanders like it. Isolated.

If you ask most Marines here, even the young ones, if they're ready for war and if this whole invasion thing seems OK, they'll give you the Marine answer: "We're ready. We're trained. We'll do our job."

But they are worried. They are concerned and all of them want to go home.

Vaughn talks about his wife, Sara, living in Simi Valley and the honeymoon they haven't had yet.

Lance Cpl. Kevin Day is 19 years old. His son Elijah Alexander Day will be born in Oregon sometime in the next few weeks. He knows he'll miss the birth but said he and his wife understand the nature of his job.

Mail and mess

The Marines at Camp Betio live in a vacuum of information. They have no e-mail. No phone calls home. The newspapers they get are several days old.

They ask me and David what the weather's like in the states.

They don't care where. Just give them a weather report. They want to know whether we're going to war. If we've heard anything and if we'll tell them once we do find out some news.

But there is no denying that they are Marines. They embody that brotherhood, die-for-you attitude that seems to permeate the camp here.

They cuss. They yell. They trade stories and barter goods such as chocolate bars, mixed nuts and cigarettes.

You're a rich man if you can get your hands on cigarettes. Some of the Marines say they've seen asking prices of $20 for a pack of smokes.

There is no alcohol here, but it's rumored that the British camps have booze.

Mail takes three weeks to arrive. Packages from the states can take more than a month to reach the camp. Food in the mess hall is hot, but not great. And chicken -- chopped, crushed, whole, sliced, baked, boiled -- is what's served nearly every day in some form or another. Breakfast and dinner are served in the mess hall and the Marines eat MREs for lunch.

The officers say the best day of the week is when mail arrives and the troops gather, wide-eyed, hoping for some piece of mail from home.

As one of the Lieutenants put it, some Marines wouldn't mind receiving a bill nowadays.

Dusting off

The following morning the wind has slowed to a breeze. The sky is relatively clear and the sun is shining. Some Marines wonder out loud how hot will it get.

David and I finished eating chow and are back at work, punching computer keys that are covered with dust and dirt. Bulldozer motors hum outside and we're about ready to get our second booster shot of Anthrax.

The shots make your arm feel as if someone hit it with a baseball bat for a few seconds. That's OK. We can take it. We're with the Marines.

Michael Coronado and David Bauman are on assignment with the Marine Corps' 7th Engineer Support Battalion, based at Camp Pendleton and Twentynine Palms but now in Kuwait.