Footnotes From the Front

By DAVID ELLIS/

Hey, er, Friend, What's Happening? Warnings to American troops to be culturally sensitive may have gone a little too far. Newly arrived soldiers have been advised to avoid the phrase "Hey, dude" because "dude" sounds like the Arabic word for worm.

Sand Trap. Troops have no opportunity for randy R. and R. in Saudi cities, but they have found another use for their prophylactics. Soldiers are placing condoms over the muzzles of their machine guns to protect them from airborne sand. In World War II, ground troops sometimes used "French letters" to keep their guns from jamming in the European damp.

Walk This Way. To help soldiers find their way in the shifting sands, the Air Force is distributing thousands of high-tech locating devices. The civilian receivers (typical cost: $3,500, compared with $20,000 for the military version) read encrypted signals from 18 satellites and are usually accurate to within 350 ft. The Air Force has unscrambled those signals to allow the locators to give position readings accurate to within 35 ft.

Snack Attack. The Pentagon has dispatched 11 vans to dispense goodies to homesick G.I.s who miss their PXs. The mobile commissaries are loaded with foodstuffs including Spam, Pop Tarts, Armour Processed Meats and Texas hot sauce. They also carry antacid tablets.

Cut-Rate Crusade. Operation Desert Shield, which is costing the U.S. more than $1 billion a month, is making the Panama invasion look like a weekend jaunt. That expedition, which made use of the 12,000 U.S. soldiers already based there, cost just $163.6 million, the General Accounting Office said last week.

On Your Next Desert Vacation . . . Undaunted by the current tensions, the Dubai Tourism Board is starting a campaign to promote that gulf state as the next vacation hot spot. Situated 530 miles southeast of Kuwait, Dubai is where "sportsmen, sightseers and adventurers can equally feel at home," claims Khalid bin Sulayem, head of the tourist board. And, yes, Dubai is out of the range of Iraq's most powerful missiles.

If You Build It, Bob Hope Will Come. For soldiers who want to putt away their boredom, the Pentagon is shipping out plywood and artificial turf to build miniature golf courses at Saudi bases. Watch out for the sand traps.

With reporting by David E. Thigpen