A dozen years after the first Gulf War, several Kansas veterans who served in that campaign watched television coverage of the start of the U.S. attack on Iraq with a little envy and a lot of pride.

“If they called me up, I’d pack tonight,” said Salina resident Jon Brown, 35, who served as a Marine in the Gulf War. “We should have done this the first time we went over there, take Saddam out of power.”

David Leach of Wichita, who was part of a Marine unit that was used as a decoy to pull Iraqi troops away from the main invasion force, said he would gladly go back to the Middle East to help take care of unfinished business.

“Oh yeah, I’d do it, no doubt about it,” Leach said.

One of the toughest things for Leach about being half a world away in the Gulf War was the lack of communication with his family. That was before e-mail and instant messaging rendered “snail mail” nearly obsolete.

“It might take 30 days for a letter to reach you,” he said.

Mario Goico of Wichita, a state representative who flew 36 combat missions as the pilot of a KC-135 tanker, said the rare contact he had with his family kept him going.

“In those days, computers weren’t what they are now,” he said. “But I could call home and did talk to my wife.”

“As a matter of fact, I did talk to her once while I was in the air. An amateur radio guy, I think he was in Germany, set it up so that we could call our families from the airplane.”

Like Leach and Brown, Goico said he would be ready to go back to the Gulf if his country needed him.

“If they’d put me back into the cockpit, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” he said.

Kevin Peterson, 38, of Salina, was a commander on a light armored personnel carrier in the Marines during the Gulf War. He thinks the U.S.-led coalition should have gone on to Baghdad when they had a chance the first time.

“It’s probably just unfinished business,” he said.

Brian Thimesch of Wichita, who is disabled by Gulf War Syndrome, said he hopes the new veterans don’t have as much difficulty as he did in getting veterans benefits for injuries they sustain.

He was at a loss for words when asked what he was feeling Wednesday when the second war against Iraq began.

“It’s not like I was surprised — nobody was surprised about this,” he said of the start of the war. “I don’t know if I support it or not. I have mixed feelings about that.”

Brown remembers clearly the anticipation of waiting for Operation Desert Storm to begin in 1990.

“I was very excited, very honored to do it,” he said.

Leach said landing on the ground in Iraq was like landing on the moon.

“It’s all sand, and it all looks the same,” he said. “It’s flat. We call Kansas flat, but it’s flat.”