Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991 TAG: 9103050395
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"You can tell how happy I am," bubbled Marjorie Zaun, of Cherry Hill, N.J., the mother of Navy Lt. Jeffrey Zaun. "I'm going to hug him; I don't know if I'm every going to let him go."
Television pictures of 28-year-old Zaun's badly bruised face became a symbol of the POWs' possible mistreatment when they were broadcast by the Iraqis after Zaun's capture Jan. 18. But pictures taken Monday as the POWs were turned over to the Red Cross in Baghdad showed that Zaun's face had healed, and the airman looked relaxed.
"He looked just fine," said Marjorie Zaun, who with her husband, Calvin, began frantically calling family and friends with the news at 4 a.m. Monday, as soon as they were notified of their son's release.
By 6 a.m., their home was filled with a milling crowd of friends and neighbors, some still clad in bathrobes. And the possibility that the released prisoners might spend the next several weeks at a hospital ship off Bahrain didn't dampen spirits.
In addition to Zaun, the released American POWs were Navy Lt. Robert Wetzel, 30, of Metuchen, N.J.; Air Force Maj. Thomas E. Griffith Jr., 34, of Sparta, N.J.; Army Specialist Melissa Rathbun-Nealy, 20, of Grand Rapids, Mich.; Navy Lt. Lawrence Slade, 26, of Wayland, Mass.; and Army Spec. David Lockett, 23, Bessemer, Ala.
The parents of Rathbun-Nealy - the only woman to be captured - first knew that their daughter was coming home when they saw her on Cable News Network at 3:30 a.m. Official word from the Army didn't come until 3 p.m., but it didn't matter.
"We were overjoyed when we saw her on TV and realized she was OK," said Joan Rathbun, who lives in rural Newaygo, Michigan.
"It's been a very long four weeks," she said wearily. The ordeal, she said, "has made us more sensitive to other people's tragedies."
During a photo session in Baghdad early Monday, Rathbun-Nealy laughed when a photographer told her he was shooting a picture for the cover of Paris-Match, the French fashion and personality magazine.
"She looked really great," said Rathbun's father, Leo, as caught a first glimpse of his daughter on television.
News of the release also was a blessing to Betty Williams, the mother of Army Spec. David Lockett. She had suffered so much stress during the ordeal of her son, who had been classified as missing in action, that she had been hospitalized for two weeks.
Now Betty Williams is "doing great," said Lockett's sister, Jeanette Williams. "We're all happy."
Griffith's wife, Elizabeth, noted at a news confence at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, N.C., that the Iraqis still held an unknown number of prisoners.
She said she hoped the nation "will have the courage to resume hostilities" if the Iraqis don't release all the POWs, or begin using them as bargaining chips.
Three of the POWs - Wetzel, Zaun and Slade - are stationed at the big Oceana Naval Station in Virginia Beach, Va., where city officials were already preparing welcome-home festivities.
"We're dancing with joy," said Virginia Beach Mayor Mayera Oberndorf.
At California's giant Marine base, Camp Pendleton, the wives of two POWs still being held by the Iraqis - Chief Warrant Officer Guy Hunter and Lt. Col. Clifford Acree - urged Americans not to forget POWs still in captivity.
"They want people to continue supporting the effort . . . and not let the excitement of the cessation of hostilities cause them to forget that not everybody is home and free yet," said Patti Antosh, president of the POW-MIA Liberty Alliance. The group has been writing letters to Iraqi officials urging the release of POWs and an accounting of all of those missing in action.
Mary Hunter and Cindy Acree, following the advice of the Pentagon, have not spoken to reporters. Acree, however, said in a written statement released by the Liberty Alliance that she had heard nothing of her husband since he was paraded on CNN by the Iraqis shortly after his capture in January.
by CNB