Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991                   TAG: 9103051286
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Medium

RELEASED POWS' FAMILIES ON CLOUD 9, PLAN HOMECOMINGS

Now the 30-year-old flier's family and the families of two other Virginia-based Navy fliers are planning homecoming celebrations.

The three were among the first prisoners of war released by Iraq. Ten allied POWs were taken from Baghdad to Jordan for release Monday, the Red Cross said.

"When he gets back here we're going to have something for him," said the Rev. Thomas Murphy Jr. of Virginia Beach United Methodist Church, where Lt. Jeffrey N. Zaun taught a Sunday school class until he was sent to the Middle East.

"We were thrilled to see him," said Zaun's mother, Marjorie, of Cherry Hill, N.J.

"We're grateful to God," said Wetzel's mother, Kathleen.

Wetzel, 30, and Zaun, 28, were flying in an A-6E Intruder from the aircraft carrier Saratoga when they were shot down shortly after the war started.

Zaun is single; Wetzel was to be married last Saturday to a Virginia Beach woman.

Zaun, the bombardier-navigator, had been shown on Baghdad television after he was captured, but there had been no previous word on the fate of Wetzel, the pilot. "We had no idea he was a POW, " Marjorie Wetzel said.

Lt. Lawrence Randolph Slade, 26, was a radar intercept officer on an F-14 Tomcat that was shot down Jan. 21. He had been listed as a POW. The pilot, Lt. Devon Jones, was rescued.

Slade's wife, Anna, could not be reached at her Virginia Beach home. "The family isn't talking to the press right now," said a woman who answered the telephone.

Bob Wareing of Wareing's Gym in Virginia Beach, where Zaun occasionally worked out before the Persian Gulf War started, said the releases were "just great."

"Everybody's delighted," Wareing said. "I just saw it on the news myself."

Murphy said Zaun "lost a little weight but he looks good." He said Zaun's parents already were making plans for a special reception when he returns to New Jersey, and something would be done for him here, too.

"I'm probably going to have him say something to the congregation," Murphy said. "They've been very much in prayer for him."

Cmdr. Stephen Honda, a spokesman for the Navy's Atlantic Fleet Air Force, said it was not certain when the fliers would be returned to the United States or where their families would be flown to meet them.

Two other Oceana-based fliers are still missing, Lt. Cmdr. Barry T. Cooke, 35, and Lt. Patrick K. Connor, 25. They were flying an A-6E off the carrier Theodore Roosevelt when they were shot down Feb. 2.