Words From Iraq Cheer 2 POW Wives : Home front: They learn from Baghdad broadcast that 2 fliers from Pendleton are alive after being shot down over Kuwait.

Just 24 hours earlier, Mary Hunter and Cindy Acree had feared their husbands were as good as dead. “Missing in action,” the letter had said, delivered to each woman’s door by U.S. Marine Corps officers.

So when the two women learned Sunday that their husbands were not MIAs but POWs--prisoners of war--what would usually have been tragic news instead brought joy. When the Cable News Network broadcast the tape-recorded voices of Lt. Col. Clifford Acree and Chief Warrant Officer Guy L. Hunter, their wives once again dared to hope.

“I wish I could be there to comfort you and hold you,” said Cindy Acree in a letter to her husband she made public after she was told the reassuring news. Her husband was taken prisoner along with Hunter when their plane was downed over southern Kuwait. “Just know that I will wait as long as necessary for you to come home safe to me. Stay strong, sweetheart. I love you.”

On Sunday, as word spread that the two Camp Pendleton Marines were alive, Mary Hunter’s and Cindy Acree’s feelings of relief were echoed throughout the northern San Diego County communities that most local Marine families call home.

Especially in Oceanside, the entryway to Camp Pendleton, Hunter, Acree and the other 21,000 San Diego County-based Marines in the Middle East were in most everyone’s thoughts.

On the base, Marines stayed close to the television. “We’re watching CNN--big time,” said Lance Cpl. Benny Castaneda, a 21-year-old machine gunner who attended a karate tournament Sunday that was dedicated to the troops.

And, in downtown Oceanside, where barber shops offer special rates for flat tops and where dry cleaners steam as many olive-green uniforms as business suits, the fate of the two crewmen--the first deployed from the West Coast to be taken as POWs--gripped residents’ hearts and held them fast.

The news “makes it more of a reality--this is home,” said Karyl Ketchum, a physical education teacher in the Oceanside schools whose husband, Staff Sgt. Dwight Ketchum, has been overseas for five months.

Arlene Pitchford, whose husband, Staff Sgt. Lavantes Pitchford, left for Saudi Arabia on Aug. 15, said Sunday that, although she didn’t know the Hunters or the Acrees, their plight had made the threat to her own family more vivid.

“I fell to my knees for those families. I kept saying, ‘Lord, this could have been me!’ I shook all over,” said Pitchford, who is 33. As she spoke, she gathered three other Marine wives around her at Oceanside Gospel Lighthouse, a charismatic church that hosts a support group for military families every day at noon.

The voices of the two Camp Pendleton-based Marines were broadcast by CNN on Sunday, catapulting the spirits of those watching at home. Hunter and Acree spoke haltingly, apparently reading from scripts. Hunter denounced U.S. “aggression,” then offered a message to his wife and their three children, whose ages range from 7 to 12.

“I miss you very much; I am in good hands and being treated very well,” he said. “To the children, please study hard at school.”

For Mary Hunter, the past few days have been wrenching. On Friday, she was told that her husband was missing in action. Then a news bulletin said he had been rescued Saturday. But that announcement was later corrected.

On Sunday, after she learned her husband was being held prisoner, she sounded weary. Around the clock, she had been waiting for word of her husband. When it came, she said, she was “somewhat relieved.”

“They are going to be treated well, according to the Geneva Convention,” she added without conviction. She said that, although it was wonderful to hear her husband’s voice, she did not think he was speaking his mind. “He would never say that,” she said, referring to her husband’s denunciation of the U.S.-led assaults.

Still, she said, she is worried about what might now befall her husband. “I don’t want to think about him being tortured. I don’t want him to die a slow death,” she told The Times in an interview the day before.

For 78-year-old Guy Hunter Sr., meanwhile, the news that his son had been captured triggered proud memories of his easygoing, strong-minded boy who drove a tractor at 9 and had a passion for banana pudding.

When Guy Jr. was 17, his father recalled from his home near Moultrie, Ga., he asked his father to let him join the Marines. Concerned that the youngster would get caught up in a war, Guy Sr. initially declined, but later relented. Now he rethinks that time and wonders about it, he said.

Although declining to speak to reporters Sunday, Cindy Acree released a statement that included portions of the letter to her husband.

“We have so many things left to do, so much to look forward to. I love you very much and always will. I am behind you in everything you do, sweetheart. You have difficult times ahead of you, but when you get tired and discouraged or overwhelmed, just think of the strong love I have for you,” she wrote, “and that I am backing you up and will be here for you, regardless of what happens. You can count on me for the long term.”

Her statement also described her husband’s 17-year career as a Marine.

“Cliff loves to fly,” the statement said, “and he is very proud of the men in his squadron. . . . He has often told me he couldn’t ask for a better group of men to work with. Having Cliff gone has been difficult. We are very close, best friends actually. And I couldn’t ask for a more loving and devoted husband. What has helped me and continues to give me strength is knowing that Cliff is dedicated to serving his country, and he will persevere.”

Appointed last June, Acree has served as commanding officer of the VMO-2 squadron based at Camp Pendleton, a unit of more than 200 men. Acree was piloting the OV-10 Bronco observation plane when it crashed in Southern Kuwait. He has flown the AH-1 Attack Cobra and the Bronco for more than 10 years, according to his wife.

The Acrees and the Hunters live on the base at Camp Pendleton, as do a handful of families who attended morning services Sunday at Oceanside Gospel Lighthouse. There, as in scores of other churches across the nation, the war in the Persian Gulf was a frequent reference point for the weekly sermon, and that touched some hearts more deeply than others.

Annie Gatheright, 34, said that when her husband, Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Gatheright, was deployed Sept. 11, it left a chasm that she needed help filling. She turned to the church.

“I got back into church and praying a lot more,” she said Sunday, as her daughters Kimberly, 16, and Tina, 10, sat close beside her on a pew. “If I have a problem, I have someone I can go to. When I fall, they bring me back.”

Maribel Yawn agreed. If the time comes, her husband, Cpl. Ron Yawn, will have the grim job of preparing death certificates and letters to Marines’ next of kin. “Not actually bagging bodies--just the paperwork,” she said.

“But I feel good,” she said, fondly shooing her 2-year-old son, Alexander. “Sometimes I feel guilty I’m not more upset. But that’s the peace that God puts in you.”

Ketchum, the Oceanside schoolteacher, says keeping busy--and keeping her 7-year-old son, Dwight, and 9-year-old daughter, Kimberly, occupied--is what brings her moments of peace. So on Sunday, she was helping register contestants at the Oceanside Martial Arts Center, where her children were competing in the school’s second annual karate competition.

“These kids need something consistent in their lives,” she said, as dozens of contestants filed by, many in red, white and blue outfits. “My son and daughter are having a very, very hard time accepting that their daddy may not come back. That’s a hard thing to convey.”

Last week, for the first time, Ketchum said, her son broke into tears.

“He said, ‘I miss daddy. I don’t want him getting shot.’ My daughter asked, ‘Will he come home in a body bag?’ What do you say to that?” she asked.

Ketchum, who wears one of her husband’s dog tags and a yellow ribbon pinned to her collar, is a pillar of support for her elementary school students, as well as to other military wives. When asked whose shoulder she cries on, she said: “That’s my problem. Right now there isn’t anybody.”

After a moment, she corrected herself. “No, I lean on my kids. If I didn’t have teams to coach and kids to teach, I’d be a nervous wreck.”