Wives Find Hope in Iraq’s Report of Pilots as POWs : Home front: Their husbands, Marines based in Camp Pendleton, had been feared dead in Kuwait crash.

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

So when the two women learned Sunday that their husbands apparently were not MIAs but prisoners of war, what would 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,” wrote Cindy Acree in a letter to her husband that she made public after hearing 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 Marines from Camp Pendleton were alive, Mary Hunter 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, a struggling bedroom community that is the entryway to Camp Pendleton, Hunter, Acree and the other 21,000 San Diego County-based Marines serving 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 pea-green uniforms as business suits, the fate of the two Marines--the first deployed from the West Coast apparently to be taken as POWs--gripped residents’ hearts.

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, deployed for Saudi Arabia on Aug. 15, said that although she did not 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’ve been me!’ I shook all over,” Pitchford said. As she spoke, she gathered three other Marine wives around her at Oceanside Gospel Lighthouse, a charismatic church that is host of a support group for military families every day at noon.

The voices of the two prisoners of war were broadcast by CNN Sunday, catapulting the spirits of those watching at home. The men spoke haltingly, apparently from scripts. Hunter denounced U.S. “aggression,” and 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 last 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 on Saturday. But that announcement was later corrected.

On Sunday, after she learned her husband apparently was being held prisoner, she sounded weary. Around the clock, she had been waiting for word of him. 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 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.

And still, she said, she is worried about what might now befall him. “I don’t want to think about him being tortured. I don’t want him to die a slow death,” she had told The Times in an earlier interview.

Declining interviews with reporters, Cindy Acree let the letter to her husband speak for her.

“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 Marine career.

“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.”

Acree has served as commanding officer of the VMO-2 squadron based at Camp Pendleton, a unit of more than 200. He 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, his wife said.