Relief for Families of Freed POWs--but Not for Those Who Still Wait : Freedom: One family calls friends at 4 a.m. with the news. Two listed as MIAs are among those coming home.

The families of six American prisoners of war ended weeks of worry Monday with the double joy of hearing that the men and one woman had been freed and seeing TV photos showing that they were also apparently healthy.

“You can tell how happy I am,” bubbled Marjorie Zaun of Cherry Hill, N.J., the mother of Navy Lt. Jeffrey N. Zaun. “I’m going to hug him. I don’t know if I’m ever going to let him go.”

Zaun, 28, was captured on Jan. 18. When the Iraqis televised pictures of their prisoners, Zaun’s badly bruised face became a symbol of the POWs’ mistreatment. But film taken Monday as the POWs were turned over to the Red Cross in Baghdad showed that Zaun’s face had healed and the flier looked relaxed.

“He looked just fine,” his mother said.

“The most important thing is he’s all right and he’s coming home,” said her husband, Calvin.

Both of them began frantically calling family and friends at 4 a.m. Monday, as soon as they were notified of their son’s release.

By 6 a.m., their home on Whitman Avenue was filled with a milling crowd of friends and neighbors, some still clad in bathrobes. And the fact that the released prisoners might spend the next several weeks on 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 Newaygo, Mich.; Navy Lt. Lawrence Slade, 26, of Wayland, Mass., and Army Specialist David Lockett, 23, Bessemer, Ala.

Three of the POWs--Wetzel, Zaun and Slade--are stationed at the big Oceana Naval Station in Virginia Beach, Va., where city officials are already preparing welcome-home festivities.

The parents of Rathbun-Nealy, the only allied woman to be captured, first found out that their daughter was coming home when they saw her on Cable News Network at 3:30 a.m. The Army specialist was not even a confirmed POW, having been listed instead as missing in action. Official word of her release did not come from the Army until 3 p.m., almost 12 hours later, 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.

“It’s been a very long four weeks,” she said wearily. The ordeal “has made us more sensitive to other people’s tragedies.”

At a photo session in Baghdad, Rathbun-Nealy smiled when a photographer told her that she had appeared on the cover of Paris-Match, the French magazine.

“She looked really great,” said Rathbun’s father, Leo, as he caught a glimpse of his daughter on television.

News of the release was also a blessing to Betty Williams, the mother of Army Specialist Lockett. Her son had also been classified as missing, and she had suffered so much stress that she had been hospitalized for two weeks.

Now she is “doing great,” said Lockett’s sister, Jeanette Williams. “We’re all happy.”

The sister had been the first in the Lockett family to hear the news, when a hospital co-worker told her he had seen her brother on television.

“I said, ‘You really saw him?’ When he told me that, I felt great, because I had been feeling lousy,” Jeanette Williams said.

“We’re going to have a big party,” she said. “Everybody’s invited.”

The family hadn’t heard from Lockett since August, before he went to the Gulf. Jeanette Williams said he had telephoned about a week before his capture but the telephone connection was lost. He then called a neighbor to say, “Tell everybody I love them and I’m doing fine.”

Elizabeth Griffith, wife of Air Force flier Griffith, noted at a press conference at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, N.C., that the Iraqis still hold 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 if they begin using them as bargaining chips.

At 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 the 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 Carlsbad-based 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. In a written statement released by the Liberty Alliance, Acree said that she has heard nothing of her husband since he was paraded on CNN by the Iraqis shortly after his capture in January.

“At this time, it is too early to speculate until we know more,” Acree said. “I am anxiously awaiting news and remain grateful for the support of the family, friends and the Marine Corps. At this time of uncertainty, they continue to provide me with encouragement and support.”

May reported from Atlanta, Richter from Washington. Times staff writer Dean Murphy in Los Angeles and researcher Amy Harmon in Detroit also contributed to this article.