AFTERMATH OF WAR : 2 Pendleton Marines Among Released POWs : Ordeal: After months of fearing the worst, family members rejoice and enjoy a sense of relief as the good news becomes official.

For three painful hours, Mary Hunter thought her Marine husband was dead.

When military officials released an early list of American POWs turned over Tuesday by the Iraqis, the name of Chief Warrant Officer Guy Hunter was not on it.

“I just lost it--I thought the worst,” Mary Hunter said in an interview. Her husband was among the first POWs captured when his military reconnaissance plane was downed in the southeastern Kuwaiti desert.

Bracing herself against grief, she turned determinedly to the military officials: “You tell them to get in there and count again. Guy must be there.”

Indeed, when the Marines contacted Hunter at her Camp Pendleton home shortly after noon, they had good news: The initial list had been incomplete. Guy Hunter was coming home, as was fellow Pendleton Marine Lt. Col. Clifford Acree, whose name had appeared on the first list.

“I am just so relieved,” Mary Hunter said. “I am so happy, so excited.”

Acree’s wife, Cindy, confirmed the good news about her husband too.

“We have received official word from the Marine Corps that Cliff is OK,” she said in a prepared statement. “He has not boarded the plane yet. We are very optimistic.”

In an effort to shield the two women from hordes of reporters, Marine Corps officials asked media to respect the families’ privacy. Cindy Acree and Mary Hunter are expected to fly to Washington to meet their husbands, but it is not yet known when the two men will actually return to the United States.

The sense of relief at Camp Pendleton was echoed nationwide, as the Iraqis turned over 15 American prisoners--from an Oklahoma Marine to a Pennsylvania pilot--to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Iraq. The released soldiers, who are expected to fly to Saudi Arabia today, include six who have been listed as prisoners of war and nine as missing in action.

Clifford Acree, 39, and Guy Hunter, 46, were among the first POWs captured when their military reconnaissance plane was downed in the southeastern Kuwaiti desert. And they were among the last to be released.

Acree and Hunter flew in an OV-10 Bronco on Jan. 18 in an effort to evaluate the enemy position and mark targets. Acree piloted the turbo-prop plane and Hunter, a Marine since 1962, was the observer. Though Hunter served several tours in Vietnam, it was Hunter’s first mission during Operation Desert Storm.

Before Hunter shipped out to the Middle East, he had reassured his wife, saying he could have gotten killed numerous times during the Vietnam War but had always survived. And Mary Hunter believed him--the Vietnam War claimed the life of her brother, and it did seem to her that Guy had some special gift for survival.

For most of what seemed like an endless wait, Mary Hunter clung to her belief that her husband was safe, even though she had no contact with him other seeing him paraded with other POWs on Cable News Network days shortly after his capture.

“I know the feeling of death in your heart, and I hadn’t had it for Guy Hunter,” said Mary Hunter last week.

Instead, Mary Hunter, married 15 years, focused on the children and trying to re-establish some semblance of a routine. Order, she thought, would help them all pull together.

The Hunters, with their three children, whose ages range from 7 to 12, moved to Camp Pendleton Jan. 4 from North Carolina, where her husband had taught aircraft observation at the New River Marine Corps Air Station. Only days before learning of her husband’s ill-fated mission, the movers had brought the last of the family’s belongings to their new home.

So Mary Hunter busied herself with settling into their new house--only a quarter of a mile from the chapel where she and Guy first met. But there were times when her anxiety would barge into her life. Sometimes she would be driving the car, and tears would just roll down her face, she said.

And yet, there were also bright moments. She received scores of letters from people across the country offering their support.

But the uncertainty of her husband’s fate was grinding.

“The not knowing is wearing. . . . When is he going to come home? Is he going to be all right?” Hunter said.

When Mary Hunter learned that President Bush had announced that the fighting was over, she was convinced that she would see her husband again.

“I think I will see Guy again within two weeks,” she predicted. “I just have very good feelings about it.”

And, during recent weeks, all she has been able to think about is her husband’s homecoming. She figured she would probably make his favorite dish: fried chicken and green onions. Guy liked to eat chicken so much that his friends teased him that he would grow feathers. But Mary Hunter’s favorite daydream was seeing her husband again.

“I want to be there with him,” she said. “I know I will be the best medicine.”