POW Releases: Joy Coast to Coast : Freedom: In Oklahoma, children march to the home of one former prisoner to celebrate. In Pennsylvania, the clubhouse cheers.

For three painful hours on Tuesday, Mary Hunter thought her Marine husband was dead. When military officials released an early list of American POWs turned over by the Iraqis on Tuesday, the name of Chief Warrant Officer Guy L. Hunter Jr. was not on it.

“I just lost it--I thought the worst,” said Mary Hunter, whose 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 her at her Camp Pendleton home shortly after noon, they had good news: The initial list had been incomplete. Hunter was coming home along with fellow Pendleton Marine Lt. Col. Clifford M. 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.”

The cries of joy and sighs of relief at Camp Pendleton were 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 Baghdad.

The released soldiers, who are expected to fly to Saudi Arabia today, included six who had been listed as prisoners of war and nine as missing in action.

“I’m just ecstatic,” said Mary Storr, mother of missing Air Force Capt. Richard D. Storr of Spokane, Wash. Storr was last seen in Iraq by the crew of CBS reporter Bob Simon. “It’s the greatest news we ever heard.”

Children in Cleveland, Okla., marched down the street to the home of Marine Capt. Michael C. Berryman after word of his release swept the small town. Children at Westside Elementary School, where Berryman’s wife is a teacher, made signs and carried flags to celebrate.

“The entire school came by when we got the news,” said Jane Hammontree, a friend of the family. “This little town of Cleveland just totally came to life.”

In Swansea, Mass., Joseph Fox and his wife went for a quiet car ride Tuesday to savor news of the release of their son, Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey D. Fox, and to escape the ringing of the telephone and door bell.

“There is just relief, absolute relief,” said Pat Borden, Fox’s sister. “Our stomachs can kind of relax now. We can finally sleep a little better at night.”

Borden, a nurse in nearby Providence, R.I., ended up at her parents’ house after finding it impossible to work Tuesday. She kept searching for a television, a radio--anything with news of the POWs in Baghdad. Unable to concentrate any longer, she finally gave up.

“Right now, we are just trying to relax,” Borden said. “It has been a very exciting day.”

Darwin Tice, father of Air Force Maj. Jeffrey S. Tice, was playing pinochle at a club in Perkasie, Pa., when his wife, Josephine, called with word of their son’s release. The news brought cheers from the clubhouse bar and a long-awaited smile from Tice.

“I thought it was a crank call, and did until they got in touch with my daughter-in-law,” said Josephine Tice. “When she called me, then I knew it was for real. I am just hoping when he gets to the hospital, he’ll get a chance to call.”

For every celebration, however, there was at least one painful reminder that some Americans will never come home. A total of 21 American prisoners have been handed over by the Iraqis, but 28 Americans are still unaccounted for, according to the U.S. Central Command in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In Navarre, Fla., Sue and Dixon Walters got a phone call from the Air Force on Monday, but it was not good news. Their son, Air Force Capt. Dixon L. Walters Jr., was downed about a half-mile off the Kuwaiti coast on Jan. 31.

“We were notified by the military yesterday that they had found the plane,” Sue Walters said. “But we don’t hold much faith that he is still alive. As far as we know, they have been down to it, but we have no idea what they found on the plane.”

It hasn’t been all bad news, though, the senior Dixon Walters said. “What is so moving,” he said, “is that our nation is behind the effort.”

In Jacksonville, Fla., Thomas P. Mills was also applauding the return of the 15 POWs but was finding it difficult to cope with the uncertainty surrounding his friend, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, who became the nation’s first MIA when his plane was struck by an Iraqi-fired surface-to-air-missile.

“Nothing has ever been said to us,” said Mills, godfather of Speicher’s two children. “They have never found a body. They have never found anything. We can still hope. . . . Wouldn’t you?”

At Camp Pendleton, Marine Corps officials asked the media to respect the privacy of Cindy Acree and Mary Hunter, who are expected to fly to Washington to meet their husbands. It is not yet known when the two men will return to the United States.

Acree and Hunter were flying an OV-10 Bronco on Jan. 18 on a mission to evaluate enemy positions and mark targets. Acree piloted the turboprop plane and Hunter, a Marine since 1962, was the observer. Though Hunter served several tours in Vietnam, it was his 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 seemed to her that her husband did have some special survival gift.

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

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

Times researchers Doug Conner in Seattle and Ann Rovin in Denver contributed to this article.