Relatives Recall Uncertainty, Fear Over Fate of Soldiers

Although separated by thousands of miles, an ocean and prison guards, three U.S. soldiers held captive until Sunday in Yugoslavia and their families back home discovered when they were reunited here this week that they had experienced many of the same emotions.

In their first extensive interviews with the media since the reunion, the relatives of the three soldiers said the most difficult part of the ordeal that began with the men’s capture March 31 was the sense of complete uncertainty about what would happen and whether their loved ones would ever be released.

“That was the hardest part--just not knowing,” said Steven Ramirez, whose brother, Staff Sgt. Andrew Ramirez of East Los Angeles, was in a Yugoslav prison for 32 days.

Their mother, Vivian, added that she recalled vividly the moment an Army officer told her that Andrew was missing. “I said, ‘Missing, do you know if he is alive?’ and she couldn’t tell me,” Vivian Ramirez said.

Medical personnel at the Army hospital here have said the soldiers faced similar stresses. “What’s difficult is not being in control, not knowing what will happen,” Lt. Col. Sharon DeRuvo, chief of clinical nursing, said Monday.

The three soldiers have not been permitted to give interviews to the media, although they probably will appear today with President Clinton, who is coming to Germany to visit troops. And the families have been given strict orders by the Army not to reveal anything that the soldiers might have said about the exact nature of their capture and captivity until Army officials have completed a comprehensive debriefing.

However, it appears that the ex-POWs conducted themselves in an exemplary fashion: Military officials said the Army is planning an award ceremony and welcome for them Thursday at the 1st Infantry Division headquarters in Wuerzburg and another at Schweinfurt, the soldiers’ home base in Germany.

Seeing the men for the first time since their release, family members said they could see few changes on the surface except that the soldiers had lost weight. But underneath they detected profound changes.

“I know that Chris believes in miracles now,” said Dawn Relliford, the sister of Staff Sgt. Christopher J. Stone of Smith’s Creek, Mich. “I think that he realizes life is short, and there are things you need to straighten out.”

“He was more thankful, he was grateful to God for getting him out of there,” she said.

The moment of reunion, according to the families of both Ramirez and Stone, was filled with an unmitigated feeling of happiness and few words. “I couldn’t let go of him,” Vivian Ramirez said of her son. She added that “I had to let him go [eventually] so that he could breathe.”

“You can’t explain the feelings you have, you can’t even talk, you just want to give them a hug,” Deanna Stone, another of Stone’s sisters, said.

The family of the third soldier released Sunday, Spc. Steven Gonzales, decided not to speak to the media Tuesday.

Neither Ramirez nor Stone could believe how much attention was paid to their capture at home and the outpouring of love and support from people in their communities and across the United States.

“He’s really surprised” about the public focus on his capture, Vivian Ramirez said.

At a final medical briefing Tuesday, doctors confirmed more details about the soldiers’ treatment in captivity, including that the three men had been hooded during the first few days of their capture and, as a result, had initially lost their sense of time.

Not surprisingly, Vivian Ramirez struggled when asked whether she wanted her son to return to the front lines. After hesitating a moment, she said: “It’s up to him. I will handle it OK. I have to. It’s his decision.”

* CAPTIVES’ ORDEAL: Andrew Ramirez and two fellow POWs were beaten and at one point feared execution by Serbs, an L.A. rabbi says. B1