Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 14, 1991 TAG: 9102140158
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PETER BAKER THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
For many Americans, the sight of the Navy flier trembling on videotape filmed by his Iraqi captors provoked sorrow and anger. For the people of the Hampton Roads region, it was much more personal.
The young lieutenant from Oceana Naval Air Station is one of them - he lived in their neighborhood, he worked out at their gym, he attended their church.
"I could kill that Hussein when I saw that," said Betty Esposito, 73, who never knew Zaun but clenches her fist and becomes teary-eyed at the thought of his suffering. "I was infuriated, I was so mad when I saw him beat up like that. . . . I would love to see that Hussein put down but good."
It remains unclear whether Zaun was brutalized by the Iraqis or injured when his plane was shot down, but the distinction doesn't seem to matter much to people in Virginia Beach.
At Wareing Gym, where Zaun was a member, people found the TV images of him "just shocking" and have begun ordering POW bracelets "just because we really want to be a part of it," said manager Tony Wareing.
About 40,000 sailors, soldiers and airmen from the area are in the Middle East as part of Operation Desert Storm.
From Oceana - a 47-year-old, 6,000-acre base - more than half of the 10,500 personnel and 350 of the F-14 Tomcats and A-6 Intruders have been deployed on aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea.
Fliers from Oceana have been in the thick of the war in the skies over Baghdad, and as a result, they were some of the first shot down.
Their names resonate through the community: Zaun, 28, in captivity; Lt. Robert Wetzel, 30, shot down and missing; Lt. Lawrence R. Slade, 26, captured; Lt. Devon Jones, rescued after an eight-hour mission into hostile territory. Two more Navy officers listed as missing also are from Oceana: Lt. Patrick K. Cooper, 25, and Lt. Cmdr. Barry T. Cooke, 35.
There is nothing Nintendo about the Persian Gulf War here, no video-game detachment. Nameless, faceless men are not fighting this war; they are friends and family and neighbors.
When a pilot shoots down an enemy plane, folks here cheer loudest. When a downed pilot is recovered after a daring search-and-rescue operation, they sigh in relief. When Saddam Hussein parades prisoners of war on Iraqi television, they are outraged.
"It's just something that everybody is talking about all the time," said Tommy Griffiths, a morning disc jockey on rock station WNOR-FM. "People are so involved, it's like the entire community of Hampton Roads, either physically or emotionally, has been airlifted to the Middle East and we're fighting the war."
Flags and yellow ribbons are sold out at many shops.
Radio stations produce shows filled with songs requested for husbands and wives in the Middle East, and it's almost impossible to go an hour without hearing Lee Greenwood's song, "God Bless the USA."
Demonstrations in support of American troops have become weekly events; a POW-MIA flag has been raised over Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach. Griffiths and partner Henry Del Toro, known on the air as "The Bull," organized a flag-waving rally of a different sort: About 4,000 people held up colored poster boards on Mount Trashmore to form a living flag 225 feet long and 165 feet wide.
"I think a lot of people were champing at the bit looking for something they could do," Griffiths said. "It's not like World War II, where they could roll bandages."
In the past few weeks, some of the early bravado has turned into a somber, resolute determination to see the war through.
"A lot of guys at work were saying, `Gosh, I wish I could go over there and get my combat patch,' " said Army Staff Sgt. Terry Quinn, 34, a training instructor at Fort Story in Virginia Beach. "When it first started, probably four or five of [the 20 in the unit] were really gung-ho. Now it's kind of died down. . . . The reality is like, `Jeez, people are captured, people are dying. That can happen to me.' That really began to sink in."
Virginia Beach Mayor Mayera Oberndorf, whose city has grown substantially in the past decade to become the largest in the state, said her community has come together like an old-fashioned, close-knit farm community with barn-raisings and people bringing food to those in trouble.
"People are very pro-troops," she said. "People are very committed to the idea that never again will we do what we did to the troops when they came home from Vietnam. Never again."
by CNB