Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 20, 1991                   TAG: 9103200537
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Medium

RETURN OF PILOTS WHO WERE POWS TO BE CELEBRATED

The event at the Oceana Naval Air Station will mark the return home of Lts. Robert Wetzel, Jeffrey Zaun and Lawrence Randolph Slade. The normally restricted air base will open its gates to the public for the 3 p.m. ceremony to "show support for the returning heroes," a Navy spokesman said Tuesday.

The fliers will be escorted by Secretary of the Navy Lawrence Garrett and Adm. Frank Kelso, chief of naval operations.

Wetzel, Zaun and Slade were released March 4 after the Persian Gulf War ended.

Wetzel, 30, and Zaun, 28, were flying an A-6E Intruder off the aircraft carrier Saratoga when they were shot down Jan. 17 shortly after combat operations started.

Zaun was shown on Baghdad television after he was captured, but the whereabouts of Wetzel were unknown until he and the other POWs were released. Both men are members of Attack Squadron 35 based at Oceana. Wetzel was the plane's pilot, and Zaun was his bombardier-navigator.

Slade, 26, was a radar intercept officer on an F-14 Tomcat that was shot down Jan. 21 while flying from the Saratoga. The pilot, Lt. Devon Jones, was rescued. The men belong to Fighter Squadron 103 at Oceana.

Both squadrons and several other Oceana units on the Saratoga and carrier Kennedy are scheduled to return to the Virginia Beach base on March 27, the day before the Saratoga reaches its home port of Mayport, Fla., and the Kennedy docks at the Norfolk Naval Base.

Two other Oceana-based fliers are still listed as missing from the war. Lt. Cmdr. Barry Cooke, 35, and Lt. Patrick Connor, 25, were flying an A-6E off the carrier Theodore Roosevelt when they were shot down Feb. 2.