“I don’t want to get maudlin about this, but 30 years is a long time, and we’re getting older as a group,” Barry Rosen, one of the hostages, told The Associated Press.
As every American over the age of 40 knows, the long hostages episode began when Iranian students s the US embassy in Tehran took dozens of prisoners in 1979 after the U.S. refused to deport the deposed Shah, who was in the United States for cancer treatment. Fifty-two of the hostages endured 444 days of captivity. They were bound, blindfolded, kicked, taunted and isolated. They endured mock executions.
The announcement of the hostages’ release came as Ronald Reagan was being sworn in as the new president in 1981, denying Jimmy Carter an accomplishment he had been seeking for months.
The former hostages stopped at an Air Force Base in what was then West Germany before being flown to Newburgh, N.Y., for tearful reunions with loved ones. At the base in Germany, hostage David Roeder was photographed as he exited the plane, arms thrust skyward, defiant jubilation on his face. Next to him, a sign read: “WELCOME BACK TO FREEDOM.”
About 10 former hostages, including Roeder and Rosen, accepted invitations from Thayer Hotel on the West Point campus and arrived starting Jan. 20 for several days of events mixing pleasure and public service. Also invited to the private event were veterans of the ill-fated military rescue mission that ended in a helicopter crash that killed eight U.S. servicemen.
Thirty years on, 10 of the 52 hostages have died and others are in poor health. Most are of retirement age.
The former hostages will catch up with one another and talk to cadets about Iran and their experiences. They’ll tour the grounds, eat at the cathedral-like mess hall and take in an Army-Navy basketball game.
Rosen, 66, was the press attaché in Tehran. He acknowledged that talking about his captivity — he would spend a full day tracking a spot of sunlight across a dark room — could have a “therapeutic quality.”
“I do think — as painful as sometimes it is — it’s also very important to talk about it to try to get it out to make people understand what’s going and to actually make myself understand why and how this all occurred,” he told The Associated Press. On their arrival at Newburgh’s Stewart International Airport, former Marine Sgt. Kevin Hermening was met by his parents, who told him people had been praying for him back home in Wisconsin. Rosen gave a toy Mercedes police car he got in Germany to his 4-year-old son, Alexander, and a doll to 1-year-old daughter Ariana, who did not know or trust her long-gone father.
“She took that doll from me and she never gave me a kiss,” he said.
The hostages were whisked that day to West Point, where the hotel offered a private spot for family gatherings. They rode some 15 miles in buses decorated with yellow ribbons, the symbol of hope back home during the long ordeal. Thousands lined the bus route in an outpouring of relief and joy. Some carried signs reading, “We Thank God You’re Home.”
The hostages, isolated for more than 14 months, was stunned.
“We had no idea until we were in Wiesbaden, Germany, on our way home that the American people had even followed our situation,” Hermening said.
Rosen, a grandfather married almost 39 years, is executive director of public affairs at Borough of Manhattan Community College. He long ago gained his daughter’s trust.
One thing has not changed, though. “Iran will always be with me,” Rosen said. “All the time.”