From the S&S archives: A sea of tears greets the hostages

RHEIN-MAIN AB, Germany — The tears.

They told as much about the arrival as the hundreds of flags, the banners and the unbridled joy that America's 52 hostages had come home to freedom.

I cried. After 18 years of reporting I thought I could cover most events without becoming emotionally involved. But like many others standing in the first glimmer of dawn on the tarmac at Rhein-Main, the tears streamed down my cheeks as my countrymen came home after 14½ months of captivity.

Many of us in the press section cried. We were happy, but we could not reach across the barrier to touch and hold and tell each of the 52 how much they had been on our minds since Nov. 4, 1979. So we watched them from behind the barrier and wiped our eyes and tried to take notes on a moment in history we were living.

Thousands gather

From all over the world, thousands of people converged on Rhein-Main to watch as the two C-9 jets came out of the dark sky shortly before 7 a.m. Wednesday, bringing back the 52 former hostages.

Sgt. 1.C. Lanny Tarter got up before 4 a.m. in Dexheim, Germany, and drove an hour to see his countrymen safe from captivity. "I'm glad they're home. I'm glad they're free. I'm psyched up," said the company operations NCO from Rogersville, Tenn. "Got to be at work at 8 sharp," he said, "but I was gonna be here."

Spec. 4 Larry Robinson, 8th Inf Div, brought the division flag from Bad Kreuznach to wave and his buddy, Spec. 4 Richard Ballard, carried an American flag.

"We told the XO we were going and he said OK," Robinson said. "We felt like we ought to be here, even if we have to be at work at 8."

"We've been up all night; we came to see them come home," Ballard said.

S.Sgt. Eddie Myles, from Co A, 1st of the 26th Inf at Goeppingen, was on his last day of duty in Germany. Myles, from Tifton, Ga., was staying at the Rhein-Main hotel and said, "I came out to welcome the hostages back. I don't know any of them, but I wouldn't want to be held."

Myles, a Vietnam veteran, returned to a stateside assignment Wednesday.

Capt. Ken Yauch, a maintenance officer at Rhein-Main, came out on the icy night with his wife, Dianne, and their three children. Yauch, from Sacramento, Calif., said, "I've got to go to wok in about two hours, but this was something I felt I had to see."

A veteran Navy officer said, "This is one of those times when you know that there is no other place in the world that you should be but this.

"Only one other time in my life, the day the Suez Canal was reopened, have I ever felt that way."

Senior Airman Curtis Hammill, 23, of Vernon, N.Y., came back to the flight line in the pre-dawn hours to await the C-9s he had sent off to Algiers 10 hours earlier. Hammill is one of about 50 airmen who maintain the C-9s at Rhein-Main.

"The planes were in top condition for the flight. I had my Queen Elizabeth good-luck medallion and my St. Christopher medal," Hammill said, patting his back pocket. "But I'm not superstitious."

Senior Airman Fred Cloos, from Providence, R.I., said, "I'm nervous. Sure glad they're home."

Spec. 5 Salvatore Arria, of the 3rd Armd Div in Frankfurt, balanced atop a half-filled trash barrel in his combat boots and watched the banners and flags and people.

"Can you feel the togetherness here tonight?" he asked. "I'm Italian-American. I was not born in the United States but I feel 100 percent American tonight. It is a rush of joy to know they arc free. I haven't slept in two days."

Warm welcome

As the first of the two C-9s rolled to a stop in front of the cheering, flag-waving crowd, one small sign held aloft by two airmen was bathed in the light of network strobes. "God Bless You All," the neat printing proclaimed.

Retired Maj. Gen. H. Dudley Ives, former inspector general of the Army, was at Rhein-Main before returning to the States. The arrival stirred memories of an event 35 years earlier.

"... in April 1945 in Austria the night the lights came back on. The war ended and for the first time the little houses in the valleys and little towns were lighted after years of blackout. It was a dramatic sight. That's the only feeling I can remember that compares with this one."

He added, "I am relieved to get these people home after the despicable act the Iranian people pulled on our country."

Lt. Col. Bill Askins, of the Army Corps of Engineers Division Europe, brought his family's American flag to honor the hostages. Askirs, his wife, Susann, and son, Don, unfurled the flag to salute the returning former hostages.

"Tonight I have a tremendous sense of pride in America," Askins said. "I have sense of optimism; now we can go forward. "

More than 500 small American flags, provided by the AAFES Rhein-Main base exchange, were distributed to the crowd before the planes arrived and the sea of red, white and blue was captured in the lights of hundreds of camera lights.