Twenty five years ago today, the Iranian hostage crisis came to an end and the 52 Americans who had been held hostage for 444 days returned home. Today’s Washington Post tells the story of the many gifts that the returning hostages received from a grateful nation, including one very special one.
It was a small thing really, barely bigger than a credit card, tucked unpretentiously in a small black case. For each of the 52 American hostages who bounded off the plane, free at last, the ticket stuffed inside the box was another of the trinkets that piled up around them. A modest reward for the cold, metal muzzle of a shotgun pressed against their faces.
For 444 days they had been tied and blindfolded, held hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Iran by student revolutionaries incensed at the United States’ decision to admit Iran’s ailing and deposed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, for medical treatment. Long before 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, there were the Iran hostages. Their plight paralyzed a country unaccustomed to such an affront and likely cost President Jimmy Carter reelection in 1980. Then, 25 years ago today, they were released the moment Ronald Reagan took the oath of office.
They returned to an adoring nation that gave them a ticker-tape parade and welcomed them as heroes. They were besieged with flags, yellow ribbons and countless gifts, among them the tiny box from Major League Baseball. Inside was a lifetime pass to any major or minor league game.
Wow. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know about this until today. I’m sure it was mentioned, briefly, at the time the hostages returned but it hasn’t been talked about since then.
The article goes on to talk about how several of the 52 former hostages have used the lifetime pass in different ways. Some used it many times a year, some have used it sparingly. One former hostage talks about how the pass helped him get closer to the two children who had grown up while he was in captivity and barely knew him when he returned.
Also brought home is the truth of what their captivity was like:
It’s hard to pinpoint the worst moment of the 444 days, but the mock executions seem a good place to start. For several days in late January and early February of 1980, the captors showed revolutionary films to the hostages, gory movies with scenes that always ended the same way: with a supposed enemy being tortured and shot.
Then, one morning, about a week later, Sickmann remembers being jostled awake at 2 a.m. by men wearing masks, just like the executioners in the revolutionary films. Sickmann was pulled out of bed and dragged by his hair to a hallway outside where, he said, the other hostages were lined up against the wall. His heart dropped.
“You thought instantly that there had been a military rescue and they’re going to shoot us,” he said. “You want to be tough in that situation, but everything changes. You lose body fluids. Some were praying, some were cursing left and right.”
They took Sickmann into a room and told him to strip — an act of shame in Islamic culture. His mind flew back to the films. There were three men with rifles and he was certain this was the end. They told him to turn around and put his arms in the air, then they blindfolded him, which in the films was the final act before the killing.
He braced himself and waited for the bullet to crash into his skull.
Only it never came. After a few minutes the guards told him to put on his clothes and go back to his room.
And while shots weren’t fired, something died in him, in each of them that night.
I was in sixth grade when the hostage crisis ended and will never forget the cheers that went throughout the school when it was announced over the intercom that the hostages had, in fact, been released. Finally a dark time for America was ending. Today’s article reminds me alot of that happy day. Little did I know that, 25 years later we would still be worrying about the mullahs in Iran only, this time, we’d be worrying about them having nuclear weapons.
More excellent thoughts on the significance of this day at The Officer’s Club via Michelle Malkin And Outside The Beltway’s James Joyner has a piece at TCS Daily on the Twin Anniversaries being celebrated today.
Related Post: Another Reason To Celebrate
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