A jubilant Terry Anderson was reunited Thursday with sister Peggy Say, who had pressed presidents and prime ministers in a dogged campaign to get him freed.
"What can I say? It's just great. It's been so long," said the 44-year-old journalist, the last American hostage in Lebanon, from the steps of the U.S. military hospital in Wiesbaden.In an intermittent pre-dawn rain, more than 200 shouting and whooping people greeted the chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, who was freed Wednesday after 2,455 days in captivity. He responded with waves and large, toothy grins.
He held the hand of his 6-year-old daughter Sulome, born three months after he was captured. Also with him was Madeleine Bassil, Sulome's Lebanese mother.
Although she never met Anderson until Wednesday, Sulome knew him as "Daddy" from photos. Over the years, she had sent poignant written and videotaped greetings to him, expressing hopes that he would be home soon.
On the ground in Wiesbaden, Sulome leaned against Anderson, smiling, his hand on her shoulder.
As Anderson stepped from the helicopter that shuttled him from a nearby U.S. air base, Say dashed forward, gave him a huge hug and stroked his face. They held each other tightly and rocked back and forth.
On the hospital steps she stood at his side, wiping tears from her eyes. Asked about the tenacious efforts of his sister to get him freed, Anderson said: "Fantastic, wasn't it? It's great to have a sister like that.
"You get yourself in trouble and she just comes along and gets you out," he joked, and the crowd laughed.
Say's unrelenting quest to free her brother made her arguably the best-known campaigner for the hostages' freedom. She wrote a book, traveled widely to meet world leaders and even became involved in covert diplomacy at one point. On meeting reporters Wednesday, Anderson referred to her as "my incredible sister Peg."
"Welcome Home!" and "Merry Christmas!" yelled people in the crowd, many of them packed on the balconies of two floors of the hospital.
Also greeting Anderson was Louis D. Boccardi, the AP's president and chief executive officer. He said Anderson seemed as elated as he had been during his brief news conference at the Syrian Foreign Ministry.
"Terry's back and he's overjoyed," Boccardi said.
Later, Boccardi said Anderson would soon tell his own story to the world.
"I hope that he will emerge shortly to answer some of these questions for himself and I hope very soon thereafter begin to put on paper some of these experiences," he told ABC-TV. "How soon he'll come back to work, as such, we just don't know yet."
Just minutes after arriving at the military hospital, Anderson appeared on a balcony with Joseph Cicippio and Alann Steen, the other two American hostages freed this week. Cicippio, freed Monday, headed home Thursday.
Later, Anderson told hospital officials he had a craving for a large hamburger and strawberry milkshake. Instead, he had a breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, french toast, orange juice and coffee.
He underwent medical tests later.
Anderson was the most fit, upbeat-looking freed American hostage to pass through Wiesbaden in years, despite being held the longest of any.
In contrast, doctors say Steen, 52, suffered brain damage from beatings by his captors, and Cicippio, 61, has a dent in his skull from a beating and damage from frostbite suffered from being chained outside in winter cold.
Anderson said faith and stubbornness helped him through his 61/2-year imprisonment by pro-Iranian extremists, who released him after intense U.N. mediation efforts that led to freedom for eight other hostages since August.
Anderson was the last of 14 Americans held by Shiite Muslims to be released; three were killed in captivity. But two Germans remain hostage, and U.N. officials were attempting to gain their freedom.
"I am very pleased," Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said at the United Nations on Wednesday. "The American chapter has been closed, but I have other chapters still to close."
He has led delicate negotiations involving a complex swap of Western hostages, hundreds of Arabs held by Israel and information about missing Israeli servicemen.
President Bush called Anderson in Damascus "to express the love and admiration that all Americans have for Terry," White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.