Marine Who Vanished in Iraq Now in Germany

[marinemom]

Marine Who Vanished in Iraq Now in Germany

Updated 6:53 PM ET July 9, 2004


By PANOS KAKAVIATOS

LANDSTUHL, Germany (AP) - A Marine whose mysterious disappearance in Iraq was followed by claims he had been kidnapped and beheaded is exhausted but in "excellent" physical condition, and has yet to tell his story, doctors at a U.S. military hospital in Germany said Friday.

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, who turned up Thursday at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut nearly three weeks after he vanished, was flown from the Lebanese capital to Ramstein Air Base aboard a C-17 transport jet earlier Friday. He was immediately whisked to the nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where U.S. Navy doctor Cmdr. Peter Marco examined him.

"I found him in excellent physical condition," Marco told reporters at Landstuhl, though he said Hassoun lost about 20 pounds during his absence. "There are no physical bruises on his body."

Lt. Col. Sally Harvey, a clinical psychologist who met Hassoun in Lebanon and traveled with him to Germany, said Hassoun had yet to tell doctors what happened to him but would likely start talking Saturday.


"He has been sleeping only two to three hours a night for the past three weeks," although it was not yet clear why, Harvey said.

Hassoun took a sleeping pill after arriving at Landstuhl, doctors said. "He is so exhausted it's pretty hard to see where he is," Harvey added. "His spirits are good _ he's glad to be back."

Hassoun is a Lebanese-born Muslim who was working in Iraq as an Arabic translator. He is expected to stay at Landstuhl for a few days before traveling on to Camp Lejeune, N.C., said Maj. Tim Keefe, a spokesman for the Marine Corps in Germany.

While Hassoun was missing, conflicting reports emerged about his fate _ first that he was kidnapped, then that he was beheaded, then that he was alive. Arab television on June 27 broadcast a videotape purportedly from Islamic militants showing him blindfolded with a sword held above his head.

In the latest twist to his story, there was speculation he might have deserted his base and been headed to Lebanon when he was abducted. The Navy was investigating whether the entire kidnapping might have been part of a hoax.

Before he boarded the jet in Beirut, Hassoun embraced some people and shook hands with others. His mother, Halimeh, and wife, Rana, were at the airport to see him off, Hassoun's brother, Sami, told The Associated Press.

The circumstances of Hassoun's return to Lebanon from Iraq and how he ended up at the embassy were unclear. Hassoun "came voluntarily and remained at the embassy while embassy and Department of Defense officials worked out the arrangements for his departure," an embassy statement said.

When Hassoun vanished, the Marines said he was on "unauthorized leave" but changed his status to "captured" after the videotape of him blindfolded. On Friday, the Pentagon said his status had changed from "captured" to "returned to military control."

Sami Hassoun told AP that the family met the Marine at the U.S. Embassy late Thursday. "He appeared a bit uneasy and missed his family but was relieved to see us," he said.

Hassoun's capture was claimed by a group calling itself Islamic Response and came during the tense days before the U.S. transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government June 28, a period of increased abductions and killings of foreigners and attacks on U.S. forces.

A statement on an Islamic militant Web site Saturday claimed Hassoun had been beheaded; there had been similar slayings of an American businessman and a South Korean translator in Iraq and an American contractor in Saudi Arabia. But the next day, a statement on another Islamic Web site denied he had been killed.

A neighbor in Tripoli said Hassoun left Lebanon for Utah in 1999, joining his parents and brother. Educated in Lebanon at American schools, he joined the Marines in 2001. He married an American woman two years ago, but they divorced.

The neighbor and a distant cousin, Abdullah Hassoun, said the Marine married a cousin in Lebanon by proxy several months ago. His father signed the marriage contract for him, which Islam permits.

___
So - his excuse is a belated homeymoon???????

[thedrifter]

Woman tells of meeting Hassoun

OCEANSIDE – "You want to dance?" 18-year-old Nichole Merzi asked the Marine shuffling his feet alone in a corner of the club Margarita Rocks.

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun accepted and by the end of the night he was smitten by the friendly girl who wore a T-shirt with a heart and the word "Lebanon," her father's country.

"I'm from Lebanon," Hassoun said, and so began a courtship that involved Merzi and her Oceanside family.

Nineteen days ago, the Camp Pendleton Marine went missing from his unit in Iraq, and it was feared he had been beheaded by Iraqi insurgents.

Yesterday, Merzi and her parents, who recalled these events, said the news that Hassoun is alive only confirms what they have known all along, that he would be OK.

"It makes me happy because after all these reports that he was dead, it turns out they were wrong," Merzi said, absorbing the news at her parents' pizza parlor where a large photo of Hassoun gazes at customers.

The 24-year-old Marine translator is caught up in a tangled story in which the latest twist is his safe arrival yesterday at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

"I don't keep up with the news that much," Merzi said, though her eyes teared when she mentioned Hassoun's clan in Lebanon was involved in gunfights yesterday.

The night after he danced with her, Hassoun tracked down Merzi at Spanky's, her parent's pizza place on Oceanside Boulevard, which is popular with Marines from the nearby base.

There he began pursuing her, the family said, visiting the restaurant with friends who are also Arabic translators with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. They and their unit returned to Iraq in February.

Merzi's father, Mahmoud, would entertain Hassoun and his friends after the restaurant closed with pizza laced with zaatar, a Middle Eastern mix of green herbs.

Hassoun asked Merzi's parents if he could date their daughter, the couple said. He also asked if he could marry her, her mother said.

Ecstatic, the parents said it was up to her but they hoped for a wedding.

"I promised I would save her for him and they could talk about it when he got back," Merzi's mother, Michele Lisi-Merzi, said.

Merzi said she sees Hassoun as a friend, a gentleman who helped her move into her dorm room at Cal State Northridge, where she is a sophomore. They went on only one date alone, a trip to the Olive Garden restaurant where they talked about soccer and Lebanon.

A distant cousin of Hassoun in Tripoli has said Hassoun married a cousin in Lebanon several months ago by proxy, with his father standing in for him.

Merzi said she has heard that Hassoun is married, but does not believe it.

"He is a very genuine person. He talked to my father about me. I would never question a man-on-man talk," she said. "But if he's married, then he is. Married or not, he's part of this family. But if he's married, God help him."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Associated Press contributed to this report.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elena Gaona: (760) 476-8239; elena.gaona@uniontrib.com

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/images/040709nichole_merzi.jpg

SCOTT LINNETT / Union-Tribune
Nichole Merzi says the news that Hassoun is alive only confirms what she has known all along, that he would be OK.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20040709-9999-2n9friend.html


Ellie

[Sgt. Smitty]

His story sound real fishy to me........

[cote722]

Sounds fishy to me too. If you notice, when anyone who was later beheaded was shown on a videotape, there was the captured person and 3 hooded people behind him; 1 holding a rifle, 1 holding a sword, and the middle one reading something. When Cpl. Hassoun was shown on videotape, you saw nothing but a sword. Strange... And of all the places to be released, your homeland????? Things that make you go hmmmm.....

[yellowwing]

Pro Semper Fi points:
He was on video as being held.
Insurgents have recently started releasing Muslim hostages.
He did go to the US Embassy on his own.
If he wanted to desert, why go through the hostage video and not just melt into Lebanon?

Fishy points:
He was listed as UA, or was he captured right after the last roll call?
These reports of the arranged marriage coupled with the reported girlfriends really would bring family dishonor.
Then the family gets into a gunfight and kills two Lebanese.

What I'd like to know:
His medical said he had lost 20 pounds, is that from being in combat or from his time as a hostage?
Did the Hassoun clan 'buy' him back from the insurgents? (my best guess)
Are his Utah family US citizens? Could the State Department have used them as leverage to get him back to the US Embassy?

[paul g fleming]

time will tell

[thedrifter]

Marine being debriefed on disappearance

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (CNN) -- U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, who resurfaced in Lebanon after disappearing in Iraq, was being debriefed Saturday at a U.S. military base in Germany.

Mohammed Hassoun, the Marine's brother, said Wassef told him in a phone call Saturday morning to his home in West Jordan, Utah, that he was being treated "very well."

Wassef indicated the debriefing was going well and that neither the FBI nor the Naval Criminal Investigative Service had given him any indication for concern, Mohammed said.

The 24-year-old translator also told his brother that he was staying in a suite at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

The Marine may return to his base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Monday or Tuesday, his brother said.

Military officials want to know Wassef Hassoun's whereabouts and who he was with between his disappearance June 19 from the Marine camp outside Fallujah and his re-emergence Wednesday with his Lebanese family in Tripoli.

During his disappearance, Hassoun had been listed as captured in Iraq after being shown on a video blindfolded with a sword being held over his head.

Officials have said Hassoun would talk to a SERE (survival, evasion, resistance and escape) Team, which would seek operational information from him that could help troops who find themselves in similar situations. Officials said Hassoun would be promised confidentiality for those sessions and that information he relates cannot be used against him.

Hassoun in 'excellent' shape
Hassoun arrived Friday in Germany after leaving the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

"I found him in excellent physical condition, and I did not see any bruises or any injuries on his person," Hassoun's attending physician, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Peter Marco, said Friday. "He's very exhausted."

Marco said Hassoun, who is 6 feet tall, had lost about 20 pounds -- dropping from 190 to about 170 -- and the Marine told him his spirits were down before his reunion with his family in Lebanon. Marco said Hassoun also reported suffering from chronic headaches.

A clinical psychologist at the briefing said Hassoun reported he had slept only two or three hours a night in the past few weeks.

Hassoun is undergoing medical examinations at Landstuhl as part of routine repatriation procedures, which also include addressing the Marine's psychological health.

Video claimed Marine would be killed
The U.S. Defense Department changed his status Friday to "returned to military control." Before the video of him was broadcast by an Arabic-language satellite TV network, military investigators had classified him as a deserter.

The video was broadcast June 27 on Al-Jazeera. A narrator on the tape said the captive would be killed if the United States did not free jailed Iraqis. (Full story)

At one point, reports on Islamist Web sites said Hassoun had been beheaded.

On Monday, a group claiming to have kidnapped Hassoun said it had taken him to safety after he promised not to return to the U.S. military, Al-Jazeera reported.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/10/marine/index.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marine's Kin Defends Son to Fellow Arabs

By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, Associated Press Writer

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Relatives of a U.S. Marine who surfaced in Beirut nearly three weeks after an apparent kidnapping in Iraq (news - web sites) appealed for understanding from fellow Arabs on Saturday, saying the Lebanese-born man emigrated and joined the Marines for financial reasons.


Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was doing well and recovering at a U.S. military hospital in Germany after being flown out of Lebanon on Friday, a Marine spokesman said. He is expected to return to his home unit in Camp Lejeune, N.C., next week.


In Hassoun's native city of Tripoli, his family issued a statement saying he was forced to go to the United States and join the Marines because of the deteriorating economic situation caused by Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.


The statement appeared aimed at countering criticism by some fundamentalist Sunni Muslims in Tripoli who accused Hassoun's family of being "American agents and collaborators." It stressed the family's Arab and Islamic ties, and its loyalty to Lebanon.


"We are a family of Lebanese Arab Muslims. We are not seeking to defend ourselves," the Hassoun family's statement said. "But we would like to thank the Lebanese for sympathizing with one of their sons (Hassoun) who was pushed by the difficult living conditions in their home country to emigrate and forced to work in a position that they may not like."


The statement said Hassoun, 24, was "driven by the lure of a good life to emigrate, (but he) might have made a mistake by choosing to sign a four-year contract with the U.S. Navy (news - web sites), which expires by the end of 2005."


The Marines are technically part of the Navy.


On Thursday, two people were killed and three others wounded in a Tripoli gunbattle between members of the Hassoun clan and business rivals who taunted them as being American collaborators.


The Hassoun clan, estimated at about 4,000 people, lives mostly in Tripoli and Dinniyah, northern areas where anti-American fundamentalist Sunni Muslim groups are dominant.


Hassoun, who joined the Marines in 2001, vanished June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah where he had been working as an Arabic translator.


A week later, he appeared in a videotape aired on Arab television that showed him being held hostage by militants. His eyes were blindfolded with a white cloth, and a sword was hanging over his head.


Days later, there were conflicting reports about his fate — first that he was beheaded, then that he was alive. He showed up Thursday at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, but it was unclear how he reached Lebanon and contacted American officials.


The Navy is investigating whether the entire kidnapping might have been a hoax.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=6&u=/ap/20040710/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_us_marine_2




Perhaps it's more mind games being played here .....

In Hassoun's native city of Tripoli, his family issued a statement saying he was forced to go to the United States and join the Marines because of the deteriorating economic situation caused by Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.


Ellie

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally posted by thedrifter
Marine's Kin Defends Son to Fellow Arabs


In Hassoun's native city of Tripoli, his family issued a statement saying he was forced to go to the United States and join the Marines because of the deteriorating economic situation caused by Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.

Ellie


Screw his family, send them all back to Lebanon.

Freedom has a price that someone must pay for.


Its the very same people they are trying to apease with their statement that are the cause for the problems in Lebanon.


Its no wonder that coward chose to flee. It was all because of fear and for a piece of ass, not because of money.

Sorry, its just the way I feel about this guy, while good Marines die, he chose to run...

[snipowsky]

This whole matter stinks of S H I T E!!!!!

[Sgt. Smitty]

Deport all aliens, close our borders to immigration and start taking care of this countrys people first. Let them damned ragheads rebuild their own country, they started all this crap.

[thedrifter]

USA Today
July 12, 2004
Pg. 4

Intelligence Officials To Question Marine Before He Returns To USA

From wire reports

BERLIN — A Marine who resurfaced after going missing in Iraq could be back in the USA by Wednesday after he is interviewed by intelligence officials at a U.S. military hospital in Germany, hospital officials said Sunday.

Lebanese-born Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, who at one point was reported to have been killed by militants, turned himself over to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut on Thursday. He was flown to the hospital in Landstuhl, in southern Germany, on Friday.

Hassoun "has had a full night's sleep and some breakfast. He's up and awake now, and he has been given telephone cards and access to a phone," Maj. Tim Keefe said Saturday after visiting Hassoun.

Hassoun is expected to return to his home unit at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina after leaving Landstuhl, Keefe said.

Hassoun's disappearance from his unit in Iraq on June 20 and his reappearance weeks later in Lebanon have been surrounded by confusion. An Iraqi Islamist group reiterated on Saturday that it had freed Hassoun because he pledged to quit the U.S. military. It urged other troops to do the same to escape their "predicament" in Iraq.

On Friday, military doctors who examined Hassoun said a debriefing by intelligence officers could help glean information that could be of operational use in Iraq. A separate investigation into his disappearance would wait until the debriefing was complete.

Hassoun was initially listed as being absent without authorization after he vanished from his unit. His status was changed to "captured" a week later, after video footage showed him being held hostage. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is still investigating the matter.



Ellie

[Sparrowhawk]

10:14 AM CDT on Monday, July 12, 2004


By DAVID RISING
Associated Press



BERLIN — The U.S. Marine who mysteriously vanished in Iraq and reappeared in Lebanon nearly three weeks later has been cooperating with specialists questioning him at a U.S. military hospital, a key figure in the debriefing told The Associated Press on Monday.


Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was being debriefed at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center by intelligence specialists, psychologists, physicians and a Muslim chaplain, said Army Lt. Col. Sally Harvey, a clinical neuropsychologist who is overseeing the questioning.


"He has fully engaged in the process," Harvey said in a telephone interview from Landstuhl. "His spirits are good and he's participated fully."


Harvey was not permitted to say what Hassoun might have told investigators about his disappearance June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah.


In the three weeks that the 24-year-old was missing, various conflicting reports emerged about him - including that he was beheaded by militants who abducted him. On June 27, Arab television showed a videotape of him with his eyes covered by a white blindfold and a sword held above his head.


He then showed up July 8 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, but it was unclear how he reached Lebanon and contacted American officials. The Navy has said it is investigating whether the entire kidnapping might have been a hoax.


But Harvey said the questioning at Landstuhl is no different than what has been undergone by others who have escaped captivity in Iraq.


"It's exactly the same process that Jessica Lynch went through. ... It's exactly the same process Tommy Hamill went through - there is nothing different, nothing unique, about how we are treating Cpl. Hassoun," she said.


Lynch, an Army supply clerk, was captured March 23, 2003, in Iraq and was later found by U.S. commandos in a hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. Hamill, a civilian truck driver, was taken hostage in Iraq on April 9 and managed to escape his captors on his own. Both were treated at Landstuhl before returning to the United States.


The debriefing team was conducting "survival, evasion, resistance, and escape" questioning of Hassoun, and the results would be passed back to try and help others in Iraq, said Marine Corps Europe spokesman Maj. Tim Keefe.


"Some of those lessons can go immediately back to people that are there and in that way they may have something that can save someone else's life," Keefe said.


Hassoun is expected to be able to return to his home unit in Camp Lejeune, N.C., "in a couple days," Keefe said.


On his arrival at Landstuhl on Friday, doctors said that Hassoun seemed to be in good health but had lost 20 pounds and was having trouble sleeping.


He is sleeping better, and has been talking on the telephone with his mother in Lebanon and his brother in Utah as well as other family members, said hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw.


"He is in good spirits, he's doing well," she said. "Today he's going to get a haircut and shave and look like a Marine again."


She said that the debriefing team had been speaking with Hassoun regularly.


"Most of it's just conversations, and it's done in an atmosphere as comfortable as possible for him," she said.


© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[DSchmitke]

Let Germany have him

[CMyr]

About 2 hours ago the BBC reported that US sources are saying that he's told them he was kidnapped.

[Sgted]

Originally posted by CMyr
About 2 hours ago the BBC reported that US sources are saying that he's told them he was kidnapped.

On CNN there was a short interview with his Marine Corps Muslim Chaplan who said that, after debriefing, etc.....the truth would surface.
I have stifled my opinion on this waiting to hear the story from the horses mouth.

[Sgt. Smitty]

If those ragheads chopped off the heads of the others, then why would they let an American Marine walk away unharmed when they are so dead set on killing all American Infidels? I don't believe they let him walk unless he is working for them and they come up with some wild story to make it look like he escaped from his captors. IF he could do it then why haven't any others escaped? Toooooo fishy for me to ever trust him.

[thedrifter]

Debriefing of U.S. Marine taking longer than expected




By David Rising
ASSOCIATED PRESS
6:36 a.m. July 13, 2004

BERLIN – A Marine who disappeared from his post in Iraq and turned up later in Lebanon will still return to the United States this week, even though his debriefing is taking longer than expected, an official said Tuesday.

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun is talking with intelligence specialists, psychologists, physicians and a Muslim chaplain at the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

The "survival, evasion, resistance, and escape" debriefing is the same process gone through at Landstuhl by others who were taken prisoner in Iraq, such as Pfc. Jessica Lynch and civilian truck driver Tom Hamill.

"It is just a routine thing, we did the same thing with Hamill and with Lynch," said hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw. "Some of them just take a bit longer than others."

Hassoun, a native of Lebanon, vanished June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah and reappeared July 8 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

It is not clear how Hassoun made the journey, and during the three weeks he was missing, various conflicting reports emerged about him – first that he was beheaded by militant captors, then that he was alive.

The Navy has said it is investigating whether the entire kidnapping might have been a hoax, but the Naval Criminal Investigation Service is not expected to question Hassoun until after the debriefing process.

In the meantime, Shaw said Hassoun had a haircut and shave Monday and is in better spirits than when he was brought to the hospital Friday.

"He was smiling a whole lot more," she said.

Hassoun was uninjured, but doctors said he had lost about 20 pounds.

The Marine Corps had initially said Hassoun would return to his home unit in Camp Lejeune, N.C., when the debriefing process is complete, but officials now say it is premature to say where he will be taken.

He is still expected to leave Landstuhl by the end of the week, Shaw said.

Lynch, an Army supply clerk, was captured March 23, 2003, in Iraq and was later found by U.S. commandos in a hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, while Hamill, was taken hostage in Iraq this April 9 and managed to escape his captors on his own.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20040713-0636-germany-us-marine.html


Ellie

[yellowwing]

"...but officials now say it is premature to say where he will be taken." - Doesn't look good for Hassoun. I just hope he doesn't owe money to any of his squad.

[Sgt. Smitty]

Disappeared, kidnapped or deserted.........but came back alive after being held captive, with no threats of beheading? Something wrong with this picture ,big time.

[Namvet67]

Yep...something is not right here. I don't think he was ever held captive.

[P. M. SHEEHAN]

I think it's high time that we change the rules about non-citizens serving in the U.S. military. How the hell can someone raise their right hand and take the oath of enlistment as a citizen of another country. You would be amazed to know how many aliens are in our military including the USMC.

[thedrifter]

July 14, 2004

Hassoun to fly home

By David Rising
Associated Press


BERLIN — A Marine who disappeared from his post in Iraq and turned up in Lebanon nearly three weeks later was to fly home shortly after a lengthy debriefing process at a U.S. military hospital in Germany, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun has been at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center since Friday, where he has been evaluated by doctors and debriefed by specialists.

The 24-year-old vanished June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah and reappeared July 8 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and was then flown to Landstuhl.

It is not clear how Hassoun made the 500 miles journey to Lebanon from Iraq, and during the three weeks he was missing various conflicting reports emerged about him — first that he was kidnapped and beheaded, then that he was alive.

He is now just looking forward to getting back to the United States, and was scheduled to leave Germany on a military flight later Wednesday, said hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw, who met with Hassoun Wednesday morning.

“He’s OK,” she said. “He wants to go home and see his family.”

Shaw said she could not say where Hassoun was going to be flown from Germany’s Ramstein Air Base.

Hassoun, who has who has dual Lebanese and American citizenship and worked as a translator in Iraq, has relatives in Utah.

Hassoun’s so-called “survival, evasion, resistance and escape” debriefing at Landstuhl was tailored to help specialists learn any lessons about his ordeal that could help others who find themselves in similar situations.

The Navy has said it is investigating whether the entire kidnapping might have been a hoax, but the Naval Criminal Investigation Service is not expected to question Hassoun until he is back in the United States.



http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-3087903.php


Ellie

[Namvet67]

You don't just go out and kidnap a Marine...No don't give him to Germany...give him back to the Corps..Justice will be served. Better yet..let me have him for a couple of days. Semper Fi

[thedrifter]

Mystery Marine is back in the U.S.

Hassoun to undergo final phase
of repatriation before being questioned

U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun disappeared in Iraq and turned up in Lebanon nearly three weeks later


The Associated Press
Updated: 3:18 p.m. ET July 15, 2004QUANTICO, Va. - A U.S. Marine who disappeared in Iraq and turned up in Lebanon three weeks later arrived at a Marine Corps base south of Washington, D.C., on Thursday after six days of evaluation in a U.S. military hospital in Germany, a military official said.


Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun left Ramstein Air Base in Germany on a morning flight aboard an Air Force C-5 Galaxy heavy transport plane and stopped first at Dover Air Force Base, Del., where he boarded an Air Force C-12 jet for the flight to Quantico.

A spokesman at Quantico, Marine Corps Capt. Jeff Landis, said Hassoun arrived at 3 p.m. ET, and was being received by a military support team that arrived from Hassoun’s home base at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Quantico is home to the Marines’ Officer Candidate School and is a focal point for the service’s leadership training as well as the development of new warfighting concepts and technologies.

Possibility of a hoax to be explored
The Navy has said it is investigating whether the kidnapping might have been a hoax, but the Naval Criminal Investigation Service is not expected to question Hassoun until his repatriation procedure is completed, the Marine Corps said.

As he left the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center on Wednesday, Hassoun said he was eager to get home.

“I am in good health and spirits, I look forward to my return home to friends and family,” he said in a written statement provided to the Associated Press, his first public comment since he vanished June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Hassoun had been flown to Germany on Friday after reappearing July 8 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. It remains unclear how he made the journey to Lebanon, where he was born and still has some relatives, from Iraq.

“All thanks and praises are due to God for my safety,” he said. “I am also very thankful for all the kind wishes, support and praise for me and my family from my fellow Marines, all the people in the United States, Lebanon and around the world.”

Statement signed ‘Semper Fidelis’
Hassoun signed the statement “Semper Fidelis,” the Marine Corps motto meaning “always faithful.”

During the three weeks he was missing, various conflicting reports emerged about Hassoun — first that he was kidnapped and beheaded, then that he was alive. There also were suggestions it was all a hoax.

Hassoun’s debriefing in Germany was designed to help U.S. military specialists learn any lessons about the circumstances of his disappearance that could help others who find themselves in similar situations.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5436618

Ellie

[Sparrowhawk]

This Marine not only has two passports, one US and the other from Lebanon.

He may have at one time had dual allegiance, but then he chose Lebanon.


Anyone obtaining their citizenship via the military should be required to renounce their former country and give up their passport for that country. Some Arab countries if you do that, you can never return there.

[Osotogary]

I'm thinking of the probable transference of intelligence under stress or agreement. I'm not comfortable with his trip to Lebanon or his safe return, even though I am happy for his return. There are just too many unanswered questions.
Maybe the official and commercial media thinks that I am so darn gullible, maybe even stupid, that I will accept everything that has been presented to all media channels about this story without so much as a question. Maybe I am stupid but not this stupid. Something is really wrong here. He should have been handed over to the Marines. The idea that he wasn't just adds fuel to the fire that there was some hanky-panky going on. I dare say, and I hope that I am severely wrong here, that any other Marine would not have fared so well.

[hrscowboy]

bull hockey, he split he's a coward and everyone knows it. he has soiled the brotherhood of marines and veterans I have no use for his kind..

[radio relay]

I gave this S.O.B the benefit of the doubt when he was still &quot;missing&quot;. When the guy turned up in Lebanon, I started hating him. <br />
<br />
If this puke was a Christian, or Jewish, or any other religion,...