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File: 120596_aaczf_21.txt21 I believe it's called, from Bahrain to Andrews, where we were welcomed by the Secretary of Defense and the Chair- man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and our families. So that was quite a welcome home and certainly I don't think anyone could've dreamed about a better one. There was a big crowd there and we had to endure some speeches. (laughter) But other than that it was quite nice. It was obviously great to be back in America. From there we stayed at Andrews for five days, in the mornings we got a bunch of medical tests, and in the afternoon there were intelligence debriefings trying to find out if we knew the whereabouts of any more prisoners. They were still trying to locate some of the guys who were MIA. And basically finding out what we knew, what we had seen, and about what had gone on while we were prisoners. Q: Was that of some concern to you when they hauled you into Jordan, King Hussein's stand being pro-Iraqi? A: Like I said, we didn't have much choice. We were with the Red Cross and the driver was Swiss. He had worked in the region for a long time and since we were under their protection....it was obvious they (the Jordanians) didn't want us there but they were going to let us be there for as short a time as possible. I wasn't con- cerned that they were going to hold us prisoner, or detain us or anything. They wanted to get rid of us as quickly as they could. The press was more of a concern. We were at this camp that had a bunch of photographers, hundreds of them, and they tried to restrain them. As we were getting in these jeeps to drive to the helicop- ters, one of the photographers broke loose and they were like a pack of wolves. I've never seen anything like it before. They're after the picture, no matter what, it doesn't matter who they run over in the process. Q: I'm just curious...did you ever come in contact with the CBS crew, did you ever have any contact with them? A: The night the prison was bombed, we were in Baghdad, like I said, we had steel doors and little windows in them. A lot of the windows blew open and two of the guys' cell doors were open so they went around and opened every- body's window so we were able to talk, find out who was there. Bob Simon (CBS journalist) was in the cell next to me and the other three CBS guys were also in the prison. That was the first I knew they had been in there. They were having a rough time. They obviously had not received training and so he was saying things like, "Well, they told me ...." And I would say, "Yes, they say that to everyone." It was kind of comforting to him, I think, to find that out. For me, I expected them to give me propaganda and tell me the President had
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