Word: metrinko
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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After the failed rescue mission, Metrinko was driven to the holy city of Qum and held for a week with two other hostages in a filthy, rat-infested prison cell whose windows were covered with blankets. He often heard the crack of a whip followed by screams; once when a blanket fell, he caught a glimpse of some Iranians being flogged...
...Metrinko passed the next two months in more pleasant quarters: a room in a onetime art gallery. He never seriously considered trying to escape, since even when he was allowed to take a stroll in the courtyard he was surrounded by 20 or more armed guards. Says Metrinko ruefully: "It was like a grade-B movie, but I'm not James Cagney." The Ayatullah Khomeini's son Seyyed Ahmed talked to the hostages for half an hour one day. Metrinko complained to him that the food consisted of "rice and grease" and that he was not allowed...
After he was moved to a prison in Tehran in late June, Metrinko cursed his guards in Farsi as "thieves" and "liars" for taking away his watch and glasses, and denounced Khomeini as a "killer." The militants blindfolded Metrinko, punched and slapped him, and put him in an isolation cell. For two weeks he slept on its bare floor with no heat or light, except for what little came over the transom of the steel door...
Even at the last moment, Metrinko was defiant. When he was boarding the bus to go to the Algerian plane that was to fly the hostages to freedom, a guard called him an "American bastard." Replied Metrinko: "Shut up, you son of a prostitute." Guards dragged Metrinko off the bus; as it left for the airport, they punched him a few times. But he was finally taken to the airport in a car. Says Metrinko: "I was awfully close to missing the whole show...
...When Metrinko got home last week, he went immediately to Saints Cyril and Methodius Church, where he had been baptized as a child into the Ukrainian Catholic faith. He blew out the votive flame that had been lit on the 100th day of his captivity, and wept when the priest read the Sermon on the Mount. Metrinko now plans to retreat to a cabin deep in the woods for a few weeks. The hideaway has no phone or TV, but, he says "there's a wonderful fireplace, and I'm going to spend my time chopping...