US marine 'happy to go home'

2004-07-14 20:38

Berlin - A US marine who disappeared in Iraq and turned up in Lebanon nearly three weeks later said on Wednesday he was in good health and "excited to be going home" as he left a US military hospital in Germany to head back to the United States.

In his first public comments since vanishing June 20 from his base near the troubled city of Fallujah, Wassef Ali Hassoun said he was happy to have completed his debriefing by specialists, according to a statement read by hospital spokesperson Marie Shaw.

"The people here at Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre have treated me very well but I am excited to be going home," Hassoun said.

Hassoun left the hospital in western Germany shortly after noon and asked that the statement be distributed. He was expected to fly out of Ramstein Air Base later in the afternoon, Shaw said.

Hassoun reappeared July 8 at the US Embassy in Beirut, and it remains unclear how he made the 800km journey.

"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.

"Always faithful"

"I am in good health and spirits, I look forward to my return home to friends and family," he said. He signed the statement "Semper Fidelis," the Marine Corps motto meaning "always faithful."

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

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 made no mention of his ordeal in his statement.

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

Hassoun was to be brought to the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, where his repatriation will continue to be handled by officials of the Pentagon's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, said Marine Corps spokesperson Dan McSweeney at the Pentagon.

The US 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 his repatriation is completed at Quantico, McSweeney said.

- AP