Lowering of Flag Marks End of Jacobsen Ordeal

In an emotional ceremony at Huntington Beach City Hall on Monday night, former hostage David Jacobsen lowered a tattered, pale-yellow flag that had flown since Oct. 14, 1985, as a symbol that he was held captive in Lebanon.

Jacobsen, 55, the former administrator of the American University Hospital in Beirut, was kidnaped by Shia Muslims on May 28, 1985, as he walked to his office in Beirut. He was released in West Beirut on Nov. 2, more than 17 months after he was taken hostage.

And one month later the flag that had symbolized Jacobsen’s torment came down. It had been “a sign of Huntington Beach’s love and prayers” to help American hostages “get home as quickly as possible,” Mayor Robert P. Mandic said.

Jacobsen thanked the city for remembering him. “I do not consider myself a hero. I happened to be a captive,” he told about 60 people who gathered beside the City Hall flagpoles.

And he asked them to continue to pray for his three American “brothers” still in captivity--journalist Terry A. Anderson, Thomas Sutherland, a dean at the American University of Beirut and Joseph J. Cicippio, acting controller of the American University.

“Please don’t forget them,” he pleaded. “Put faces on these men.”

The hourlong ceremony concluded with Jacobsen and Mandic raising a bright new yellow flag to the top of the pole as a reminder of the remaining American hostages. “Pray that they come home soon and that maybe by Christmas we can lower this flag,” Jacobsen said.

Jacobsen also praised his eldest son, Eric, 30, for working hard for his release, and he thanked city officials for holding an outdoor ceremony, reminding them that he had spent months in his small cell in Iran, “never seeing the outdoors once. I did see the stars and moon once.”