Pasadena Ex-Hostage Sees His Son for the First Time : Reunions: The 19-week ordeal also ends for Kevin Bazner, who is welcomed in Palm Springs.

When James Vine stepped onto the tarmac at Houston’s Ellington Field before dawn Sunday, the Pasadena man saw his 3-month-old son, Evan, for the first time. When the boy was born, his father was a “guest” of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Later, when an exhausted Kevin Bazner flew into Palm Springs, Mayor Sonny Bono shook his hand, several strangers shouted “Welcome home!” and a mob of reporters angled for a quote, any quote. What brought joy to Bazner’s pale, drawn features, however, was the attention of his 6-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.

Their 19-week odyssey as hostages and human shields over, Vine and Bazner were among the first Americans to exit Iraq and arrive home since Hussein announced an end to the forced detention of foreigners.

Vine and Bazner were among 25 former hostages and U.S. Embassy personnel who arrived in Houston aboard a jet owned by the Coastal Corp., a Houston-based energy company.

For many people, Sunday was the finest day in at least four months and one week.

“They’re out!” Delores Ashby of Long Beach said Sunday evening after catching a glimpse of her father and stepbrother on a CNN report out of Frankfurt. Gene Hughes, 69, and Don Latham, 50, had been in hiding in Kuwait. They and others are expected to arrive at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington D.C. today.

“They were just walking by the camera,” Ashby said.

Edward Lammerding of Rancho Cordova, near Sacramento, was worried early Sunday that his son Joseph might still be hiding. The State Department had made a list of Americans who boarded the evacuation flight from Kuwait city, and Joseph’s name wasn’t on it.

Later, however, the Lammerdings were able to talk to their son by phone--from Frankfurt. He had made it out.

Jim Vine and Kevin Bazner were among several Californians aboard the Coastal Corp. flight. A company spokesman identified the others as Bill Nelson of Los Angeles, John Remington of Redondo Beach, Andrew McQueen of Fremont and Keith Sharpen of Pacifica.

“I feel wonderful,” said Vine’s mother-in-law, Edith Doxsee of Pasadena. “They had a great reunion.”

Doxsee said her daughter, Donna, learned on Saturday that Vine would be aboard the Coastal Corp. flight and hastily packed up her 3 1/2-year-old son, David, and infant, Evan, for the trip to Houston. “We were so excited, we had no time to think about it. She just had to go,” Doxsee said.

The family had moved to Kuwait in the summer so that James Vine could manage a university construction project. His wife had returned home to await childbirth when Kuwait was invaded Aug. 2.

Bazner, an international sales executive for a soft drink company who lives in Malaysia, was caught up in the Persian Gulf crisis along with his wife and children when their airliner touched down for refueling in Kuwait city in the midst of the invasion.

Dawn Bazner had traveled back to Baghdad last week to appeal for the release of foreigners. At the Palm Springs airport, relatives greeted the Bazners with balloons, a bouquet of red roses and a white limousine to transport them to their Palm Desert home.