Tracy Begins His Journey Back to the ‘Real World’

For 33 years, Edward Austin Tracy wandered the world, a restless expatriate living in Africa and Australia, Europe, the Canary Islands and, finally, fatefully, in Lebanon.

Now, in his 60s, confused and basically alone, a white-haired man surrounded by well-meaning strangers is embarking on what may prove the most difficult journey of his life--back to the “real world” that he feared might have disappeared during his five years of captivity in Beirut.

On his first full day of freedom, Tracy was surrounded by the simple pleasures of life: A tuna sandwich for lunch. New shoes. A haircut. Steaming cups of coffee just for the asking. A pizza with the grown son he has not seen in years.

But doctors were evasive about the emotional toll taken by Tracy’s ordeal and indicated that he may need long-term psychological care.

“Living in captivity five years--that’s a very stressful time, and everyone is going to have difficulties with that,” said Col. Earl W. Ferguson, commander of the Air Force hospital in Wiesbaden.

Ferguson told a news conference that Tracy’s “overall condition is not unexpected,” but he refused--at Tracy’s request--to provide any details.

Doctors began their battery of medical tests on Tracy in the wing called Freedom Hall and initially pronounced him well-nourished and in sound physical shape.

Ferguson said Tracy indicated that he “has ties to the Boston area” and would like to return there when tests here are completed, probably in a few days.

But questions about the enigmatic traveling salesman’s mental health were left unanswered, and no new details unfolded about his ordeal in the hands of the Revolutionary Justice Organization, the Shiite Muslim terrorist group that had held him.

There was even some confusion about Tracy’s age. Doctors at Wiesbaden said Monday that he is 63 although earlier information--including his Vermont birth certificate--show him as 60.

State Department debriefers, officially known as a “repatriation team,” and hospital psychiatrists began questioning Tracy, but initial findings were not disclosed.

Ferguson indicated that Tracy was willing to talk about his experiences in “the confidential and structured environment” that the hospital offers.

“We have a number of psychiatrists, psychologists, people working with Mr. Tracy, as they do with all hostages coming back, and I anticipate that will be necessary in the future for Mr. Tracy, just as it is for many of them,” Ferguson said.

Doctors found Tracy physically in “very good shape,” the colonel added.

He said Tracy had been well fed by his captors. For at least part of his imprisonment, Tracy was able to eat meat, vegetables and fruit, he explained.

Asked whether there were old injuries or other signs that Tracy had been physically abused at any point, Ferguson would not comment, again citing Tracy’s request for privacy.

Most questions during the 15-minute news conference focused on Tracy’s mental health, which has become an issue, in part, because of statements by his former wife. Tracy also seemed disoriented at times during a brief interview with Syrian television upon his release Sunday in Damascus.

Ferguson repeatedly sidestepped pointed questions about Tracy’s emotional well-being by saying he is in “a very good state nutritionally.”

Asked whether Tracy might suffer from a chronic mental illness, Ferguson said only, “We are evaluating a number of things and are not ready to make a statement at the present time.”

Ferguson said former hostages face “a very significant readjustment” to family members upon their release.

But unlike the former hostages before him, who found excited wives or children waiting for them here, when Tracy stepped gingerly from the helicopter that brought him to the hospital late Sunday, he was greeted only by cheering strangers--the hospital staff, patients and their families, and waiting journalists. None of his three grown children or other family members or friends were there.

Ferguson said Tracy’s son, Lawrence, visited his father Monday evening to share supper, but no details of the reunion were made public. Lawrence Tracy would not talk to the media and asked base spokesmen not to release any information about him.

The Wiesbaden facility, targeted for closure in the next couple of years, has become the way station to the real world for freed American hostages.

“The time at Wiesbaden is for preliminary medical checkups and to give them a breather before they are required to face family, friends, media,” said Dr. Edna J. Hunter, who has studied hostages and prisoners of war for 20 years. “It’s a decompression.”

Hunter, currently deputy chairman of the advisory committee on former POWs for the Department of Veterans Affairs, said former hostages need their average three days at Wiesbaden “to really realize that they are free.”

Starting with 52 Americans who had been held by the Iranian revolutionaries in Tehran throughout 1980, a total of 115 ex-hostages have passed through Freedom Hall over the last 10 years.

Tracy is staying in one of two suites furnished in a homey, non-hospital style in anticipation of just such a guest. A color television set and copies of Reader’s Digest condensed books provide entertainment.

“It’s a break along the way, a good chance to catch their breath and start the transition to normalcy,” said Capt. Cliff Atkinson, base spokesman.

If they do not wish to do so, released hostages are not required to undergo medical tests or debriefings on their way home, and they are free to leave the hospital at any time.

Staff members at the 185-bed facility always have spare bedsheets ready to be painted as “Welcome Home” banners, and they always line the balconies to cheer when a new patient arrives from the Middle East.

“We’re ready to work any special requests, too,” said Atkinson. “We can make things happen.”

The hospital was once reportedly inundated with crates of lobsters from donors when one former hostage mentioned how much he’d like a lobster dinner.

Ferguson said everyday routines, “such as the chance to choose different foods” or having a new passport photo taken, as Tracy did Monday, help speed the re-entry into society.

“The first few days are very critical,” he said. “You see a lot of changes.”