Ex-Hostage and Family Return Home to Idaho : Repatriation: Music and fireworks honor Jesse Turner in Boise. The former Mideast captive has been silent since leaving a hospital in Germany.

Jesse Turner, held captive in the Middle East for 4 1/2 years, returned to his hometown with his family on Friday, still striving to maintain privacy in the most public of homecomings.

The 44-year-old mathematics professor landed in Boise shortly after 11 p.m. (10 p.m. PDT) Friday. He was greeted by Mayor Dirk Kempthorne and ushered into a limousine for the 10-minute trip to the Statehouse and a homecoming celebration with fireworks and a marching band.

When reporters asked Turner how he felt, he just shrugged and smiled.

Earlier in the day, Turner landed at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago with his Lebanese-born wife, Badr, and their 4-year-old daughter, Joanne, on a flight from Frankfurt, Germany.

“He smoked a pack of cigarettes, drank a couple beers and ate a bunch of food,” said Ray Hipp, who sat in front of the Turners during the flight.

Hipp said that during the flight he told Turner: “Welcome to America,” but that Turner did not respond. “He was very quiet,” said Hipp, a Chicago resident.

Because Turner had requested privacy, he and his family were taken from the United Airlines flight to an undisclosed site to await their late evening flight home to Boise, airline spokesman Joe Hopkins said.

Hours later, the Turners boarded a United flight to Boise. They were driven to the plane in a van, and reporters were kept inside the terminal.

Turner grew up and went to school in Boise. His mother and stepfather still live in the city.

Workers transformed the steps of the Idaho Statehouse into a huge reception area, where Kempthorne and Gov. Cecil D. Andrus spoke before the program of music, fireworks and the ringing of church bells.

After Turner’s release Tuesday, he was taken to the U.S. Air Force hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany, for a round of medical tests and State Department debriefings before being sent home to Idaho.

Turner made no comments to reporters in Frankfurt or Chicago.

He wore a new brown jacket, smiled and looked relaxed early Friday when he left on the flight to Chicago.

His wife carried their daughter, whom Turner saw for the first time Wednesday at the hospital in Wiesbaden.

The girl was born after Turner was kidnaped in Beirut on Jan. 24, 1987. He had been held captive by Shiite Muslim kidnapers in Lebanon.

The joyous homecoming to America was soured by a run-in between the State Department and Turner’s parents.

“I thought this would be a wonderful time, but it hasn’t been,” his mother, Estelle Ronneburg, said Friday after she and her husband--Turner’s stepfather, Eugene Ronneburg--returned home early from Germany.

The parents left Germany abruptly Thursday after State Department officials criticized Eugene Ronneburg for having videotaped Turner’s reunion with his family and then allowing CBS television to broadcast it.

After the videotape was aired, State Department officials banned Ronneburg from the hospital in Wiesbaden and the U.S.-government-owned hotel where the Turner family was staying.

“One of the most basic elements of U.S. concern for any freed hostage is his or her privacy. Yesterday, Mr. Ronneburg violated that policy,” State Department spokesman Joe Reap said.

Estelle Ronneburg said her son was “upset” but didn’t know if it was with the State Department or his parents.

U.S. sources said Turner had asked for privacy and his stepfather had known of the request.

Ronneburg did not disclose that he had an arrangement with U.S. television and implied that he was recording the reunion for home use, said one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.