U.S. Pilot Reunited With Wife in Germany : Aftermath: Crowd of 200 greets former captive of Somalis. He is expected to be flown home today.

Army helicopter pilot Michael J. Durant, whose bruised face became an unnerving symbol of the U.S. military presence in Somalia, is expected to be flown home today after an emotional reunion Friday with his wife at a military hospital here.

“He seems to have bounced back very well,” said Col. Robert Mirelson after meeting with the couple several hours after Durant’s arrival. “As young and strong as he is and with his attitude, I don’t think it will be a very long recovery period.”

Military doctors said further surgery on Durant’s broken right thigh, into which doctors earlier inserted a pin, can wait until after his return to Ft. Campbell, Ky., his home station. Doctors set his fractured right cheekbone and said his other injuries--a shrapnel wound on his arm and a compression fracture of a lower vertebra--were not serious enough to prevent his travel to the United States.

“Our goal is to get him back home as quickly as we possibly can,” said Col. David Layland, the hospital commander.

Durant, who was freed in Mogadishu on Thursday by rebel leader Mohammed Farah Aidid after 11 days of captivity, was welcomed to Germany by a flag-waving crowd of 200 that braved rain and winter-like cold to cheer his arrival. The 69th casualty of the Somalia peacekeeping mission to be evacuated to Germany, Durant was injured when his helicopter was shot down in a raid on a gathering of Aidid’s associates.

Smiling and clutching the maroon beret of his elite airborne regiment, the shirtless Durant flashed a thumbs-up sign from his stretcher as he was carried from the C-141 transport plane to a military ambulance at the nearby Ramstein air base. Another throng of well-wishers greeted him at the hospital in Landstuhl.

“We’ve done a lot of praying, and I feel like our prayers have been answered,” said Staff Sgt. John Hastings, a longtime friend who applauded Durant from outside the emergency room. “It is cold and miserable, but there was no way I was going to miss this.”

Ten hours earlier in Mogadishu, Durant had been given a hero’s send-off by about 500 fellow soldiers, some of whom sang “God Bless America” and toasted him and his crew mates who died in the fierce fighting Oct. 3 that downed his aircraft, killed 18 Americans and led to his capture. The Pentagon announced Friday that the body of the last missing soldier from that battle had been identified as Staff Sgt. William D. Cleveland Jr., 34, of Peoria, Ariz.

“It was a real tear-jerker for all of us,” said Flight Engineer Rick Hosler, among the 12-member crew that accompanied Durant to Germany.

The pilot also took a phone call in Mogadishu from President Clinton, who praised his “service and bravery” and welcomed his release, officials said.

In Germany, authorities went to great lengths to keep the 32-year-old chief warrant officer and his wife, Lorrie, who arrived in Landstuhl just hours earlier, away from the crowds and the news media. Although describing Durant as upbeat and in good condition, doctors insisted that the trauma of his injuries and imprisonment dictated absolute privacy until further tests could be conducted.

Psychological teams from Germany, Durant’s unit in Somalia and his home base in Kentucky were on hand to help the pilot cope with the stress of the past two weeks. His wife was rushed to Landstuhl in part to provide Durant emotional support as early as possible, officials said.

“He needs some private time to kind of regroup and figure out for himself where he is,” said Lt. Col. Linda Roach, supervising nurse.

Military officials have been debriefing Durant on his ordeal in Somalia since he was freed, but they refused Friday to reveal those discussions. They also provided few details of the couple’s reunion, except to say that it was emotional and that Durant’s first questions were about his 14-month-old son, who did not make the trip to Germany.

The two spent most of the evening behind closed doors in Durant’s room on the second floor of a hospital ward that had been closed for renovations. The remote location was chosen because of its seclusion.

A nurse’s office across the hall was set up as a bedroom for Lorrie Durant, but her bed was equipped with casters so it could be easily wheeled into her husband’s room during the night. Hospital officials said the preparations were unusual but warranted.

“It is much more isolated and much more private because of what he has been through,” said Roach. “Whatever he needs we are prepared to provide.”

Durant has apparently made few demands, but about seven hours into his flight from Somalia he requested that the ambulance meet him with a large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese. However, when Durant, with an IV bottle overhead, was loaded into the ambulance on the rain-slicked tarmac, he was disappointed to learn that his doctors would not let him have a slice because of his liquid diet.

Meanwhile in Washington, Clinton said at a press conference that he does not expect any military officials to be disciplined as a result of the deaths of U.S. soldiers during the Oct. 3 raid on Aidid’s lieutenants in Mogadishu.

“I think that when young Americans are in peril, ultimately the President has to bear that responsibility,” he said.

The President, however, did concede that all parties involved, including the United States, must take responsibility for the “error” of having allowed a “police function”--apprehending people connected with the killing of Pakistani peacekeepers this past summer--to turn into a “military operation designed to take a group out of a dialogue about the political future of Somalia. We never intended that.”

“If we’re going to analyze the error, it seems to me that was where the error occurred, and I think we learned a very valuable lesson there,” Clinton said.

Administration officials expressed displeasure Friday with U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s plan to visit Mogadishu next week.

A senior official said the trip would probably be counterproductive because Boutros-Ghali “is not terribly popular there” and could prove a lightning rod for anti-U.N. or anti-American demonstrations.

A senior official said the Administration has made its wishes known through other African governments. Friction over the trip adds to growing tension between the Clinton White House and the United Nations over the Somalia mission.

Times staff writers David Lauter and John M. Broder contributed to this story.