An Officer and a Gentleman Comes Home: Lieut. Robert O. Goodman

He looked so horribly vulnerable in that first photograph, a stark, grainy shot of a dazed U.S. soldier, eyes rolled back, mouth agape, body slumped insensibly on the shoulder of his impassive Syrian captor. For a month, that disturbing image came to mind whenever ; Americans thought about the young Navy flyer who had been shot down during a bombing run over Lebanon, the first U.S. serviceman taken prisoner in combat since Viet Nam. Lieut. Robert O. Goodman Jr., 27, did not see the picture until last week, when he was flying back home aboard a military plane. He stared at himself and said numbly, "That's pretty bad."

He looked pretty good getting off a VC-137 jet at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Wearing his Navy dress blue uniform with gold trim, Goodman began a chaotic week of welcoming ceremonies, television interviews, motorcades and military debriefings. More than just a prisoner found alive and well, Goodman emerged as a self-possessed naval officer who could exhibit surpassing poise and dignity.

At a White House ceremony held only five hours after Goodman landed at Andrews, President Reagan praised the young officer's conduct in captivity, saying he "exemplified qualities of leadership and loyalty." Those traits are deeply ingrained. The son of a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, Goodman was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Later he moved to his father's new station at Portsmouth, N.H., where he pushed himself hard to become an A student and football player in high school. He went to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and later attended Navy flight school in Pensacola, Fla. Goodman married Terry Lynn Bryant, whom he had

met in high school. The couple and their two daughters, Tina, 7, by Terry's previous marriage, and Morgan, 2, moved to Virginia Beach, Va., two years ago, when Goodman was assigned to Attack Squadron 85 at Oceana Naval Air Station. Last September the squadron was posted to the Mediterranean aboard the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy.

Goodman can only vaguely recall the Syrian gunfire that downed his A-6 fighter last Dec. 4, killing the pilot, Lieut. Mark Lange, 26, and leaving Goodman a P.O.W. "I remember the plane being jostled," Goodman said, "and instead of looking at the sky, I was looking at the ground." Ejected from the plunging aircraft, he passed out, awakening to the sensation of "ropes so tight my fingers were numb." His knee and shoulder were injured during the mission. Goodman was taken to a six-story military compound in Damascus and locked in a dank basement room, where he endured threats, occasional beatings ("They weren't trying to hurt me, just trying to scare me") and shrill interrogations. His answers, he said, were "very vague."

A visit from the Red Cross four days after his capture was followed by a move to a larger room and slightly better treatment. He saw a doctor, perused some 60,000 cards and letters that poured in from the U.S., and read books: Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline, James Michener's Chesapeake, Len Deighton's XPD, Robert Ludlum's The Parsifal Mosaic.