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

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"The next thing I was going to read," he said, "was The Right Stuff. " Goodman also watched Syrian television, which to his surprise carried old John Wayne movies and episodes of the television sitcom Gimme a Break. Goodman found his guards' occasional kindness "unnerving," mixed as it was with humiliating, false assurances of imminent release.

Goodman steeled himself by thinking daily about "the P.O.W. experience that I had been trained to withstand."

Learning of his release only half an hour ahead of time, Goodman reacted coolly. He later explained, "I didn't want them [the Syrians] to get to me. I was pretty reserved until I was walking out the door."

In fact, Goodman kept his guard up long after his plane had landed in the U.S. He diplomatically thanked "all the people involved in getting me home a little bit earlier than envisioned," and at times appeared uncomfortable under Jesse Jackson's smothering wing. He was more at ease at the Pentagon. After meeting with Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, Goodman delighted his superiors with his confident handling of the press.

Holding a 15-inch model of the A6, he defended the fighter as "one of the most capable aircraft in the world."

Members of Goodman's family showed their emotions more. When they heard about Jackson's plan to fly to Syria, both his father and his mother, who are divorced, were polite but firm about their misgivings. Jackson tried to reassure them about the mission, and they reacted joyfully to word of its success. Said Robert Sr.: "Jackson deserves all the credit in the world."

Soon after Goodman was turned over to the U.S. embassy in Damascus, the elder Goodmans' were reunited with Robert via satellite on the morning news shows. Before millions of television viewers, they spoke with touchingly awkward grace. Goodman's wife Terry, who had waited out the ordeal at their home in Virginia Beach, met her husband at Andrews with a wordless embrace. Her low-profile role had perhaps been the toughest. "She just kept on," marveled her next-door neighbor, Susan Wachter. "I don't think I could have done it. She's definitely a good Navy wife."

With his wife's blessing, Goodman vowed to return to duty as soon as he recovers from surgery on his injured knee. The weary homecomer had little time for privacy and rest. After a noisy reunion with friends in Virginia, Goodman headed for home-town Portsmouth to celebrate "Robert Goodman Day." He seemed embarrassed by the fuss. As he insisted all along, "I'm not a hero . . . I'm a naval officer." — Alessandra Stanley. Reported by Bruce van Voorst/Washington and Jack E. White with Jackson