TERRY Anderson, a well-known journalist for The Associated Press who was captured and held in Lebanon for nearly seven years in the 1980s, has died.
Anderson died on Sunday at age 76 at his home in Greenwood Lake, New York, according to his daughter, Sulome Anderson.
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His daughter revealed that Anderson died of complications from recent heart surgery.
“He never liked to be called a hero, but that’s what everyone persisted in calling him,” said Sulome.
“I saw him a week ago and my partner asked him if he had anything on his bucket list, anything that he wanted to do. He said, ‘I’ve lived so much and I’ve done so much. I’m content.’”
His death was a shock to many, including those who worked at the AP.
“Terry was deeply committed to on-the-ground eyewitness reporting and demonstrated great bravery and resolve, both in his journalism and during his years held hostage,” said Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the AP.
“We are so appreciative of the sacrifices he and his family made as the result of his work.”
On March 16, 1985, Anderson captured America’s attention after he was abducted while reporting in Lebanon.
He believes he was targeted due to his research and questioning, which could have caused members of the group, Hezbollah, to expect the worst.
“Because in their terms, people who go around asking questions in awkward and dangerous places have to be spies,“ he told the Virginia newspaper The Review of Orange County in 2018.
While imprisoned he was said to have been beaten, chained to a wall, threatened, and held in solitary confinement.
He documented his torture and imprisonment by Islamic militants, which he released in his memoir “Den of Lions.”
Other hostages recalled that despite his terrifying treatment, he often rallied for better food and accommodations, argued religion and politics, and even taught other hostages sign language so they could communicate.
Anderson was able to return to the United States in 1991.
Once home, he gave inspiring public speeches, taught journalism, and operated multiple business ventures.
The journalist struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after being released from imprisonment.
“The AP got a couple of British experts in hostage decompression, clinical psychiatrists, to counsel my wife and myself and they were very useful,” Anderson told the AP in a 2018 interview.
“But one of the problems I had was I did not recognize sufficiently the damage that had been done.
“So, when people ask me, you know, ‘Are you over it?’ Well, I don’t know. No, not really. It’s there. I don’t think about it much these days, it’s not central to my life. But it’s there.”
He was awarded millions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets after it was concluded that the country played a major role in his abduction.
Anderson worked at the University of Florida until retiring in 2015.
Afterward, he moved from the Sunshine State to Northern Virginia, where he lived on a small horse farm.
“I live in the country and it’s reasonably good weather and quiet out here and a nice place, so I’m doing all right,” he said.
EARLY LIFE
Anderson was born on October 27, 1947.
He grew up in Vermilion, Ohio, about 35 miles west of Cleveland.
After graduating high school, he enlisted in the Marines where he became a staff sergeant during the Vietnam War.
Once he retired from the military, he decided to back to school to get a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science at Iowa State University.
Upon graduation, he went to work for the AP, where he traveled the world reporting on local and international news.
“Actually, it was the most fascinating job I’ve ever had in my life,” he told The Review.
“It was intense. War’s going on — it was very dangerous in Beirut. Vicious civil war, and I lasted about three years before I got kidnapped.”
During his life, Anderson was married and divorced three times.
He was survived by his kids Gabrielle, Judy, Jack, and Sulome.
“Though my father’s life was marked by extreme suffering during his time as a hostage in captivity, he found a quiet, comfortable peace in recent years. I know he would choose to be remembered not by his very worst experience, but through his humanitarian work with the Vietnam Children’s Fund, the Committee to Protect Journalists, homeless veterans, and many other incredible causes,” Sulome Anderson said in a statement Sunday.
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