Bethel College math professor Dr. Jesse Turner wears a
golden, chain-link bracelet on his left wrist.
He laughs heartily as he explains, on a late summer
day in Tennessee, breathing fresh air among free
people on the beautiful southern campus, that "when
things get really crappy" the bracelet is a reminder
of five years spent chained to walls in Lebanon.
He had gone to the country to teach at American
sponsored Beirut University in the fall of 1983, when
Lebanon was eight years into a 16-year civil war and
amid increasing violence in the Middle East.
Four years into his adventure, however, personal
violence seemed a remote possibility. He enjoyed his
job teaching mathematics and computer science at the
university that boasted some 1700 students. And he and
his wife of six months, also a professor at the
university whom he had met after his arrival, were
expecting a baby. Despite the obvious unrest, Turner
felt relatively safe in the city that, for him and his
family, was home.
"It was pretty much like teaching anywhere," says
Turner, regarding the interest and aptitude of the
Lebanese students. Not so similar were the lulls of
relative calm before once again various militias were
fighting in the streets.
Still, he said, "School ran most of the time unless
there was a battle in the neighborhood."
He took warnings with a grain of salt and, contrary to
some accounts, he says, "I was never told specifically
to leave; they told us we should, but there was no
order to leave from the Embassy."
Besides, he had experienced no hostility in the
supportive academic environment. "We had lots of
support," he says, "The students definitely did not
want us to leave. As far as the people on campus -
everybody as far as staff and faculty were concerned -
they were happy to have us there. They needed us; that
was the impression I had."
But signs of trouble soon became more apparent.
"I was on campus, it was the week Terry Waite left, or
disappeared, rather," he says with an ironic chuckle.
"A couple of other people had disappeared off the
streets so we were sticking pretty close to campus."
When a group of men dressed as police officers came to
the university on January 24, 1987, requesting a
meeting with foreign professors, it soon became clear
the meeting was a ruse for kidnapping. Turner, along
with business professor Robert Polhill, journalism
instructor Alann Steen, and business professor
Mithileshwar Singh, from India, were handcuffed two by
two and herded out the door to a waiting police
cruiser.
The terrorists were armed with pistols and Russian
made AK-47 assault rifles, recounts Turner, whose
emotions ran the gamut of shock, fear, and disbelief.
They were taken first to a house or apartment, then
moved periodically.
"Sometimes we were in a place over a year and
sometimes we'd move after a few days. A couple of
times it was a garage, I think," Turner recalls,
"Another time it was a school, but most of time it was
apartments."
The reason for their confinement remained unclear for
the duration of their captivity. Indeed, early
announcements indicated the militants themselves were
unsure as to the value of their prize.
On the day of their capture, the terrorists threatened
to kill one of the four hostages unless West Germany
freed an Arab wanted for the 1985 hijacking of TWA
Flight 847, during which U.S. Navy diver Robert
Stethem was killed.
Five days later, with three U.S. Naval groups in the
eastern Mediterranean Sea and British air units on
Cyprus on alert, the kidnappers threatened to execute
the four men if a military attack was launched against
Lebanon.
And less than a month later, on February 14, the
terrorists withdrew an offer to exchange the four
professors for 400 Arabs held by Israel.
"We were part of the inventory; we were supposed to
have some value in case they could trade us for
something and they weren't getting much cooperation
from the American government," Turner surmises,
allowing he was resigned to his fate.
"Sometimes we would go a year without anything being
said. We didn't know what was going on; we had no
access to news or outside communication. They fed us
and left us in a room, always chained to a wall."
Indicating the chains were situated close to the
floor, he continues, his voice reflecting gradually
increasing hopelessness in memory of his situation,
"We could sit. We could stand up most of the time. But
we were still chained."
The hostages continued to pass the time as best they
could. They were provided with a foam rubber mattress,
a blanket and pillow. Often, especially in winter,
there was no electricity and they sat in the dark in a
room heated by an oil stove.
"We used to smoke cigarettes; that was something to
do. They just wanted us to be quiet," he notes. "They
didn't want to hear you outside the room, and
occasionally something would be going by outside the
house and we would have to stop talking completely for
fear of discovery."
Eventually the terrorists provided reading material,
at first bringing Harlequin Romances and later
classics like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
"They brought a lot of stuff you'd want to read once
and throw away but we ended up reading them eight or
nine times just to keep busy," Turner smirks.
They also provided pens and paper in limited
quantities, asking the hostages to write letters that
were never mailed.
"One time they asked for a bio," Turner recalls. "Most
of the time they didn't care what we wrote because
they knew we weren't going to take it out with us
anyway."
Though he acknowledges the food they ate was close to
that which the terrorists themselves consumed, Turner
notes, "Sometimes the food was bad, but it wasn't so
much that it was bad as we were usually hungry."
Punishment was meted if the hostages defied the
terrorists too openly or protested their
circumstances.
"They didn't beat me very much," says Turner, whose
punishment usually consisted of a smack to the back of
his head by terrorists who were barely in their
twenties.
"Alann Steen was an ex-Marine so he had a little bit
more trouble," says Turner, himself a former Navy
seaman, whose philosophy was, "Just make yourself
small, unnoticeable, and maybe they'll forget about
you."
Born Jesse Jonathan Turner in Iowa and raised in
Idaho, Turner joined the Navy right out of high
school. He served as an electrical technician at a
Navy communications station on Oahu, some 20 miles
from Honolulu, and later attended the University of
Hawaii. He eventually obtained a degree in psychology
from Boise State University, and a master's degree in
philosophy from the University of Idaho as well as a
master's degree and PhD in mathematics.
The prisoners spoke only briefly with their captors,
but "over the years", Turner says, one began to know
them.
"The only time they sat and talked with us was when
they came in and took us to the bathroom, after every
meal usually," he says, relating some of them were
ex-prisoners themselves and tended to have some
sympathy with the hostage's situation.
"Some of the situations they'd been in were pretty
bad," asserts Turner. "We all felt we had some
understanding that they were people, too. Everybody
deserves an equal chance; they have hopes and desires
and dreams just like we do. It's a matter of respect
we have to have for people - respect and
understanding."
Despite his views, he admits he had no misgivings
concerning the seriousness of his plight: "They would
have killed us, no doubt."
He continues, "They admitted they didn't have anything
personal against us; I thought they were a highly
disciplined unit."
The terrorists provided Turner with a Bible six months
after he requested one.
"At the time, I was a fashionable agnostic and over
time I began to change," he shares. "Captivity had
something to do with it. I had the time to think about
it and I began to see the book as a moral document; it
took awhile to see it that way. It's a giant puzzle,
and I had time to work it."
Over the years, he had been allowed only a short note
from his wife, a treasure that was taken away after
about a year.
Although he was told when his baby was born, he says,
"They didn't tell me what it was for a long time."
His daughter was four and a half years old when the
time neared for his release and he was allowed to send
a letter home to his wife, who in 1990 had moved to
the United States.
Turner was moved to a halfway house two and a half or
three weeks before his release, a step that usually
signaled departure within a few days.
"They told me I was going to get out but it dragged on
and on," he relates. "I thought it was going to fail
and I didn't want to get my hopes up."
Former U.N. negotiator Giandomenico Picco relates in
his book, Man Without a Gun, a surreptitious chain of
events in which, eventually, he found himself in the
middle of the night in a car with Turner, who was
crouched in the back seat.
From the book, Picco says:
I took his hand and said, "Professor Turner, you are
going to be freed now. I am Gianni Picco from the
U.N."
He said, "I am so grateful." I was also asked to bend
my head between my knees as the car was moving. We
finally stopped in a very dark place. The driver
ordered us out, and I told Turner to slide over and
get out on my side, lest the car speed off with him. I
lifted my head to see where we were and noticed that
he was still bent down, head on his knees.
"Mr. Turner, what are you doing?"
"Well, I haven't been given the instruction to lift my
head."
"No, no. You're free now. You're a free man. And I am
very happy to be the one to tell you this."
He was holding my hand, and he was trembling.
A news release attributed to the United Press
International stated Turner was freed by the Islamic
Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine after nearly
five years' captivity. His release took place hours
after Israel freed 14 Arabs held in southern Lebanon
and a 15th from an Israeli jail.
Turner met his wife in Germany where they spent
several days before returning to the United States.
"I was stunned; it was kind of hard to believe it was
over," Turner relates, "I was glad of course,
relieved."
Home in Idaho, he shares, "I took a walk through Boise
alone, and it was all different."
As Christmas neared, on December 12, Turner, Steen,
and former hostages Thomas Sutherland and Joseph
Cicippio joined President George H.W. Bush for the
tree lighting that was accomplished by Terry Anderson,
the last American hostage to be released from Lebanon.
Turner taught at Idaho State University in Dubois for
five years before deciding to search for a position at
a university where "I could work until I drop."
His search led him to Bethel College in McKenzie,
Tennessee.
"I like it here, I like the students," he says. "It's
very quiet compared to what we're used to. We
certainly have a nice view off our back porch; it's
very pastoral and relaxing."
