Former Hostage in Iran Shares Memories And Lessons on Anniversary of Release

McLean's Steven Kirtley can still remember the day, Nov. 20, 1981, in Iran, when after 444 days he saw the light. His blindfold off, he looked through a corridor of people, and saw his path, leading from the bottom steps of the bus to the plane, waiting to take him and the other 52 men held hostage back to America.

Today marks the 24th anniversary of the end of the Iran Hostage Crisis, a conflict that has, to this day, stained relations between U.S. and Iran and introduced America to the hostility and terrorism that has become a regular part of the modern world. And just as the reverberations are still being felt in international politics, so too has the experience had a lasting impact on Kirtley in a variety of ways; some predictable, others not.

On Nov. 4, 1979, hundreds of Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran taking 66 American civilians and military personnel hostage. The action was a response to the admission into the U.S. for medical treatment of the recently deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

After releasing 13 of the hostages — the women and African Americans in the group — the Iranians detained the other 52 hostages for over a year, demanding the return of the Shah to Iran to face trial.

Kirtley can remember when the Iranians first stormed the American compound. He expected to die that day. With his hands bound by ropes and with a blindfold over his eyes, he was led through the 26 acre compound.

Having been responsible for the security of the embassy compound for three months, Kirtley could identify where he was being led, despite the blindfold and he knew when he was stood in an open area, his back against a brick wall.

“I thought they were getting ready to shoot me,” Kirtley said. He stayed there for several minutes, noise flooding his ears; then he was led away.

It was the first of three times when he thought he was going to die.

The second came after a guard discovered a weapon hidden in one of the hostage’s mattresses. In the middle of the night men with automatic rifles pulled Kirtley and the rest of the hostages out of their rooms, blindfolded them, and lined them up along the wall.

Kirtley remembers standing there in silence, then hearing a shouted command and the sound of the guards loading their weapons. For what seemed like an eternity, the men waited. Kirtley tensed, expecting the report of the rifles, wondering whether he should die fighting. But the rifles never fired and the men were led back to their rooms.

The third time was when Kirtley was being moved from Isfahad back to Tehran. After the failed U.S. rescue attempt in April of 1980, the hostages were spread out around the country, then brought back together later in the year, ferried across the country in vans driven at high speed.

Kirtley described what happened when the driver of the van he was in fell asleep at the wheel and drove the van off the road. As the van tumbled over several times; Kirtley said he remembered the dome light passing in front of his eyes time and again, and calmly realized in the midst of the commotion that the doors must be open.

When it came to a rest on its wheels the driver immediately left the van, heading to the road to get help, while the captives stumbled from the vehicle. For a second Kirtley shared a look with the other Marines, thinking it was a chance to escape, but then the futility of their situation became apparent, as they stared at the desert landscape stretching off in all directions. In a short time the driver came back with another man, and they ushered their hostages into another vehicle and continued their journey to Tehran.

While these moments are seared forever into Kirtley’s memory, his time as a hostage was actually characterized by an incessant boredom.

“The worst thing was just not knowing what would happen,” he said.

Throughout their captivity, the hostages had very little awareness of what was going on outside their confines. Their captors allowed them to receive only censored mail, and they were sometimes able to discern messages hidden within the letters. It was from one of those letters that they found out the Shah had died.

Kirtley said that the imprisonment wasn’t as hard for him as it was for some others. A 22 year old corporal from Arkansas, Kirtley had few family ties that would make him desperate to return home. He recalled older men, fathers and husbands, who missed their families terribly. Kirtley and the other young soldiers would do their best to cheer up them up. Today, married and father to three boys, Kirtley realizes how hard it had to have been for them.

Kirtley’s life afterwards was profoundly impacted by those 444 days. Surprisingly, the experience provided a boost to his career. After his release, he was offered an honorable discharge from the Marines. Instead, he decided to remain, and was stationed to a locale of his choice.

Kirtley decided to return to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he worked as assistant for public affairs. Often assigned to give speeches, he was something of a celebrity. Later the Marines accepted him to officer training school and sent him to college to get a bachelor’s degree in communications and later a master’s degree in information systems.

For a high school drop-out who joined the Marines, inspired by the John Wayne film “Leathernecks,” it was an unexpected opportunity that he took full advantage of.

At drill instructor school he finished third in his class, and later in college he worked hard, an effort that opened up his future. By the time the memories of the hostage crisis faded in public memory, Kirtley had, through the opportunities presented and his own initiative, become a successful officer, taking part in the Desert Storm. Later, after he left the service, he took a job in Virginia working in information systems for a private contractor.

While his experience in Iran offered unexpected opportunities, it has also affected his personal view of life. The son of an alcoholic father, Kirtley found that being a hostage alone, far away from home, made him much more appreciative of family ties.

Today he is passionately committed to raising his own three boys. “I love my job, but I can do about anything [for work],” he said. “The only things I can’t replace are the kids and the family.”

Today he coaches his sons Cameron (13) and Chris (8) in football, and says that Brian (7) is starting to show an interest as well.

As far as how that chapter in his life has affected his political views, Kirtley is careful about what he says. He is hesitant to speculate about the effect the hostage crisis in 1979 has had on the atmosphere of global terrorism. “It’s been beaten to death by people who have read a lot more about it than me,” he said.

Also, after listening to what has been reported about that hostage crisis, and how the media characterized the hostages once released, Kirtley has become cautious about talking to the press, and generally takes what is reported with a grain of salt.

It is another one of the unexpected lessons he has gained from being in the public eye for so long.

Kirtley is supportive of the present military action in Iraq, and believes that some amount of force is necessary to resolving the problems in the region. He also said that the recent kidnappings in Iraq are profoundly different from the situation he faced two decades ago. “They really had their goal in mind, and they believed that by taking the embassy they would get the Shah back,” he said. In contrast, the present kidnappings, Kirtley believes, are just for the terror effect.

Still, he remains more than willing to avoid guessing, or second-guessing, policies about the Middle-East. While he will never forget his time spent as a bargaining tool in a game of international politics, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, and there is a lot on his plate that has nothing to do with hostages. “It’s just a unique chapter in my life and personal history,” said Kirtley.