Missing U.S. Air Force Major Jill Metzger FOUND

abcnews ^ | 982006 | JONATHAN KARL

[show me state]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2006 — Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger, who vanished Monday in Kyrgyzstan, has been found and now is back in Air Force control, ABC News has learned.

"We are elated to have Jill back with us," said Air Force spokesman Col. Scott Reese. Local police notified U.S. officials that she had been found at 1:15 a.m. local time in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Air Force officials say she was found alone and appears to have been beaten. Officials say she is "coherent," in "relatively good condition" and is talking to investigators. She is also undergoing medical evaluation.

Officials would not comment on the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and said the investigation is ongoing

The news brought elation to Metzger's family.

"It's a dream come true. The most significant event of our lives," said Kelly Mayo, Metzger's father-in-law. Mayo said he has not spoken to Metzger yet, but believes she had been kidnapped and "whoever had her dropped her off on the side of the road."

Metzger vanished on Monday afternoon in Kyrgyzstan — a poor, predominantly Muslim country in Central Asia. Since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Kyrgyzstan has been home to a strategically important U.S. military base that supports operations in Afghanistan. The government is generally pro-American, and in recent years has experienced sporadic clashes with Islamic fundamentalists.

Just 10 days before deploying to Kyrgyzstan in April, Metzger married Air Force Capt. Josh Mayo. They had already bought tickets for a honeymoon in Jamaica later this month, he said.

"We were going to take Jet Skis out, have a couple of romantic dinners. It is very disappointing," said Mayo

Before her disappearance, Metzger was last seen out shopping with five others from the base. The group briefly separated inside a department store in the center of Bishkek, several miles from the base. They had agreed to meet a short time later, but Metzger never showed up.

[Ax]

In 1980, we made our first family tour to the SOUK in Jeddah. At some point, I looked one way and my wife looked the other. When we turned back to each other, our 8-year old daughter wasn't there. We panicked, and all I could envision was our little girl being sold into slavery by some filthy pagan. We split up, and when I passed in front of an Indian's tailor shop, he yelled, "sahib, sahib, is this your daughter?" She had apparently wandered away. She was in his shop, wailing away, and I can't describe the relief we felt. I can only imagine the relief that Maj. Metzger's family felt. Gracias a Dios.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

...shows how effective the society has been 'feminized', which was always the Left's goal.

Yes, very insightful...

They have also used marijuana as a chemical agent and homosexuality as a psychological warfare to feminize males since the early 1960s...

[Candor7]

Major reported she had been kidnapped

(AP)

Updated: 2006-09-09 10:29

A U.S. Air Force officer who disappeared earlier this week in Kyrgyzstan was found alive late Friday, reportedly telling people who helped her that she had been kidnapped, officials said.

Maj. Jill Metzger, 33, was located by Kyrgyz law enforcement agents who informed authorities at the U.S. air base at the airport in Bishkek, the Central Asian nation's capital, base spokeswoman Capt. Anna Carpenter said.

Maj. Jill Metzger, 33, a personnel officer at the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing at Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan, is shown in an undated handout photo. Metzger, who was declared missing following her visit to a Bishkek shopping center Sept. 5, 2006, was found on the side of the road with her head shaven, father-in-law Kelly Mayo said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Colorado Springs on Friday, Sept. 8, 2006. [AP Kyrgyz Deputy Interior Minister Omurbek Suvanaliyev said Metzger, 33, knocked on the door of a house on the outskirts of the capital shortly before midnight and told its residents that she had been kidnapped.

Metzger said she had been abducted by three young men and a woman in a minibus and held in a rural area 30 miles from Bishkek, Suvanaliyev told The Associated Press Saturday. He cited local police in Kant, where he said she approached the first house she came to. He said she looked exhausted and her hair was dyed.

That account differed somewhat from one given by Metzger's father-in-law, Kelly Mayo, who said in a telephone interview with the AP from Colorado Springs, Colo., that Metzger was found on the side of the road with her head shaved.

"I know she's coherent, and whoever had her let her go," he said, adding that she had been beaten. "We've got her back. Praise the Lord."

Suvanaliyev said the people who took Metzger in when she knocked on their door called the police.

Mayo said the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations notified the family Friday afternoon but were given few details. He said his son, Air Force Capt. Joshua Mayo, was elated after being told about his wife.

"I can't even describe it. He's just beside himself, just unbelievable joy," Mayo said, adding the family was waiting for her to call.

There was no immediately U.S. comment on the kidnapping report. Carpenter declined to discuss Metzger's condition, which a U.S. military statement said will be determined by a medical team.

"We are elated to have Jill back with us," a U.S. military statement quoted the base commander, Col. Scott Reese, as saying.

Kyrgyz authorities notified base officials at 1:15 a.m. local time Saturday of the news, the statement said.

Metzger, a former resident of Henderson, N.C., was serving a four-month stint at the base with the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing. Her normal duty station is Moody Air Force Base in Georgia as a member of the 347th Mission Support Squadron. She had been scheduled to land back at her U.S. base Friday.

The U.S. military has maintained an air base at Kyrgyzstan's main civilian airport since 2001, backing operations in nearby Afghanistan.

Military officials said the newlywed Metzger, dressed in blue jeans and a sweater, vanished during a shopping trip to a tourist hotspot in Bishkek, where she was searching for souvenirs to bring home to her family. The so-called "cultural tours" are common for off-duty personnel.

Her disappearance had baffled investigators. The military had 22 special agents looking for Metzger.

The shopping center where Metzger disappeared, located about 35 miles from the base, is not a particularly dangerous area, said Col. Kevin Jacobson of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Still, the military had instituted a new policy barring all off-duty personnel from leaving the base until Metzger was found. It was unclear late Friday whether that policy had changed.

Interior Ministry spokesman Nurdin Jangarayev told the AP on Thursday that Metzger and another U.S. servicewoman were recorded on a security camera Tuesday afternoon as they entered TsUM, Bishkek's main department store.

She separated from her companion three minutes later, Jangarayev said. Over the next three hours, two calls were placed to her cellular phone but neither was answered, he said.

Before her disappearance, Metzger had been scheduled to head to Dayton, Ohio, for the annual United States Air Force Marathon. She has twice won the women's division of the event.

A week later, she was to travel with her husband to Jamaica for a belated 10-day honeymoon.

"Jill is a consummate happy-go-lucky person," her father-in-law said. "She doesn't see any kind of evil in the world. She's a wonderful, innocent person, and she would never think anyone would try and harm her."

**************************************************

I think she was fraternizing with some locals and things got out of hand.

Not so strange, thats been goiing on with US soldiers historically since the first time they were posted abroad. What is interesting is thet the USAF is trying to cover it up because she is a woman and an officer, though hardly a gentleman.......errr gentlewoman.

[LouAvul]

I think she was fraternizing with some locals and things got out of hand.

Could you elaborate? Do you think she was kidnapped?

[cardinal4]

Yikes. I remember that..

[Old Student]

IIRC, whatever your career field, if you don't make Major by 8 or 9, you're out at 10 in the Air Force. Promotions were slower, once upon a time, and they'll be slower again, I expect.

[patriciaruth]

"We were going to take Jet Skis out, have a couple of romantic dinners. It is very disappointing," said Mayo [her groom]

Who wouldn't want to runaway from that?

Whatever, I'm glad she is alive and safe now.

[Candor7]

Could you elaborate? Do you think she was kidnapped?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The scenario has been repeated a thousand times and here are the steps:

: 1) US soldier is befriended by locals and trusts them

2)US soldier goes voluntarily to meet with locals at a dinner or party, often in a remote location.

3) US soldier finds that he or she cannot leave dinner or party where US soldier gets drugged or drunk.

4) US soldier wakes up worse for wear.

5) Us soldier makes ruckus.

6) US soldier is beaten and/or raped, by someone who wants them or has fallen in love with them.

7) US soldier has money and clothes stolen, and is found wandering dazed in the outback.

8) US soldier no longer can pass a security clearance.

The mistake, is back at number 1, and Major knew it before hand but did it anyway.The gods destroy those who they first make proud.She may have been kidnapped say at step number 3 , but she likely was not kidnapped in the mall where she was shopping and went with them voluntarily with a promise to be back in a few hours.A mall kidnapping would have been reported and there would have been a ruckus.And if she had been kidnapped from the mall where she had been shopping, she would have been ransomed.

No, this was simply a party gone bad, and likely some Arab dude liked her stuff and did not want to let her go. The major was out of her league and is lucky to be alive.

[patriciaruth]

I would have never believed in a million years freepers would trash a member of our military like this without waiting for more facts.

You weren't around for the Jessica Lynch thread 3 years ago. That was a pip.

[patriciaruth]

Well, that explains why Captain Carter had to become Major Carter and why Colonel O'Neill became Major General O'Neill and why the star was promoted off the team and the show went down the tubes.

[ansel12]

We don't know what happened, and I was very annoyed at this thread yesterday, but new information is coming out, here is a paragraph from the New York Times.


"Kyrgyz police officials said the store’s security videotapes recorded her walking out of the store alone. They also said her cellular phone records showed she had called numbers outside Bishkek and that witnesses said she traveled by car to a bus station on the capital’s eastern side."

[ansel12]

Here is some more information from AP






"Kemilbek Kiyazov, chief of the Chuysk regional police department, said, "Her first testimony was that when she split up with her group in the department store, someone put a hard object and a note saying it was an explosive in a back pocket of her jeans.

"In the note there were also detailed instructions about where to go and what to do. Metzger says it was as if she were in a trance and fulfilling someone else's wishes."

Kiyazov said the major reported that she was met by three men and a woman who put her into a vehicle, took her to a house and placed her in a dark room. He quoted her as saying she managed to escape after an abductor brought her food and she struck him.

Kiyazov, who said he personally talked with Metzger, told AP that her blondish hair had been dyed dark brown and her hands were stained with dye. He said it would be necessary to question her again to get more details, "but Metzger said she really wanted to get a good sleep."

[TNdandelion]

The June Cleaver role is a relatively new idea. Throughout most of history, women have survived under extremely harsh and oppressive conditions.

I appreciate the concern, but my sisters around the globe and throughout history have survived tougher things than combat. And I'm in no way suggesting that combat is easy. Have you ever tried giving birth in a combat zone while trying to protect and feed your children while your husband is either gone to war or dead? Give us a little more credit. We don't break that easily.

[ansel12]

"I appreciate the concern, but my sisters around the globe and throughout history have survived tougher things than combat."




Holy Cow Batman!

Human existence is largely a story of protecting the female. Defensive human behavior and offensive human behavior always gives special attention to the children and the females.

It is the men that are to be killed when trying to dominate a group, because the women will live with whatever group of men that win.

The toughest challenge of all isn't how to conduct your womanly life under circumstances less than ideal, it is how to do anything when you have died in battle, or been executed after the conquest.

[BTCM]

There you go confusing the USAF with the Navy!

[2ndClassCitizen]

A person with the discipline to be a long-term marathon runner is probably a very stable and focused type of person. It tells a lot when one of the industries a country is known for is kidnapping.

[LouAvul]

Something doesn't make sense, does it? A trained military officer is shopping in public. Somebody sticks a bomb in her pocket with directions to a house someplace, and she, a trained military officer, just goes along?

I don't want to get flamed for having a suspicious mind, but something doesn't add up.

[NCjim]

Thank God they let her go...

...she managed to escape after an abductor brought her food and she struck him.

[Piquaboy]

Something smells fishy about her and story.