Free Republic

“Robbie” Stethem was born into a proud Navy family on November 17, 1961, in Waterbury, Connecticut. His father Richard served for 26 years and retired as Senior Chief Petty Officer. After retiring, he continued to work for the Navy as a civilian for another 20 years. Robert’s mother Patricia served in the Navy before leaving active duty to raise the family. Brother Kenneth served for 20 years and retired as a Navy SEAL. Brother Patrick, like Robert, was a “Seabee” diver and served for 10 years in the same Underwater Construction Team One.

“America can’t do a damn thing against us,” Ayatollah Khomeini bragged while holding our hostages. The Carter administration had undermined the Shah’s government in favor of the Islamists who seized power and then prevented the embassy’s Marine guards from defending the facility and the people inside against the Muslim ‘student’ groups who claimed to be coming in peace.The “peaceful” student activists took over our embassy and held our people hostage.Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei taunted President Trump with the same slogan in June after being asked to give up Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “Our response to the US nonsense is clear:...

Al-Qaida had extensive contacts with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, as well as with an elite military unit which helped the terrorists train and plot attacks against Americans, according to a former intelligence officer who recently fled Iran. Hamid Reza Zakeri, a former inspector and director of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Ministry of Intelligence, or MOIS, member said models of the World Trade Center, the White House, Pentagon and other United States government buildings "were in our headquarters." In an explosive interview with a London-based Arabic newspaper last week, Zakeri stated that al-Qaida leader and Egyptian terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri,...

Greek police say they have arrested a 65-year-old Lebanese man on the island of Mykonos over the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985 in which a US Navy officer was killed. The suspect, named by Lebanon's foreign ministry as Mohammad Saleh, was stopped on Thursday during a routine security check when his description matched those on a German warrant for his arrest, Greek police told CNN. He was also wanted by German authorities for a kidnapping in 1987... Hijackers seized control of the Boeing 727 aircraft shortly after it took off from Athens, en route to Rome, on June...

Just over 19 years ago, Islamic terrorists hijacked TWA flight 847. They threatened to fly the plane into buildings if their demands weren't met. On June 15, 1985, the terrorists singled out a US Navy diver, 23-year-old Petty Officer Robert Stethem, because he was American and because he was in the US Military. After many hours of being cruelly beaten, tortured, and finally killed by the terrorists, they threw his body from the plane in a final disgraceful, cowardly act. His body lay on the tarmac for over two hours before the terrorists finally allowed the Red Cross to retrieve...

US vows to track down hijacker freed early By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 23/12/2005) The United States has vowed to track down and bring to trial a Lebanese hijacker who has been secretly released after serving 19 years in a German prison for seizing an airliner in 1985 and killing a US navy diver. The Bush administration said it had asked Germany not to release Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who was jailed for life for his role in the hijacking of TWA's Flight 847 from Athens to Rome and the shooting of one of the passengers, Robert Stethem. Despite...

Early on the morning of March 16th, 1984, William Buckley left for work at the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Officially, Mr. Buckley, a decorated veteran of the Special Forces, served as the political officer at the embassy. In reality, however, Mr. Buckley was the embassy’s CIA station chief. On his way to the compound, Buckley’s car was stopped by a group of masked men, who forced him from his car at gunpoint. His assailants would later be identified as terrorists from the group Islamic Jihad, which served as an alias for the real perpetrators, Hezbollah. The circumstances surrounding the...