NEW YORK — Fellow former hostages, family and colleagues celebrated the life of journalist and philanthropist Terry Anderson on Wednesday, remembering a man who helped others while struggling to heal himself.
The news writer became a news topic when he was taken hostage in Lebanon in 1985 by members of an Islamic extremist group. At the time, he was chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, had a daughter and his future wife was six months pregnant. . He was one of the longest held hostages in US history, having been held for 2,454 days.
Anderson died on April 21 at his home in Greenwood Lake, New York. He was 76. The memorial was shown on YouTube on Wednesday by the Overseas Press Club.
More than a year after his captivity, two new hostages were transferred to his prison, men from Northern Ireland and England who spoke at his memorial from the AP office in New York. They said Anderson’s thirst for intellectual stimulation caused him to verbally attack them, squeezing them for knowledge of current events, history of their homeland and any piece of literature they could share.
He “tried and prodded at something for weeks until you had almost nothing left to tell him,” says Brian Keenan, originally from Belfast, who was teaching English in Beirut when he was kidnapped and later imprisoned with Anderson.
“Terry’s optimistic, stubborn nature was really an essential part of our survival together,” said John McCarthy, a British journalist and fellow hostage who attended the memorial, crediting him with harassing guards into giving them books at one point moment a radio and crucially – respect. “It was about constantly reminding the men with the guns that we were human beings.”
Terry Anderson received a hero’s welcome when he was released from AP and New York State in 1991. Mourners remembered how he kept his sense of humor. Louis Boccardi, who had led the AP for two and a half months when Anderson was kidnapped, had arranged for Anderson to spend time in the mountains of Europe speaking to trauma consultants.
“I haven’t been out in the warm sun for six and a half years. And you want me to go to the Alps?’” Boccardi recalled Anderson saying this. The guidance was moved to the Caribbean.
Anderson struggled with PTSD and, his ex-wife revealed at the memorial, was unable to fully heal from his ordeal. But he was rarely unemployed and sought healing and growth for others. Anderson taught journalism and led philanthropic efforts to help children and veterans.
“Terry wanted his students to write with purpose and conviction, and to speak truth through power, with authority, and without fear,” Keenan said.
Anderson, a Vietnam War veteran, helped found the Vietnam Children’s Fund, which built 51 schools in that country over decades.
On Wednesday, New York Senator James Skoufis posthumously presented Anderson with a Liberty Medal for Anderson’s contributions to journalism and his advocacy for homeless veterans in the Hudson Valley. Skoufis said Anderson has spent seven years advocating for funding for the veterans housing program, which was approved just months ago, in the form of a $1 million federal grant.
