THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 26, 1995 TAG: 9510260001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
Robert Dean Stethem was ``a proud kid,'' his dad said, from a proud Navy family. A proud Navy just, and justly, recognized this ``kid'' in a big way.
While assigned to an underwater construction unit at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, Robert lived for a time in Virginia Beach with his brother Kenneth, then a petty officer 2nd class. His father and mother had served in the Navy. His younger brother enlisted short-ly after Robert's death.
Robert died in June 1985, repeatedly, brutally beaten, then shot, then dropped to die to the tarmac at Beirut airport by Lebanese hijackers of TWA flight 847. The hijackers, demanding the release of fellow terrorists from a German prison, had terrorized all passengers but chose U.S. military men for particular brutality. Robert, returning with fellow Navy divers to the States from an assignment in Athens when the plane was hijacked to Lebanon, was the only passenger murdered. He feared one of the divers would be killed, he told a woman passenger after he was first beaten; and, if so, he hoped it would be he, the only single man among the crew. He was 23.
The terrorist accused of Rob Stethem's murder was arrested in Germany, tried despite threats to kill two German hostages in Lebanon if the trial continued, convicted, sentenced to a life term and is eligible for parole after 15 years in prison.
The memorials to Robert Dean Ste-them, civilian and military, have been many: a Bronze Star awarded posthumously, a barracks named after him at Dam Neck, a scholarship, a church building. Last weekend, 10 years and 8,600 tons later, comes the USS Stethem, a guided-missile destroyer and the first U.S. Navy ship commissioned at Port Hueneme's Naval Construction Battalion Center in San Diego.
The larger Navy family has numbered millions of proud ``kids.'' The Stethem shows its pride in one and all. by CNB