WASHINGTON – For 444 days, Iranian militants held 52 Americans hostage in Tehran, leaving emotional scars for them and their loved ones — and dooming Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
The revelation that five months before their release, former Texas Gov. John Connally encouraged Iran to prolong the ordeal left hostages bitter.
“444 days,” Rocky Sickmann, a 22-year-old Marine guard when the U.S. Embassy fell, said Monday. “I will never regain those lost days. ... Each day you didn’t know if you were going to live or die.”
