R.I.P. GARY E. LEE

From the obituary in the Washington Post:

Gary E. Lee, 67, a State Department officer in Tehran who in 1979 was taken hostage by Iranian militants and braved mock executions, beatings and near starvation during 444 days in captivity, died Oct. 10 at his home in Fulton, Tex. He had cancer.

Mr. Lee was one of 52 Americans held inside the U.S. Embassy until they were released Jan. 20, 1981. Another hostage, Richard Morefield, who was U.S. consul general at the time, died Oct. 11.

[...]

Mr. Lee was kept in isolation for weeks at a time. He later told how he "made friends" with a salamander that crawled around his room and how he teased ants with a pistachio, nudging the nut along the floor to keep it out of their reach.

When the guards fed him raw chicken, he dreamed of steaming pork chops. He lost 30 pounds.

To keep himself alert, Mr. Lee designed a patio in his head to add on to his home in Falls Church.

Mr. Lee was blindfolded and beaten and subjected to three separate mock executions. He recalled imagining that he "could feel the bullets in my back."

"I bought it," Mr. Lee later told Time magazine. "I thought I was a dead man."

Upon his return home, Mr. Lee received more than 300 letters - and several cases of beer. He responded to every piece of mail.

Mr. Lee continued to work for the State Department and did not rule out working abroad again. There was one exception.

"I won't go to Iran," he said. "But I'll go anywhere else."

[...]

Mr. Lee retired to Texas after federal service. He was often seen among friends at the 301 Bar and Grill, where he sat on a stool draped in the U.S. flag.

Reached by phone at the establishment one recent afternoon, his friend Patty Asack said that the flag had been removed from Mr. Lee's usual seat at the bar and that the stool had been ceremonially tipped forward to mark his absence.

On the bar in front of Mr. Lee's spot, bartenders placed one shot glass upside down and another filled to the rim with scotch.