U.S. Patrol Apparently Scared Off Hamill's Captors

Escaped hostage treated at hospital in Germany

Monday, May 3, 2004

(9:15 PM ET) (01:15 GMT)

The Cable News Network

CNN's Mike Brooks contributed to this report

"We assessed from what he had told us that someone was watching him. They probably saw us coming and decided that 40 on one wasn't going to be a good day for them and walked off."

LANDSTUHL, Germany -- CNN
After three weeks of captivity by Iraqi insurgents, American Thomas Hamill walked free when his guards apparently fled from an approaching U.S. Army patrol, soldiers who found him said Monday.

One of the soldiers, 2nd Lt. Joseph Merrill, said his platoon was looking for a break in an oil pipeline near Balad when Hamill approached them from a nearby farmhouse, waving his shirt and shouting that he was an American prisoner.

"He came out in the field, and he actually took his shirt off and waved his shirt in the air," Merrill said. "As he got closer, we heard he was speaking English."

Hamill, a U.S. contractor from Macon, Mississippi, had been shot in the right forearm. He was treated Monday at a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

"At first, at a distance, we thought he was an Iraqi farmer who was coming up to the trucks," Merrill said. "And the first man who walked up to him realized immediately that it was Mr. Hamill."

(More: CNN.com / World)

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Just a small picture of the enemy’s true disorganization on the front lines. Some here will be unable to fathom just how this could translate to disorganization of any kind -- but that’s them.

Dan