Families 'ecstatic' at soldiers' release

Families 'ecstatic' at soldiers' release

Ronald Young's parents recognised him on TV

The families of seven United States soldiers who were being held by the Iraqis have expressed relief after news that their loved ones have been rescued.

Some of the families were told by the Pentagon that US forces had recovered the soldiers, others recognised their freed relatives on television before official notification.

Marines came across the US prisoners near the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad, while moving up the highway towards Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

President George W Bush said he was "really pleased" at the rescue of the seven but there were still US soldiers missing in Iraq and the search for them would continue.

In a statement read by a family representative on CNN, Claude Johnson, the father of Shoshana Johnson, 30, of Kansas, said: "We are ecstatic that not only she is safe, but that all the POWs are in US hands."

Some families spotted their loved ones on TV

In pictures: families' joy

Shoshana Johnson was among five members of an Army military maintenance company taken on 23 March when their convoy made a wrong turn in southern Iraq and was ambushed by Iraqi forces.

Relatives of two other members of the unit, Sergeant James Riley, 31, of Pennsauken, New Jersey, and Joseph Hudson, 23, Alamorgordo, New Mexico, also reported they received official notification they were safe.

"I'm happy but I still can't believe it," Riley's mother, Jane Riley, told CNN. "When I see him I'll know it's real."

"I'm just ecstatic over what I see. Now he's been recovered. I can't think of a happier day in my life except when he was born," said Ronald Young Sr, the father of Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Young Jr, another former prisoner of the Iraqis.

The father had recognised his son on television before he received official notification that his son had been rescued.

The pilot's mother, Kaye Young, added: "He looks so good, he is just, I mean he's running. I didn't expect him to be running. But it is him. It is him."

Michelle Williams, the wife of Ronald Young's fellow pilot, Chief Warrant Officer David Williams, also told CNN she had recognised her husband in the grainy footage broadcast from Iraq.

The two were flying an Apache attack helicopter that went down on the same day as the maintenance company were captured.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on CBS's Face the Nation programme that two of the recovered service members had suffered gunshot wounds, but they were all in relatively good shape.