Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

by Gary Brozek

  As the initial shock of her announcement wore off, the will of the couples won out, and Clara remained silent about the identity of the father. Whatever had happened, I assumed there was something more complicated going on, but as her pregnancy progressed she still refused to give up the father. The mystery remained in place.

  When April rolled around, she was escorted from camp to give birth. While she was gone, we speculated about the whole thing, and the longer she was gone, the more we figured that the little bird was a lot cagier than we thought. On the surface it looked like her pregnancy had gotten her released, but that didn’t seem like something the FARC would do. It was too decent a gesture for them; however, after four weeks of her absence, we couldn’t come up with a better explanation. If she’d gotten away, then we were happy for her. That gave us all hope. If she had just been relocated, we were happy for ourselves. If any one of us had been taken out of the mix, I would have said the same thing. Marc always said we were like rats in an experiment, and if one rat was out of the cage, it gave the rest of us more room.

  One day near the beginning of May, Marc and I were exercising. I was on the stepper, and when I rose up a few inches, I could see out into the clearing. A convoy of FARC was heading our way. A small phalanx of guards, and a few others, flanked Clara. I didn’t have to shout to anyone, because the military group had seen her and were shouting her name. As she came to the gate, we could see that she was holding a baby wrapped up in a thin cotton sheet. Clara smiled sheepishly, and ducked under the arm of the guard who held the gate open for her, and with that, she was back in Camp Caribe.

  Photographic Insert

  Marc with his kids, Joey (left) and Cody (right), a year before the crash. The separation from his kids during the twenty-eight-day rotations in Colombia had been difficult, but Marc felt the job was important in order to provide for his family.

  Cody, Joey, and Marc’s daughter, Destiney (left to right). Destiney was only nine when Marc’s plane went down.

  Tom had flown planes all over South America before the crash. As the one fluent Spanish speaker among us, Tom quickly became our translator.

  Tom with his son, Tommy. From the moment Tommy was born, Tom felt a close connection to him. Tommy was only five when his father became a hostage of the FARC.

  Keith with Lauren and Kyle. Being a single father was never easy, but Keith had always taken pride in being there for his kids.

  Lauren and Kyle with Keith’s father and his stepmother. After the plane went down, there was little about home that Keith knew for sure, but he could count on his parents to be there for his kids.

  This shot of Lauren and Kyle was taken not long after Keith went down in the crash.

  This picture of our California Microwave group was taken a few weeks before our plane went down, while Marc was on his home shift. Tom is in the top row, second from the left, and Keith is in the top row, fifth from the left. Tommy Janis, the hero of our flight who skillfully brought us to the ground in one piece, is in the top row wearing the yellow shirt. Also pictured here are Ralph Ponticelli (third from the left in the green hat) and Tommy Schmidt (first row, third from the left), two terrific coworkers who died when their plane crashed while searching for us.

  The Colombian countryside terrain ranges from lowland plains to mountainous jungles. While it was bad that our plane went down in the mountains, we were lucky that we weren’t near the country’s highest peaks. As hard as our initial twenty-four-day march was, it would have been impossible had we been dealing with higher mountain passes.

  As true jungle rats, the FARC were incredibly skilled at getting the raw materials they needed to survive from their surroundings. With just a machete, most of them could make tables, chairs, or a bed like the one in this photo.

  While there were some nights that we slept on the ground and some nights that we slept on tablas, this photo is a good representation of another type of bed we had. We frequently used palm fronds to soften the bedding and provide a slight cushion. The frame itself is made out of young trees cut apart with machetes.

  The beds pictured here are typical of FARC sleeping arrangements. Because they were able to forage for raw materials as much as they wanted, the FARC often set up their bedding in a more convenient (and comfortable) way.

  This is a pathway leading to a meeting area at an abandoned FARC camp. With the rainy season taking up much of the year, the FARC commonly make walkways using sand from nearby rivers and trees. Over time we learned to read their construction habits to help us figure out how long we would be staying at a given camp. The more construction that occurred, the longer our stay might be.

  The food serving area pictured here is a bit fancier than what we were accustomed to. On the far left of the lower shelf, there is a block of sugar that the FARC called panela. The FARC frequently carried these with them for general cooking as well as for boosts of energy during the marches.

  These are the kind of boots that everyone (FARC included) wore. Because Keith couldn’t find any that fit him in the days immediately following the crash and the FARC didn’t want his big footprints creating a trail behind us, they cut off the toes of a pair of boots and forced him to wear them. He had to walk through the jungle with his toes dangling out of the front.

  Some of the FARC’s standard weaponry—an FN FAL battle rifle, a Remington Nylon 66 .22 for hunting, an H&K G3 carbine, and a handheld multiple grenade launcher. Even though we did build relationships with some of the guards, their guns were a constant reminder of the threat they posed and their true loyalties.

  The jungle canopy was so tightly knit that we very rarely got direct sunlight or clear views of the sky. As a result we always had to rely on our ears to detect when planes or helos were heading our way.

  In all of the camps, cigarettes like these were our currency with the guards. We used them to get everything from extra bath supplies to radios to information about what the FARC higher-ups had in store for us.

  Radios like this one were our lifelines to the outside world, and gaining access to them was a beautiful thing. Whether it was studying the news or waiting for messages from our loved ones, we couldn’t get enough of the radios. The initials LJ engraved into the front stand for the name of the guard that Marc got this radio from.

  This was Marc’s jungle sewing kit. Because we got new clothes from the FARC so infrequently and the clothes we did get rarely fit us properly, we each had to become much better with a needle and thread.

  We lived in fear that any rescue attempt by the Colombian government would result in the FARC trying to execute us. We each had a go kit of supplies prepared so that we could make a break for it at the first sound of incoming helos. This one contains a mirror, toilet paper, a fishing line and hook, a lighter that has a small LED light at the bottom, and a razor blade.

  This is the chess set that took Marc about a year to whittle. After he finished it in December 2005, we played marathon games, with Tom usually emerging victorious. The board was made out of an old cardboard box and we signed the bottom with our names and the message “Three Americans taken hostage February 13, 2003. Still alive 10 December 2005.”

  This copy of the New Testament was given to Marc by one of the military prisoners, Sergeant Lasso. It had passages written in English side by side with passages in Spanish, which helped Marc learn the language.

  We were each given writing materials when we arrived at our first camp, Monkey Village. Writing was one of the few things that helped keep us going throughout our time in captivity. This page from Marc’s journal describes the day before our third anniversary in captivity.

  During the spring of 2008, the Blackhawk activity around us increased significantly. Every day it seemed like they were up there, and their presence always elicited a reaction from the FARC. It felt like the helos were herding us, but it wasn’t until after our rescue that we understood what they’d been up to.

  We took this picture with Colombian General Montoya on the plane
ride following our rescue. General Montoya played a crucial role in orchestrating Operation Jaque, which freed us.

  In the hours after the rescue, we flew out of Bogotá bound for San Antonio, Texas. This shot of us was taken right after we landed in San Antonio.

  Marc’s and Tom’s first steps back on American soil, July 2, 2008.

  The folks at BAMC treated us incredibly and they were very well equipped to handle our reintegration. We began by going on small trips away from the base for burgers, which was where this shot was taken.

  Another one of our day trips was to the local Harley dealership in San Antonio, where we started dreaming about the Freedom Ride all over again.

  A few days after we returned to America, we took part in a yellow-ribbon ceremony at the base. We each got a chance to say a few words, and thank everyone there for never giving up on us.

  When we were finally able to see our families, Tom was shocked to see just how much his boy, Tommy, had grown. Over the course of the five and a half years, Tommy had nearly doubled in size.

  The three of us together at an event in our honor not long after our rescue.

  Keith’s son, Kyle, went from being a boy when we crashed to being a tall young man by the time we were rescued. The little kid Keith had left behind was now taller than he was. Meanwhile, his daughter, Lauren, who’d been fourteen at the time of the crash, had also blossomed and was now in college.

  In spite of everything, Patricia stood by Keith and sent him messages over the radio throughout his captivity. While in the jungle, Keith got word out to her by way of a released hostage that he wanted to make their family work.

  Keith’s family, together at last: (left to right) Patricia, Kyle, Keith with Keith Jr. and Nick, and Lauren.

  Marc with Destiney, Joey, and Cody on July 4, 2008, two days after the rescue. Marc’s little girl, Destiney, was no longer a little girl; now a fifteen-year-old, she was almost a woman.

  Marc with his family: (left to right) his stepsister, Corina; his stepmother, Monique; his mother; his brother; and his father. Marc’s mom was so instrumental in raising awareness about our situation in America and abroad. Her constant messages in the jungle were a boost to us all, and after we were freed, Colombia made her an honorary citizen.

  After we returned, Harley-Davidson did their part to get the Freedom Ride going by generously giving us each a new bike. The Freedom Ride will happen soon enough.

  Everyone rushed out to see her, and the ladies, naturally, elbowed their way to the front to take a look at her new child, Emanuel. Consuelo was one of the first to greet her, and her squeals of delight over seeing the baby were nice sounds to hear. We’d been surrounded by death and threats for so long, any sign of life was a big deal. The sea of onlookers parted so that Clara could go to the hooch to sit down.

  Clara gingerly sat herself down, and beads of sweat pearled her hairline. Her skin, normally a less yellowish caramel color, was washed out and the lines around her eyes and the bags beneath them, though folded over and empty, still stood out. She began her story by telling us that she had gone to a separate section of the FARC camp.

  Before she could go on, the baby let out a yowl and one of the FARC guards double-timed his way toward us, a look of panic on his face. Clara clutched the baby to her chest, muffling the sound, but doing nothing to still its squirming. His arm was wrapped in a makeshift bandage. Emanuel was a healthy-looking baby, but his arm was visibly broken, bent at an unnatural angle and swollen. With his cries rising up, I got the sense that none of this was going smoothly.

  “After two weeks and no labor, they came to me to tell me that they were going to perform a C-section. Milton, the older man, was the one who would do the operation.”

  At the mere mention of his name in connection to surgery, looks of horror stretched across Marc’s and Tom’s faces. Milton—the guard we thought of as a mascot or as simpleminded—was one of the soldiers who’d operated on her. Taking in the sight of mother and baby, we could see the results of Milton’s work. Whatever attempts the FARC made to repair the damage—we could all imagine Milton simply yanking the baby out as though tossing a vine out of the way—hadn’t been successful.

  “By that time, I wanted the baby out of me. They gave me some kind of drug to block the pain, but I was still awake. It is all a tangle of images, but I know that at one point Milton told me that there was some difficulty and the baby needed to be extracted.” She paused to collect herself and look down at the small child. “He increased the size of the incision, going down well below my navel, while the other guerrillas rushed in to brush the flies away. I could hear them buzzing and saw a cloud of them swarming over the fresh blood.”

  The description was almost too much to listen to. The fact that it had actually happened made me feel disgusted again.

  “I felt him tugging at my insides, and I could see him lay my intestines on my belly. He said something about them moving in his hands like earthworms. I heard the baby’s cries, and I knew that something was not good, that Emanuel was not well. Seeing Milton’s face as he held the baby and then rushed off and away from me—” Clara’s tears and Emanuel’s bandaged arm told us the rest.

  Because of his injury but also because of his infancy, Emanuel continued to cry a lot, which created a lot of concern among the FARC. Recently there had been some helo flybys, and if the kid was making a lot of noise, he was putting the guerrillas at risk. Their response, of course, was to drug him up, but even with those drugs, the little guy cried most of the time from the obvious pain he was in. When he wasn’t crying he seemed to just stare vacantly. I knew from personal experience that newborns didn’t do a whole lot, but this was different. The kid barely responded to any stimulus at all.

  We had all seen a lot of bad things in our captivity, but this was just sick. Clara’s baby did not belong in the jungle. The kid needed to be in a hospital somewhere getting legitimate medical care. In a rare showing of unification and outrage, the entire camp quickly organized a meeting. Lucho and Ingrid started things off, with the former senator taking the lead,

  “We all agree that Clara and Emanuel should not be forced to live under these conditions. This is inhumane at best and a potentially lethal threat to the baby at worst. The FARC must be made to know that we will not tolerate this.” I’d heard Lucho worked up before about one thing or another, but he was sincerely pissed off and there was no faking the blood that rose to his cheeks and the indignation that burned in his eyes.

  “Together, we can put the pressure on them that we need to get them to do the right thing for the baby’s sake and for Clara’s.” Ingrid was no less stirred up, but her quiet tone of certainty and a resolute firmness struck me as different from Lucho’s more theatrical display.

  Consuelo continued the thread: “We can say whatever we want, but we need to do something to let the FARC know that we will not tolerate this. They will not be moved by reason.”

  Simultaneously several people mentioned a hunger strike, and we each agreed. I’d seen some pretty selfish behavior out of everyone in that camp, the three of us included, but I could see that there was no doubting that we were all in this fight on the same side. To get the kid the medical attention he needed, we would starve ourselves. As bad as our food was, we all understood the larger point. In their own way, the FARC tried to keep us healthy. The hunger strike would hit Sombra and his guards where it hurt.

  “It is agreed that we will not eat today nor at any point hereafter until our demands are met.” Lucho looked at each of us in turn and we either nodded or said yes.

  After we’d broken up our meeting, Tom said, “It’s not like passing on the stuff they usually feed us is that big of a deal.”

  I knew that Tom was purposely downplaying our sacrifice. Yeah, the food wasn’t great, and we’d all survived starvation rations before on marches, but this was different. None of us knew what it would be like to purposely go without food and what it might do to us. I was determined to do the ri
ght thing—we all were—but a whole unknown had been laid out in front of us. When one of the guards came to bring us our food pot, none of us got up to get it. We all went about our business and ignored the order to retrieve it.

  The FARC came in the next day and escorted Clara and the baby out of the camp, but a while later, Clara came back without Emanuel. She was a mess from crying and screaming.

  “What did they do to you?” Gloria asked.

  Clara sank to her knees and then sat on the ground.

  Orlando sat down beside her and put his arm around her. They sat there for a minute, with Clara’s body racked by heaving sobs. We could tell she was saying something, and then Orlando relayed her words to us: “The FARC have done part of what we asked—they removed Emanuel from our section of the camp. But they are going to keep him with a few of the female guerrillas who are going to care for him. Clara will be allowed to see him a few minutes a day.”