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

• Category:  Books  »  Biography & Autobiography  »  General
• Format: Hardcover   Learn more about the Hardcover format using Tower WIKI.
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Number of Pages: 352
• ISBN: 0061769525
• WAPI (Tower ID): 113130765
• Release Date: March 1, 2009
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• Tower.com Sales Rank: #56003 in Books (See Top 100 Books Bestsellers)
• #1429 in Biography & Autobiography (See Top 100 Biography & Autobiography Bestsellers)
• #391 in General (See Top 100 General Bestsellers)

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In February 2003, a helicopter carrying three American civilian contractors crashed in Colombia. Marc Gonsalves, Tom Howes, and Keith Stansell somehow managed to survive the crash, but immediately found themselves in a hail of gunfire. They were then taken prisoner by FARC, a group of Marxist terrorist guerrillas, and held hostage for more than five agonizing years. They were starved and brutalized, and forced to march relentlessly through the hostile jungles, until a daring raid by the Colombian military finally freed them in July 2008. For the first time, they reveal the full story of their captivity, relating their inside knowledge of FARC's organization and operations, detailing how their camaraderie helped them to endure the torturous conditions, and proving that courage can sometimes overcome the most hopeless situations.

On February 13, 2003, a plane carrying three American civilian contractors--Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Tom Howes--crash-landed in the mountainous jungle of Colombia. Dazed and shaken, they emerged from the plane bloodied and injured as gunfire rained down around them. As of that moment they were prisoners of the FARC, a Colombian terrorist and Marxist rebel organization. In an instant they had become American captives in Colombia's volatile and ongoing conflict, which has lasted for almost fifty years.

In "Out of Captivity," Gonsalves, Stansell, and Howes recount for the first time their amazing tale of survival, friendship, and, ultimately, rescue, tracing their five and a half years as hostages of the FARC. Their story takes you inside one of the world's most notorious terrorist organizations, going behind enemy lines with vivid and haunting imagery. Their words conjure a reality that few people have ever encountered--from sleeping on beds literally carved out of the jungle to escaping Colombian military air strikes under the cover of darkness to being bound with steel chains by their captors. Describing backbreaking starvation marches and forced isolation, the authors chronicle their confrontations and interactions with the FARC guerrilla soldiers--a motley crew of brainwashed, idealistic teenagers and seasoned vet-erans who've been around long enough to realize that the only way out of the FARC is in a body bag.

Though the physical punishments their bodies endured were unrelenting, the psychological battles they waged were the ultimate test of their resolve. With candid detail, Gonsalves, Stansell, and Howes relate the perilous mental struggles they eachexperienced, as they grappled with feelings of guilt, fear, and anxiety for the families and lives they'd left behind. Exposing the transformative power of captivity, they show how they turned these fears into strengths, using their memories and their families, their pasts and their futures, to motivate them in their quest for survival.

Despite the odds and the conditions, despite the chains and the silence, and despite the often tense relationships they experienced with their fellow Colombian hostages, they had one another, forging a bond that allowed them to cope with the horrific conditions of their confinement. This brotherhood enabled them to persevere through the worst that the FARC threw at them while always reminding them of their ultimate goal: freedom.

A harrowing account of one of the longest civilian hostage crises in United States history, "Out of Captivity" is a remarkable and compelling exploration of how far three Americans were willing to go as they fought to stay alive for themselves, their families, and one another.

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