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

A great lesson for everyone!! Very Interesting book! | Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle | Marc Gonsalves, Tom Howes, ...

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	• Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle Marc Gonsalves, Tom Howes, ... William Morrow, 2009 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 76 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great Non-Fiction Action Reading

This book gets it's "hook" in early on - action packed, fascinating, a real page turner! I couldn't put it down - a lot of late night reading involved here!

Hard Right

I selected Out of Captivity to read based on blurbs; interested in comparing the assessments made at the start of captivity against freedom. Initially it seemed a protracted endeavor (for me), reading resilient voices explaining captivity after-the-fact. It was only when the versions moved deeper into the telling of their captivity, when the transitions in tone became unmistakable, easier to pick up on. This is what makes this story incredible as well as credible.

In addition to the stark resemblances told by others enslaved or held in similar bondage, there were many other assessments to quote and appraise. The root of evil "money" was one... almost the first evaluation made at the very beginning of captivity. "Mental imprisonment", and "rotting from the inside," were others. The assessment on Eliécer was surprisingly interesting. "The good hard thing," I also reflected on. But above all was the lasting impression imparted by Keith's mother, "How you start is how you finish." (In other words, a tiger doesn't ever change its stripes).

I took my time reading this one. There is so much more in here. It is an amazing story... particularly in how smoothly Marc, Keith, and Tom's versions were alternated and funneled together to share one cohesive account of what five years in captivity for them entailed. Beautifully, beautifully told.

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A great lesson for everyone!! Very Interesting book!

I recommend to everybody the reading of this interesting book. It is an impacting testimony of these three men. It shows the worst and also the best of the humankind. It help us to value life, freedom, family, friends and all we have. I wish that every person have the opportunity to read this book and also reflect about the situation of poverty of our neighbors in all the American continent that we forget, children that are forced to be in the guerillas by the Farc, and also forced by their economic situation. (It would be nice sponsor children in our own conrinent, not only Africa!!!) This book is a profound lesson for everyone.

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Amazing Story With Limited Afterthought

This is the type of book you can't put down. I finished it within 2 days. The reader can visualize the hostages' stories. It is wonderfully written and the naivete of the hostages add to the reality of the situation. That naivete also works against informing the public. When one reads this book a question must be posed: What does the term "terrorist" mean? And who can we label a "terrorist"? While the hostages' rage and hostility towards the FARC is understandable the Colombian situation must also be analyzed independently after finishing the book. Other than that, it was an amazing book which I would recommend to everyone.

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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 each experienced, 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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