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

Proof of Life 161fen, but that didn’t help. The fan in the room was supposed to cool theroom but it just pushed the stale air around, buzzing incessantly untilit was in my head.That night, as I replayed the day’s events over in my head, I wishedthat I’d had a chance to clarify at least one point. When I was askedabout my response to the word rescue, I wanted to make a distinctionclear. I was afraid that after everything I’d seen that day, the messagewould get muddled. I wanted to be able to come out and say clearly thatwhile I thought there was a danger to a rescue attempt, my feelingsonly applied to a Colombian military rescue. In my mind, when I heardthe word rescue I thought of freedom and America. When I heard theword rescate I thought of massacre and death. At that point, I didn’treally trust that the Colombian military had sufficient training in hostagerescue operations. I couldn’t really say all that on the video sinceby saying it, I would have frightened my wife and kids. I knew that theU.S. military had far more experience in hostage rescue operations,had far more advanced intelligence systems, weaponry, and tactics torescue us. I didn’t want to leave whoever saw Botero’s video with theimpression that we were against being rescued. Lying there that nightin our little room propped up on our sawhorse bed, I wondered aboutjust how flimsy the whole event had really been.The boat ride back to our previous camp was uneventful. Every oneseemed much more relaxed. We didn’t have our blindfolds on for asmuch of the ride as we did on the way to the POL. We’d spent so muchtime rehashing everything we’d heard and learned that Marc, Keith,and I didn’t do a whole lot of talking, other than to point out some ofthe wildlife we spotted. I was particularly interested in the caimansafter living in Florida for a while and hearing all kinds of stories aboutwhat pests gators could be. It felt good to be on the water and moving,though if I had my choice, I would have preferred to have been on aplane bound for home and not back to my tent top and a muddy patchof jungle.