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

8 OUT OF CAPTIVITYout of Homestead Air Force Base while in the Marines—in all kindsof avionics-technician and aircraft-maintenance positions through theNational Guard and in private industry. In the closed world of our occupation,he was someone with a good reputation who switched frommaintenance to operations and had been flying missions for CaliforniaMicrowave the last two years.Tom Howes was just as different from Keith as I was. Though he’dnever been in the military, on the surface he reminded me of some ofmy air-force colleagues. Outwardly more quiet and reserved than Keith,Tom possessed a sly sense of humor that you had to pay close attentionto. He was like a master doctor who could give you the needleso expertly that you wouldn’t know you’d been jabbed until he walkedaway. Tom was several years older than Keith and me, and his glassesalong with his wide, genial smile always helped his quick-strike witcatch you off guard. Along with his sense of humor came a studiedseriousness about aviation and a breadth of knowledge about the regionthat impressed me. Tom’s passions seemed to be food and flying, andeveryone benefited from his experience with both.Ever since I’d left the air force, one of the things I’d missed wasthe camaraderie. While a lot of the people I worked with prior to comingto Colombia were former active-duty military, there was somethingabout being in-country that upped the we’re-all-in-this-togethermentality. From my arrival, Keith had included me in the tightly knitgroup of men that made up the contract workers flying out of BogotáInternational Airport. Nobody was outwardly rah-rah and gung ho, butyou could tell that the shared experiences and similar dedication to anideal formed a kind of locker-room bond. I was on my home cyclewhen a team photo was taken just a couple of weeks before the crash,but I’d seen it. There were a bunch of positive, happy, and good folksin that picture. I was only beginning to learn about the rough-andtumble,hard living (and I mean that in the best sense) experiencessome of them had.