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

Reunited 329and who I was as anything that came before that engine failure. Everybit of it was going to be returning home with me to the States. It wasn’tgoing to weigh me down a bit because I thought we’d all done ourselvesproud—Enrique’s words to Tom had confirmed what we’d thought allalong. We’d conducted ourselves as honorably as we could under thecircumstances. We’d endured and triumphed. As we marched for thosefive days after we left the Reunion Camp, I was feeling pretty goodabout being reunited with parts of myself I’d had to tuck away to protectduring the long years of captivity. It was like seeing old friends,good friends, best friends I’d been absent from for a good long while.On day five post–Reunion Camp, we’d exited a bit of dry jungle andcrossed into a fairly large field of slash-and-burn. The FARC had justbeen through there, obviously getting it ready for drug-growing operations.The smell of burned vegetation and the tang of gasoline was onmy tongue. I stopped and spat. Marc and Tom pulled up alongside me.“Hey, Tom, it’s clear here; why don’t you flip that thing on?” Marcasked.Tom took out the multibanda, pulled up the antennae, and did a fewrevolutions trying to get the best signal. He looked around; the FARCguards seemed content to let us have a brief break. When we finally gota signal, we could hear President Uribe’s voice, and the word that immediatelyjumped out at me was denuncie. That word did not bode well.It was clear that Uribe was wound up about something.The day before, October 19, a car bomb had exploded outside amilitary training academy in Bogotá. Twenty-three people had been injured.Uribe was outraged. I looked over at Tom and Marc, and theylooked like I felt, as if somebody had kicked me in the nuts—once sothey could hurt me, a second time to remind me of what the pain waslike, and then a third time so that I would never want to experience thattorturous sensation again.“Fucking FARC. Fucking Uribe. Fucking olive branch shoved up allour asses.”