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

by Gary Brozek

  Once I got through greeting the eight of them, I saw two more people standing there—Ingrid and Lucho. Life had not been easy on any of us for the last two years and it showed in all of our faces, our eyes, and in the way we carried ourselves. Ingrid and Lucho seemed as diminished physically as the rest of us, but it was their attitudes that had changed the most. They were genuinely glad to see us and their warm greeting was in stark contrast to their behavior when they’d first seen us two years earlier. Marc used the term beaten down to describe them, and I agreed, but I thought that their newfound humility suited them. It didn’t seem to me that they’d suffered physically more than the rest of us, but their egos had been knocked down a peg or two, and that was fine with me.

  Unfortunately it didn’t take long for me to learn that their personalities weren’t quite as changed as I’d hoped. Some of the same issues that had plagued us when we were with them at Caribe continued in what we quickly began to refer to as the Reunion Camp. The happy couple reminded me of some people from high school you see at your ten-year reunion. They look different physically, but they’re still the same pains in the ass. I trusted them both as little as I ever did, but I was willing to play nice so long as they didn’t pull any of the shit they had the first time.

  As it turned out, Ingrid and Lucho had already been separated from the rest of the prisoners and each other because of some trouble they’d caused. We didn’t get the specifics, but that didn’t matter. All we knew was that Ingrid’s hooch was at the edge of camp, as far from the other prisoners as possible. Normally she wasn’t allowed to interact with any of them, and she could only speak with Lucho briefly each day. Their days of being joined at the hip were done.

  During our two-year separation from them, we’d heard a rumor that the pair had attempted an escape. We didn’t give it too much credence at the time because the loopy FARC female guerrilla who’d told us about it was a member of the flat-earth society, but early on at the Reunion Camp, we were able to confirm that Ingrid and Lucho had actually made a break and been recaptured. They’d gotten out and traveled at night down the river. Lucho was in poor health overall because of his diabetes, so they could only float for a few hours on their best days. The water was frigid, so to avoid hypothermia, they had to limit their time in it. Each day as they grew weaker, their time in the river shrank. Finally, they were picked up.

  Upon hearing this, I gained a bit more respect for them. If they were being separated because they posed an escape threat, then good for them. I didn’t like to see how the FARC increased security on them—by using chains on them at night—but at least if they had “earned” that extra security, it was because of something valiant they’d done and not just because they’d been treating people poorly.

  Marc, Tom, and I had talked about escape plans endlessly, and hindsight is always 20/20, but I had to admire Ingrid and Lucho for having the balls to attempt what they did. The three of us had always talked balls and brains. If you were going to use one, it had better be in direct proportion to the other. We were not going to do anything that would place additional security on us. If we were going to escape, it had to be as close to a sure thing as possible. Either that or our situation would have to be so dire that the risks of getting caught would outweigh the risks of staying in captivity. I wasn’t sure if Ingrid and Lucho had been in a hot zone like we had, but if they made their move without considering the risks of chains in an area like that, then their plans were deeply flawed. There was no way in hell I was going to get myself put in chains and chance being handicapped by them in case of a rescue or an attack. That was one mantra that I clung to: Don’t do anything stupid.

  Of course, I did stupid things anyway, but at least I was aware of those times and kept them to a minimum. When everyone swapped stories of the previous two years, I realized just how much we’d missed other human contact. As much as we tried to keep ourselves busy, it wasn’t possible to fill up the entire day when it was just the three of us. Having ten people to update kept us all very busy. If Miguel Arteaga didn’t have a question for us or a story to tell, then Juan Carlos Bermeo wanted to get started on English lessons. Our days went from boring to busy to booked solid.

  We’d all heard bits and pieces of what was going on in one another’s lives through the message programs. Because we were all in and out of radio contact, everyone filled the others in on what we’d heard. Perhaps the worst news was about Gloria Polanco. The FARC had executed her husband. As tough as we all had it as hostages, that poor woman was a hostage, two of her sons had been hostages, and her husband had been killed by these same terrorists. That would have been too much for me, and we all said, and sincerely meant it, that we wished we could be with her or be able to send her some kind of support. Marc did mention her in his prayers, and I added a few good thoughts as well.

  The news wasn’t all bad, especially for me. Ever since I’d heard Patricia’s first message, I had continued to wonder about the twins and her. At the Reunion Camp, I learned that Patricia had taken it upon herself to send more messages to me. Juancho relayed to me what he’d heard while I was out of radio contact. Both Keith Jr. and Nick were fine and still living with her in Colombia. I was, of course, a little worried about their presence in country, but they were with Patricia and that was a great thing.

  The opposite of this good news was that I had not heard from Malia in years. As hard as it was, I had started assuming that this silence could mean only one thing: My relationship was over and done with. I’d loved Malia and wanted her to be my wife. She was a wonderful woman, but you can tell a lot about somebody when adversity strikes. Marc pointed out that she had hung in there with me when she found out about my affair, and I had to give her credit for that. Unfortunately, the three of us had crashed before my relationship with Malia had gone too far down Forgiveness Road.

  Thrown into the midst of all this was Patricia. She’d seemingly been able to put aside all the shit I’d done—cheating on her, getting her pregnant, getting pissed at her for getting pregnant, and telling her to forget about any future with me—to let me know how the boys were doing. That took some courage, and she didn’t just say how the boys were doing, but she also told me that she was hoping that I’d get back soon. She told me that the boys needed me.

  That last statement hit me hard. When you’re a captive for a long time, you have to rely on so many other people to keep you safe and alive. I had Marc and Tom, and I knew that they needed me in some ways, but the truth of the matter was that if I was somehow no longer in their picture, they were going to be fine. I took comfort in knowing this, but I also liked the idea that someone needed me. Kyle and Lauren were always on my mind, and I knew I wanted to get back to them, but by September of 2007, I wasn’t sure just how much they needed me. They were twelve and seventeen; I’d been fourteen when I lost my mom. I knew it wasn’t easy to lose a parent at any age, but I believed they’d be okay.

  With Patricia and the twins, I wasn’t as certain. Colombia was a pretty volatile place. Their mother was, at least when I was with her, a flight attendant. That meant she was going to be gone a lot. I didn’t know how her family was going to react to her giving birth to half-gringo kids out of wedlock. I didn’t know what their lives were going to be like once they got to be school age. I knew all too well from my youth that there were asses out there who would give them all flavors of grief for being bastards. As antiquated as that idea might have been in most of the U.S., Colombia was a fairly conservative place when it came to such matters.

  Still, the irony that Patricia, a woman I’d parted on angry terms with, was staying loyal wasn’t lost on me. It was just hard for me to believe that she genuinely cared for me when my own fiancée wasn’t even picking up the phone to send messages. The fact that Patricia seemed to be devoted to me meant something, but what it would mean when I got out was anybody’s guess.

  “I just hope it’s not about the money,” I confided to Marc one day after Juan Carlos told me about P
atricia’s messages. “I told Patricia I’d be there for the kids. She doesn’t need to do this for money.”

  “Who cares about her motives? It’s pretty admirable for her to hang in there,” Marc pointed out. I thought about his words for a minute, and I thought about the fact that Marc’s own wife hadn’t been sending messages.

  “That does say something, doesn’t it?” I responded, asking the question as much to myself as to Marc.

  Since we’d been in captivity, I’d had nothing but time to think about my past. I’d thought a lot about why my first marriage had failed, why it had taken me six years to finally commit to marrying Malia, why I sometimes found it easier to go outside my relationships and find comfort in the arms of other women. I’d been running from something, figuring always that if I played it fast and loose, I couldn’t be caught in any kind of trap of expectations and demands. I was a pretty selfish son of a bitch, truth be told. I figured that since I was a good dad to my kids and a single parent tackling the responsibilities of being a caregiver and provider, the world owed me my little moments of stepping out and finding pleasure wherever I could.

  Funny as it was, it took being captive for me to start realizing that my choices before the crash had imprisoned me much like the FARC had. I also realized that the world didn’t owe me a damn thing. What we’ve got in this life is equal to what we give. I didn’t believe that I deserved to be held hostage, but it sure as hell was a huge wake-up call that let me know that standard operating procedure before the crash would have eventually led me to some other kind of crisis. It was time I stepped up and applied the principles the Marine Corps had instilled in me, the principles I’d allowed to become diluted, to my personal life. It seemed to me that Patricia was doing a pretty good job of teaching by example. Just because you do something wrong doesn’t mean you walk away; you stick around and make things better.

  Whether it was because of Patricia or just because of the order of things, I was on an uptick in terms of hope. I can’t say shares were at an all-time high, but they had definitely rebounded with this new group in charge of us. The camp was one of the nicer ones we’d been placed in. Just having guards posted on the perimeter with no fences enclosing us did a lot for me psychologically, and knowing that our border was easily penetrated made it easier for me to put up with some other parts of a captive’s life. Being able to go down to the water to bathe whenever we wanted to also helped. Our schedule wasn’t as rigid as before. Our new jailer, Enrique, was proving to be a decent commandante. His guards were a lot more no-nonsense but at least we were being given some freedoms. I liked how that felt and was developing a greater appetite for more.

  The FARC had built a pair of volleyball courts next to our camp. Basically, they had cleared an area of trees and undergrowth and strung an actual volleyball net between two trees they’d left standing. On the other court, they did the same except they strung a vine in place of a net. I’d never been a huge fan of the game, but I decided to participate. Whether we were playing against the FARC or there were hostages and guerrillas on the same side didn’t matter to me as much as I’d thought it would.

  The first time we played, I was stunned. In the last three and half years, I’d been able to exercise, I’d marched a hell of a lot, and I’d even had to triple-time it a bit. What surprised me was that I was able to move freely, but at first I couldn’t. I had no chains on me, but it felt like my feet were encased in stone. I knew I was in good enough physical condition to make a quick move and lunge for a ball, but my mind wasn’t agile enough to get me to do it. I’d always loved moving. Whether I was out in the woods somewhere carrying my Baretta shotgun or riding bikes with the kids or standing stock still with my hands inside the guts of a Pratt & Whitney engine torquing down a bolt to spec, I wasn’t a sit still kind of guy. Chess was a sit still kind of game, and I eventually got around to playing and enjoying it, but I was a far more active person outside of captivity than I was inside it.

  These newfound freedoms at the Reunion Camp reminded me of just how much I was missing out on. Instead of this making me angry, it made me more determined than ever to end this game playing and get the hell out of Dodge. It wasn’t going to be enough to just be on the same court as those guys. I wanted to win, win big, and go home.

  THIRTEEN

  Reunited

  September 2006–April 2007

  TOM

  We entered the Reunion Camp filled with hope—if for no other reason than that the camp seemed to be a more permanent structure. We’d been on the move for so long—ever since we’d left the Chess Camp—that we were all looking forward to a more established routine. After months on the move, we craved living conditions that would make us feel a little more at home, and though we knew the risks involved in being with another group of prisoners, we were confident that the stability would be good for all three of us.

  While we knew the military and police prisoners from our time at Caribe and the forty-day march, we became much more familiar with their personalities and their group dynamic at the Reunion Camp. By the time we arrived there in September of 2006, most of the military and police prisoners were heading into their ninth year of captivity. The year 1998 had not been particularly good for the military. Three of the men we were with—José Miguel Arteaga (with us he went by Miguel), William Pérez, and Ricardo (call me “Richard”) Marulanda—had been captured during a battle with the FARC that year, during which the FARC killed eighty and took forty-three hostages.

  Each of the other hostages had witnessed their fellow officers being killed or taken hostage in large numbers. Jhon Pinchao was the least fortunate of the bunch. During an attack on the city of Mitú, he and sixty of his fellow police officers had been captured. As part of the peace process, the FARC released the vast majority of the policemen it had taken hostage. Jhon was one of only six who remained in captivity.

  Raimundo Malagón, another of the military and police hostages, was one of the more unforgettable characters we met. At five foot three, he was pretty stocky and his intense personality contributed to his bull-doglike ways. As soon as we entered their camp, he was insistent that we teach him English. Meanwhile Juan Carlos Bermeo was one of the highest-ranking hostages the FARC held and, by a few weeks, had been held hostage for the shortest period of time. “Juancho,” as he preferred to be called, developed a strong relationship with Keith.

  From the outset, it was clear that these men had endured a lot. We couldn’t imagine what it was like to be in captivity as long as they had. Our three-plus years had been hard enough. None of them was stark raving mad—far from it—but they had developed their own camp quirks. Privately, the three of us compared this group to the characters on the television show Hogan’s Heroes. It became clear to us after a few weeks that Miguel Arteaga was one of the favored prisoners. He worked for the FARC and was rewarded with things like bags of powdered milk, fariña (dried and ground yucca), and a whole host of other little objects and food items. He had a little worktable and tools. The FARC provided him with fabric—jungle camo—which he would cut and stitch into hats. His craftsmanship was excellent and he even made one for Keith. None of us liked the idea that he was helping the FARC and receiving favors in return, but by that point in our captivity, we weren’t really going to judge him. We hadn’t been held captive for as long as he had. If sewing hats and doing other things for the FARC satisfied his general need to keep busy, so be it; he was just doing what we all were, adapting to his environment and circumstances in order to better endure.

  He wasn’t alone in assuming the role of a “trusty.” William Pérez, another military prisoner, did some work for the FARC as well. The FARC never formally gave that title to either Arteaga or Pérez, but it was clear from how they were being treated that they’d assumed some of the functions of the prison trusty. Like prison inmates being granted special privileges by a warden or guards, Pérez and Arteaga were fed better, granted greater latitude in their behavior, and were generally “chum
mier” with the guards than we were. Pérez spent most of his time working on creating the leather weapons vests the FARC wore, but he also worked on fixing radios for them and unofficially serving as their medic—a duty he’d had with the Colombian Army. Pérez was one of the quietest guys we’d met and he never seemed to flaunt his relationship with the FARC. With Arteaga, we felt the need to be a bit more careful. We weren’t sure of the exact nature of his role with the FARC. He was a little more obvious about his stash of FARC goodies than Pérez was.

  Still, we never knew either of them to do anything to put any of the rest of us in a bad spot, and because we didn’t know how their arrangements with the FARC guards had begun, we all kept to ourselves about it. For all we knew, the FARC had approached them and initiated the relationship or the guerrillas were just showing their gratitude for the work that was being done. We took a don’t-ask, don’t-tell approach initially; as long as we weren’t being abused, we didn’t mind that they were granted extra privileges.

  We always had to walk a very fine line in relationships with our captors. We thought that we’d done a good job with our previous crew of not assisting them in winning their war. Making hats and weapons belts, fixing radios, and treating patients seemed to fall on the relatively harmless side of the line. Though we wouldn’t have done any of those things for the FARC, we also weren’t going to criticize Pérez and Arteaga too harshly. Arteaga and Pérez didn’t seem to get along too well; they seemed to be in competition with one another. I thought of it as the two ass-kissers at any job struggling to be the number one ass-kisser. All we needed was a watercooler and a break room to make the office politics feel more like they had at home.