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| 3 Ex-Hostages at BAMC -- receiving POW treatment |
| 2008-07-03 |
| Three American civilian contractors — freed with a dozen other hostages held by a revolutionary group in Colombia — set foot on U.S. soil for the first time in more than five years late Wednesday. Their Air Force C-17 cargo jet landed at Lackland AFB at 11:15 p.m. The men then flew to Brooke Army Medical Center aboard two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters flanked by medical teams assigned to care for each man. Landing there about 11:40 p.m., they boarded a shuttle bus for a short drive from the BAMC landing pad to the hospital and were escorted into the brightly lighted emergency entrance as two dozen journalists armed with 12 video cameras on tripods recorded the end of their first day of freedom. Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves — along with former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 11 other hostages — were rescued by Colombian military troops. The Americans, whose plane went down in Colombia's southern jungle Feb. 13, 2003, were taken captive by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. They were brought to BAMC for medical and psychological evaluations. "They're going to get the full care the military can possibly give them," said Eric Atkisson, a spokesman for U.S. Army South. Colombian army commandos captured rebels manning a security ring around the hostages, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told the Associated Press. The soldiers convinced the insurgents to persuade their comrades to hand over the captives, he said, adding that no one was killed. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice congratulated Colombia for rescuing the hostages. She asked the FARC to release other hostages it still holds in its bitter rebellion that began in the 1960s. The rescue of the hostages prompted widespread reaction. A Web site devoted to the trio, www.marc-gonsalves.com, shows a color photo of the men, all wearing green jungle fatigues, sitting at a table during an interview. Updated Wednesday, it declared, "Rescued!! Coming home!" The three Americans still suffer wounds they received in the crash of their airplane, former Colombian Sen. Luis Eladio Perez told the AP after his release from captivity Feb. 27. Perez, who last saw the men Feb. 4, said after his release that Howes, who will turn 55 on July 4, suffered a head blow during the crash "that gives him very strong recurring headaches. He's got a problem with high blood pressure with very little medical treatment, almost none, and it's very difficult to get drugs for high blood pressure." Gonsalves, 36, and Stansell, 43, also have problems "resulting from the accident in the spine and knees," said Perez, who spent his last six months of jungle captivity with the trio. He said they suffered "all kind of illnesses that we also got, like ... malaria," and that Gonsalves had contracted hepatitis. At BAMC, the former hostages will be treated in much the same way as prisoners of war — with their care modeled on lessons from Vietnam POWs. They'll receive intensive medical tests and evaluations well before seeing their families, who are expected to arrive here this weekend. The contractors also will meet with survival, escape, resistance and evasion psychologists trained to help those who've endured long periods of captivity. "There were certain lessons learned about the mental and physical needs of these men," Army South's Atkisson said, noting the Pentagon's reintegration process has been in place for years. "If you've been in captivity for a long time, which for these men has been five years, you cannot just come back one day and go home the next day without experiencing some real difficulties." Army South and BAMC have spent five years preparing for the release of the American hostages, all contractors for Northrop Grumman Corp. Army South, with headquarters in the revamped Depression-era BAMC building, was tapped to coordinate care for the men after their plane went down. The command and BAMC actually rehearsed how they would handle their return, anticipating situations that included caring for battlefield wounds incurred during a rescue attempt. The rehearsals included Northrop Grumman and the men's families, he said. "So far this seems to have turned out to be the best-case scenario that we have worked for, that they were released alive and without violence," Atkisson said. |
| Posted by:Sherry |