Feral Jundi

   I hope the company of these guys pays them a huge bonus as well. Good on these guys, and I am glad they are getting recognized. –Matt 

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U.S. honors contractors held hostage by Colombian rebels

By JACK DOLAN

Mar. 13, 2009

Three U.S. defense contractors who were held hostage by Colombian terrorists for more than five years received the Medal of Freedom, the civilian equivalent of the Purple Heart, on Thursday.

Speaking before a packed room at the U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Doral, former hostage Tom Howes, 56, fought back tears as he said, “You never forgot us, thank you very much.”

The three men — Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell — suffered injuries and brutal treatment at the hands of their captors, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, known by the Spanish acronym FARC. The men still bear scars from the chains used to bind them on long, forced marches between jungle camps.

The Department of Defense created the Medal of Freedom after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon. The honor goes to civilian employees killed or injured while working for the DOD. Thirty-seven have been awarded so far.

The three contractors, all of whom worked for a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, were part of a five-man crew on a drug surveillance plane brought down by engine trouble in February 2003. FARC rebels captured them and executed two others, American pilot Thomas Janis and a Colombian Army Sgt. Luis Alcides Cruz.

`WE’RE NOT FORGOTTEN’

Howes told the mostly uniformed audience on Thursday that, at his lowest point, Stansell risked a beating to pass him a note that said: “We’re not forgotten. People are trying to get us out. We have families to go home to.”

The U.S. and Colombian governments flew 3,600 reconnaissance flights searching for the men, according to a statement released by the U.S. Southern Command before the ceremony. They logged 17,000 flight hours and spent $250 million searching for them, the report said.

Gonsalves, 36, said his greatest fear was being forgotten. ”We were isolated in the middle of the jungle,” he said, but every now and then, “we’d hear a buzz. We could never see it, because it was up so high, but we knew what it was.”

Gonsalves said his low point came after an unusually vivid dream about his 9-year-old daughter. ”I was holding her in my lap. I could smell the shampoo in her hair,” he said. “Then when I woke up I was locked in a box in the jungle.”

Unexpected salvation came for the trio on July 2, 2008, their 1,967th day in captivity.

Colombian soldiers posing as humanitarian workers arrived in a Russian built helicopter and persuaded the FARC guards to climb aboard with a group of 11 hostages, including the three Americans and Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt.

”I saw a blur of bodies as soon as we broke ground,” Howes said, ‘in the middle of it all somebody shouted, `Colombian Army’ ”.

Within seconds, the FARC captors were disarmed and buried on the floor of the chopper beneath a pile of bodies. Stansell, a 44-year-old ex-Marine built like a linebacker, was one of those bodies, Howes added with a chuckle.

CONTROVERSY

A book the three wrote, Out of Captivity, sparked international controversy over critical comments made about Betancourt. Stansell reportedly accused her of stealing food, hoarding books, and endangering the three Americans’ lives by telling the guards that they were CIA agents.

But on Thursday, the three focused on their gratitude for the rescue, and urged the audience not to abandon 22 other hostages still held by the FARC in the Colombian jungle.

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