Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle [With Earbuds] (Playaway Adult Nonfiction)

On February 13, 2003, a plane carrying three American civilian contractors - Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Tom Howes - crash-landed in the mountainous jungle of Colombia. Dazed and shaken, they emerged from the plane bloodied and injured as gunfire rained down around them. As of that moment they were prisoners of the FARC, a Colombian terrorist and Marxist rebel organization. In an instant they had become American captives in Colombia's volatile and ongoing conflict, which has lasted for almost 50 years. In Out of Captivity, Gonsalves, Stansell, and Howes recount for the first time their amazing tale of survival, friendship, and, ultimately, rescue, tracing their five and a half years as hostages of the FARC. Their story takes you inside one of the world's most notorious terrorist organizations, going behind enemy lines with vivid and haunting imagery. Their words conjure a reality that few people have ever encountered, from sleeping on beds literally carved out of the jungle to escaping Colombian military air strikes under the cover of darkness, to being bound with steel chains by their captors. Though the physical punishments their bodies endured were unrelenting, the psychological battles they waged were the ultimate test of their resolve. Exposing the transformative power of captivity, they show how they turned their fears into strengths, using their memories and their families, their pasts and their futures, to motivate them in their quest for survival. Despite the odds and the conditions, despite the chains and the silence, and despite the often tense relationships they experienced with their fellow Colombian hostages, they had one another, forging a bond that allowed them to cope with the horrific conditions of their confinement. This brotherhood enabled them to persevere through the worst that the FARC threw at them while always reminding them of their ultimate goal: freedom.

Marc Gonsalves is a former member of the United States Air Force who worked as a civilian military contractor for four years before the crash. He has a daughter, Destiney, and two stepsons, Cody and Joey. He lives in Connecticut.