Former FARC hostages in San Antonio for treatment

San Antonio Express-News:

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.

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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.

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BAMC stands for Brook Army Medical Center. It is a huge complex where many of the more critically inured troops from Iraq and Afghanistan are treated. Getting them proper care is important, but they can also probably give us more information on FARC that might be useful in freeing other hostages and destroying the commie forces.