Colombia Guerrillas Free American
A science writer from Texas who was freed unharmed by suspected Marxist guerrillas after 11 months in captivity said Wednesday that he walked for three days through the Colombian mountains before reaching his home.
Thomas Hargrove, 51, looked haggard but otherwise fit in a brief appearance on television from his home in Cali.
The Vietnam veteran was taken hostage by armed men in military garb, apparently members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, on Sept. 23, 1994, and arrived home Tuesday night. His brother, Raford, said he was on the phone with his brother’s wife, Susan, when Thomas walked through the door of their Cali home.
“She dropped the phone, the dogs started barking, and there was a lot of yelling. Then he came on the phone and started talking,” Raford Hargrove said in a telephone interview from Rotan, Tex.
Susan Hargrove described her husband as “very, very skinny” and said his hair, silver-gray since he turned 30, is now bright red, apparently due to severe vitamin deficiency.
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