Sparrowhawk
05-03-04, 07:58 PM
Hamill's Daring Escape
and a question after you read the story....
Ex-hostage heard Humvees, made a run for it
Wife to meet Hamill at Ramstein after his daring escape in Iraq
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/040503/040503_hamillnew_hmed_8a.h2.jpg
Thomas Hamill, center, is seen with two U.S. Army soldiers, shortly after his escape south of Tikrit in this picture released Monday.
NBC News and news services
Updated: 2:45 p.m. ET May 03, 2004BAGHDAD, Iraq - American truck driver Thomas Hamill was holed up in a 6-foot-by-6-foot windowless stone shack in central Iraq when he decided to make a run for it, U.S. military officials said Monday, providing the most detailed account of how the civilian military contractor was able to escape from his armed abductors after three weeks in captivity.
Hamill, 43, of Macon, Miss., was flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and then transferred to the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for treatment of a minor gunshot wound after his dash to freedom and rescue by a U.S. Army patrol.
“He’s doing good, very good,” Marie Shaw, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said Monday. “He’s in the medical surgical ward. He should be able to go home by the end of the week.”
Hamill was expected to reunite with his wife, Kellie Hamill, at Landstuhl on Tuesday, officials said.
At a news conference in the Iraqi capital on Monday, soldiers who assisted Hamill said that, after hearing the sound of their Humvees nearby, the prisoner kicked down a metal-plate door propped up by a piece of wood and made a stumbling dash across tomato fields with only socks on his feet.
“He was shouting ’I’m an American, I’m an American POW (prisoner of war)’ and he was waving his shirt above his head,” 1st Lt. Joseph Merrill, one of the soldiers who came across Hamill, told a news conference Monday as he described the first sight of the hostage.
‘He was just real happy to see us’
“He was unshaven and thinner than when he was taken, but other than that he was OK. He was just real happy to see us.”
Hamill, a dairy farmer who came to Iraq to make money and pay off debts at home, was kidnapped on April 9 after his convoy came under attack west of Baghdad. He was working for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of U.S. group Halliburton.
Hamill was seized in the town of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, but was being held in a remote village near Samarra, 62 miles north of Baghdad, when he escaped.
His fate had been unknown since he appeared in a videotape released the next day by his captors, who threatened to kill him within 12 hours unless the siege of Fallujah was lifted.
Soldiers from ’C’ company of the 108th Infantry Regiment, a New York National Guard unit attached to the 1st Infantry Division, were patrolling just a few hundred yards away when they saw a man running toward them.
“We were checking out a broken (oil) pipeline,” said Capt. George Rodriguez, the company commander. “At first we thought it was an Iraqi farmer, but then we heard him shouting that he was an American and quickly realized that it was Hamill.”
They bundled him into a Humvee and got him out of the immediate area before treating his arm and offering him food and water. He took the water, but declined the food, saying he had already been fed that morning.
Captors fled, abandoning weapon
Then, on Hamill’s suggestion, they went back to the stone bungalow house near where he was held to see if they could catch his captors. The soldiers found an AK-47 assault rifle abandoned outside the front door and then arrested two men working in the fields nearby.
“He was basically in the middle of nowhere,” said Sgt. Mark Forbes, another member of ’C’ company. “It’s like desert and nothing else all around out there.”
Rodriguez said the nearest house was probably a mile or more away across swathes of barren scrub and flat fields used to grow tomatoes and other vegetables.
Hamill said he had been moved to the shack next to the farmhouse that morning. Inside he had some simple medical supplies, snack food and a basic bed made out of cushions and a blanket. He didn’t know what day of the week it was.
The soldiers asked him why he didn’t try to escape sooner.
“He said, ’I could have escaped a bunch of times but where was I going to go? I only had a bottle of water, and no map, what was I going to do?”’ Forbes recounted.
Hamill’s abduction came at the height of the wave of kidnappings of foreigners sparked by the intense violence that began in early April. An American soldier, Pfc. Keith M. Maupin, remains in the hands of kidnappers, as do three other Italian security guards.
Wife: ‘Best wake-up call I’ve ever had’
Kellie Hamill said she got a call at about 5:50 a.m. telling her that her husband, a truck driver for a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corp., had been found alive. He later called home, “the best wake-up call I’ve ever had,” she said.
“He sounded wonderful, so wonderful. He said he was fine,” Kellie Hamill told The AP. “He said he was more worried about his mom, his grandmother, me and our kids.”
She said he told her he had been locked in a building and “he said he heard a military convoy come by and pried the door open. He said he ran half a mile down the road and got with the convoy. Isn’t that something?”
Kellie Hamill said she did not know when he would return to the United States. “He said there was a lot going on. He didn’t know when he would get back because they are doing a bunch of other stuff,” she said, referring to questioning by military officials and health checkups.
Kellie Hamill said her children were ecstatic.
“They can’t wait to see their father. Our daughter (age 12) is just bounding around the house,” she said. “It’s going wild here. It’s calls, calls, calls and people at the door.”
‘A parade that will not end’
Mayor Dorothy Baker Hines said she told Kellie Hamill that as soon as her husband is back “we’re going to have a parade that will not end.”
“I’ve been calling people all morning waking them up and telling them the good news and they don’t mind,” she said. “I can’t imagine what this family has gone through.”
The whole town was buzzing about Hamill being safe, said Kenny Miller, who said he grew up with Hamill and was a lifelong friend.
“I was really worried about him — finding him alive— but he’s free now and that’s wonderful,” said Miller, who works at a hardware store.
“I’m proud for his family. I know this has brought our community together. Everybody around here had prayers for him again last night.”
Gov. Haley Barbour called Hamill’s escape “a wonderful miracle.”
“We still have a lot of people in harm’s way. Just yesterday, a young man from Mississippi was killed over there,” the governor said. “It’s great to have something wonderful like this to happen.”
Halliburton issued a statement from its Houston office saying “we are extremely grateful for the safety of Tommy, a father and husband as well as our friend and co-worker.”
“Tommy is a courageous hero and we are proud of his resolve, resilience and refusal to give up hope,” the company said.
NBC's Preston Mendenhall in Ramstein and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
the question now, is should he, Hamill be awarded the Purple Heart Medal?
and a question after you read the story....
Ex-hostage heard Humvees, made a run for it
Wife to meet Hamill at Ramstein after his daring escape in Iraq
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/040503/040503_hamillnew_hmed_8a.h2.jpg
Thomas Hamill, center, is seen with two U.S. Army soldiers, shortly after his escape south of Tikrit in this picture released Monday.
NBC News and news services
Updated: 2:45 p.m. ET May 03, 2004BAGHDAD, Iraq - American truck driver Thomas Hamill was holed up in a 6-foot-by-6-foot windowless stone shack in central Iraq when he decided to make a run for it, U.S. military officials said Monday, providing the most detailed account of how the civilian military contractor was able to escape from his armed abductors after three weeks in captivity.
Hamill, 43, of Macon, Miss., was flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and then transferred to the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for treatment of a minor gunshot wound after his dash to freedom and rescue by a U.S. Army patrol.
“He’s doing good, very good,” Marie Shaw, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said Monday. “He’s in the medical surgical ward. He should be able to go home by the end of the week.”
Hamill was expected to reunite with his wife, Kellie Hamill, at Landstuhl on Tuesday, officials said.
At a news conference in the Iraqi capital on Monday, soldiers who assisted Hamill said that, after hearing the sound of their Humvees nearby, the prisoner kicked down a metal-plate door propped up by a piece of wood and made a stumbling dash across tomato fields with only socks on his feet.
“He was shouting ’I’m an American, I’m an American POW (prisoner of war)’ and he was waving his shirt above his head,” 1st Lt. Joseph Merrill, one of the soldiers who came across Hamill, told a news conference Monday as he described the first sight of the hostage.
‘He was just real happy to see us’
“He was unshaven and thinner than when he was taken, but other than that he was OK. He was just real happy to see us.”
Hamill, a dairy farmer who came to Iraq to make money and pay off debts at home, was kidnapped on April 9 after his convoy came under attack west of Baghdad. He was working for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of U.S. group Halliburton.
Hamill was seized in the town of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, but was being held in a remote village near Samarra, 62 miles north of Baghdad, when he escaped.
His fate had been unknown since he appeared in a videotape released the next day by his captors, who threatened to kill him within 12 hours unless the siege of Fallujah was lifted.
Soldiers from ’C’ company of the 108th Infantry Regiment, a New York National Guard unit attached to the 1st Infantry Division, were patrolling just a few hundred yards away when they saw a man running toward them.
“We were checking out a broken (oil) pipeline,” said Capt. George Rodriguez, the company commander. “At first we thought it was an Iraqi farmer, but then we heard him shouting that he was an American and quickly realized that it was Hamill.”
They bundled him into a Humvee and got him out of the immediate area before treating his arm and offering him food and water. He took the water, but declined the food, saying he had already been fed that morning.
Captors fled, abandoning weapon
Then, on Hamill’s suggestion, they went back to the stone bungalow house near where he was held to see if they could catch his captors. The soldiers found an AK-47 assault rifle abandoned outside the front door and then arrested two men working in the fields nearby.
“He was basically in the middle of nowhere,” said Sgt. Mark Forbes, another member of ’C’ company. “It’s like desert and nothing else all around out there.”
Rodriguez said the nearest house was probably a mile or more away across swathes of barren scrub and flat fields used to grow tomatoes and other vegetables.
Hamill said he had been moved to the shack next to the farmhouse that morning. Inside he had some simple medical supplies, snack food and a basic bed made out of cushions and a blanket. He didn’t know what day of the week it was.
The soldiers asked him why he didn’t try to escape sooner.
“He said, ’I could have escaped a bunch of times but where was I going to go? I only had a bottle of water, and no map, what was I going to do?”’ Forbes recounted.
Hamill’s abduction came at the height of the wave of kidnappings of foreigners sparked by the intense violence that began in early April. An American soldier, Pfc. Keith M. Maupin, remains in the hands of kidnappers, as do three other Italian security guards.
Wife: ‘Best wake-up call I’ve ever had’
Kellie Hamill said she got a call at about 5:50 a.m. telling her that her husband, a truck driver for a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corp., had been found alive. He later called home, “the best wake-up call I’ve ever had,” she said.
“He sounded wonderful, so wonderful. He said he was fine,” Kellie Hamill told The AP. “He said he was more worried about his mom, his grandmother, me and our kids.”
She said he told her he had been locked in a building and “he said he heard a military convoy come by and pried the door open. He said he ran half a mile down the road and got with the convoy. Isn’t that something?”
Kellie Hamill said she did not know when he would return to the United States. “He said there was a lot going on. He didn’t know when he would get back because they are doing a bunch of other stuff,” she said, referring to questioning by military officials and health checkups.
Kellie Hamill said her children were ecstatic.
“They can’t wait to see their father. Our daughter (age 12) is just bounding around the house,” she said. “It’s going wild here. It’s calls, calls, calls and people at the door.”
‘A parade that will not end’
Mayor Dorothy Baker Hines said she told Kellie Hamill that as soon as her husband is back “we’re going to have a parade that will not end.”
“I’ve been calling people all morning waking them up and telling them the good news and they don’t mind,” she said. “I can’t imagine what this family has gone through.”
The whole town was buzzing about Hamill being safe, said Kenny Miller, who said he grew up with Hamill and was a lifelong friend.
“I was really worried about him — finding him alive— but he’s free now and that’s wonderful,” said Miller, who works at a hardware store.
“I’m proud for his family. I know this has brought our community together. Everybody around here had prayers for him again last night.”
Gov. Haley Barbour called Hamill’s escape “a wonderful miracle.”
“We still have a lot of people in harm’s way. Just yesterday, a young man from Mississippi was killed over there,” the governor said. “It’s great to have something wonderful like this to happen.”
Halliburton issued a statement from its Houston office saying “we are extremely grateful for the safety of Tommy, a father and husband as well as our friend and co-worker.”
“Tommy is a courageous hero and we are proud of his resolve, resilience and refusal to give up hope,” the company said.
NBC's Preston Mendenhall in Ramstein and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
the question now, is should he, Hamill be awarded the Purple Heart Medal?