Buried Alive, by Roy Hallums, is a true story of an American contractor working in Iraq, kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents. He was help captive for 311 days. Most of those days were spent in a concrete tomb, infested with sand fleas, where he was poorly treated - to put it mildly.
Hallums not only shares his physical surrounding in great detail, but also his emotional state during his captivity. He also goes in to great detail about his fellow inmates, and what it must have been like for them.
The book also includes information about his family, and how they dealt with the ordeal back in the states, which I found interesting. However, the page turner portion of the book was learning about how Iraqi insurgents capture innocent American contractors, throw them in trunks of cars, beat them, starve them, and entomb them, all in the name of funding more terrorist operations. It's not fascinating in a curious sort of way, but in an incredulous sort of way. To think that human beings can treat other human beings in that manner was enough to boil my blood, and it made me want to quickly finish the book.
I was thankful when I reached the last three or four chapters that reveal his rescue by Army special forces. And I was thankful for Roy's dogged determination to not only live through the ordeal, but to remain sane and available to those who were entombed with him. His courage and ability to cope was nothing short of amazing.
Between Roy's tenacity, and the bravery of the troops that rescued him, Buried Alive was not only a page turner, but a tear jerker. I couldn't help but tear up at those troops, their bravery, and their care for a fellow American.
God bless American soldiers.
And God bless Roy Hallums.
2 comments:
Wow, that sounds like a powerful book. I agree - God bless them all.
Do you know if it is available on Nook or Kindle? Gotta read this one.
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