Photographers Blog

By Jose Miguel Gomez

Some of these captives had been gone for 14 years, but as anxious as they must have been to return, they walked very slowly on the airport runway at Villavicencio. It seemed to me that they were carrying the weight of so many years of the horror they lived, hiking through the thick Colombian jungle, persecuted by the fear of being killed by their captors or by the bombing of the armed forces.

They landed exhausted. In their glances it seemed they were living a dream – one in which they returned to embrace their families, showing them that they were all still alive. Theirs was not an ending like some of their fellow captives, who were killed when the Army tried to free them. With their faces clearly aged, they returned with few possessions. Some of them brought jungle animals as pets. Their families awaited them in a private room of the airport because the government had decided not to show their first reunion to the press. We were upset, to say the least.

When Ingrid Betancourt and the 14 hostages were freed in Operation Checkmate, the government brought them to Bogota in a media show. This time the hostages were simple soldiers and policemen and the only thing they wanted to do was hug their children who had since grown into adults, and their spouses and parents affected by the years of suffering.

We awaited in the dense atmosphere of high heat and humidity on the airport tarmac as the choppers arrived and crews pushed the staircases into position. We were all wondering how the arrival of the 10 hostages would play out, imagining that their families would break the government’s security fence and rush to their missing loved ones, making this show their own and not another one belonging to the FARC.

As always, we were crammed into a rope corral after a very long wait for these last hostages to be released. It was a long day full of emotions, and of intense rain in the morning that forced a delay in the military helicopter from Brazil, the country that had mediated the release. Some journalists nodded off while others chatted, but we could feel the tension when the afternoon sun appeared clearly on its way to setting.

When you live in Northern Virginia, only miles from Washington D.C., you are somewhat aware of the history all around you, yet it is a distant feeling, drowned out by suburban sprawl and ubiquitous strip malls. Today, it is difficult to form a picture of what happened in this countryside 150 years ago during the Civil War. Over half the Civil War battles were fought in the state of Virginia.

Appropriately, the first major battle of the Civil was at Manassas in Northern Virginia. The First Battle of Manassas/Bull Run on July 21, 1861, dashed hopes on both sides of the fight that war would be a quick affair. The rest, as they say, is history, and I will leave it to historians to tell that story.

For me, the 150th anniversary of this important battle was an opportunity to imagine what it may have been like. With my cameras in hand, I could share the experience with others through my pictures. Cameras of course have a great way of opening doors and allowing one to see what others do not. With the aid of my daughter’s teacher, Mark Stevens, who is not only from Manassas but is also a Civil War reenactor, I was graciously invited into the Confederate camp to spend a few days soaking in the sights and experiences of the reenactor. No, I did not put on the wool uniform and nor did I sleep in a tent. I did, however, get a good glimpse of the passion and dedication these reenactors take into an event. By the time they were ready for battle, I was already overwhelmed by what I had seen in the Confederate and Union camps. Talk about a feast for the eyes of a history buff.