Hearing from Sam Goodwin and Hostage US

Urbanite Theatre is now home to the best theater I've seen all season -- "No One is Forgotten" by Winter Miller. The play drops the audience into a cell in an unknown location where two women are being held hostage. It's powerful and timely and incredibly intense. I can't imagine the toll it must take on these actors to perform their roles five times a week. I'm certain, however, that their experience pales in comparison to the real life experience of Sam Goodwin, an American held hostage in Syria for nine weeks in 2019. I had the chance to hear from Sam and Liz Cathart, Executive Director of Hostage US, at a recent event at Urbanite. It was both sobering and enlightening. 

Hostage US was established in the wake of the 2014-2015 hostage crisis in Syria in which 14 captives, including three Americans, were kidnapped by ISIS and ultimately killed. You've probably heard the phrase "we don't negotiate with terrorists," and that was what the families of those hostages were repeatedly told by government officials. The fact that there was no organized support system for the families of hostages made the situation even worse. How terrifying and frustrating and, ultimately, heartbreaking it must have been for the families to go through this experience essentially on their own. When the Obama administration undertook a review of how the crisis had been handled, the question of whether there was a way to provide assistance to the families was on the agenda. It was out of this process that Hostage US was formed. 

Sam Goodwin and Liz Cathart

The mission of Hostage US is to offer confidential and personalized support both to families of Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad and to former captives rebuilding their lives. Goodwin and his family are among the people Hostage US has helped. 

Goodwin worked abroad from 2010-2020 and undertook a quest to visit every country in the world. In the spring of 2019 Goodwin arrived in Qamishili, Syria with the help of a fixer who worked with him on how to best enter the country. Goodwin always touched base with his parents when he arrived in a new country. And so he made a FaceTime call to his mother so he could show her his latest locale. They were mid-conversation when the line went dead. He had been taken by government officials who accused him of being a spy for the United States. 

Sam was held in solitary confinement in a windowless cement for the first 27 days of his captivity. When speaking about how he passed his time in solitary, I was struck by how right Miller, a former journalist, got these details in her play. He told himself stories and played word games and relived both his own and professional hockey games. He exercised. He prayed. He fantasized about the ways his release would occur. He worried about his family and how they were coping. In darker moments, he wondered whether anyone was thinking about him and working to get him out. 

Sam's family was, of course, thinking about him constantly. When the call dropped and they didn't hear from him by the next day, they knew something was seriously wrong. The Goodwins contacted the FBI Field Office. To their credit, the FBI took the family's concern seriously. Still, they were not provided any assistance or support by the government. Instead, they were instructed not to tell anyone Sam was missing for fear it would hamper efforts to obtain his release. It was at this point that the Goodwins found Hostage US. 

Every case in which Hostage US gets involved is different. Yes, the organization facilitates connecting the families of hostages with appropriate government officials. Its primary role, however, is to provide emotional and practical support. It was no surprise to learn that Hostage US has developed a network of therapists to work with both the families and former captives. (Cathart noted that state licensing requirements can be an obstacle to facilitating this crucial need.) But I'd never considered the more practical issues that also have to be addressed. 

Rent/mortgage/insurance payments still have to be made. Other financial obligations also have to be handled, such as tax filings and child support payments. Of course these aspects of day-to-day life pale in comparison to efforts to obtain the hostage's release, but failing to deal with them on a timely basis results in problems down the road. Hostage US also has a network of doctors who can assist with a former hostage's medical issues -- new or old -- that have gone unattended while in captivity. Cathart noted that dental issues are a universal concern for released hostages. But back to Sam's experiences...

After almost four weeks in solitary, Sam was moved to Adra Prison where he was housed with the general population. All of the other prisoners were Syrian, and Sam's belief in the goodness of (most) people was borne out during this time. In the NPR interview linked below, Sam shared that his contacts had gone beyond their useful life. He was effectively blind, making his circumstances all the more frightening. His fellow prisoners banded together their financial and other resources and obtained a pair of glasses for him. Truly amazing. Ultimately, it was through one of his cellmates and a series of events straight out of a movie that Sam was able to get word to his family about where he was being held. Obviously, this information was crucial for the U.S. government to secure his release. Of course there's much, much more to Sam's story and the ways in which Hostage US provided -- and continues to provide -- vital services to Sam and his family. But I'll leave you here with some links to learn more at your leisure. 

Thanks to Urbanite for shining a light on an issue that is unfortunately quite timely. For a thumbnail sketch of Sam's story, you can listen to his interview with NPR by clicking here. His book "Saving Sam" gives a more detailed version of his experience and is told from both his and his family's perspective. For information on Hostage US, click here. Last, but not least, "No One is Forgotten" runs through April 29th at Urbanite Theatre. For tickets, click here.