FAITH: Escape from Iraq

By Dave Urbanski

Truck driver Thomas Hamill took a job overseas to save the family farm. But his life took a nightmarish turn when he was kidnapped by insurgents. Here is his courageous story.

During his first several months in Iraq, Thomas Hamill regularly led his convoy of trucks through treacherous stretches of Iraqi highway with nicknames such as "Widow Maker" and "Sniper Alley"--dangerous asphalt corridors that were prime real estate for ambush-happy insurgents armed with caches of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.

A 44-year-old dairy farmer and trucker from Macon, Miss., struggling to make ends meet for his family, Hamill was halfway through a tax-free, $75,000 annual salary as a civilian truck driver aiding military efforts in Iraq--and for once in his adversity-filled life, he was sitting pretty.

"I was faced with bankruptcy and losing the farm," Hamill tells New Man. "It's tough for small farms now. But I didn't want to quit--I'm a third-generation dairy farmer. So ... I actually went to Iraq to relieve a little stress; I was under so much stress here that I figured Iraq couldn't be any worse."

But on April 9, 2004--Good Friday, as it happens--Iraq suddenly got worse for Hamill. A lot worse.

His convoy of fuel trucks was in the final stages of a 60-mile journey that was supposed to end at the Baghdad International Airport. Instead, Iraqi insurgents tore through Hamill's convoy, destroying equipment, killing five fellow workers and wounding and capturing Hamill.

"I knew when the cars started leaving the highway that something was fixin' to happen," Hamill recalls in his thick, Southern accent. "I'd heard roadside bombs go off before, but it's different when you're being shot at and wondering, 'Is that bullet headed for me?' ... I've seen war movies like Saving Private Ryan, and the day we were attacked was like storming Omaha Beach, just never-ending and loud. I didn't know from one second to the next what was going to happen."

More than likely, you saw the news footage on infinite repeat last spring of masked gunmen displaying Hamill's mustachioed face for video cameras from the backseat of a car on the first day of his captivity.

Thus began Hamill's imprisonment by Iraqi rebels--detailed in his New York Times best-selling book, Escape in Iraq: The Thomas Hamill Story--which happily ended a month after his capture, when Hamill made a daring, half-mile dash from his guarded farmhouse toward an Army National Guard convoy he heard passing nearby.

"I prayed a lot," Hamill recalls. "And I sure felt the prayers of this country and my town. I was at peace and had a calm demeanor. But you know, I'm human. I'm 8,000 miles away from my family. My wife can't help me. My mom and dad can't help me. Nobody can help me. A situation like that can overwhelm you, drive you crazy. But Jesus has been working in my life for a long time. Growing through Jesus Christ--that's what it's all about."

Hamill's faith in God has been a major focus of his story in both TV interviews and his book. He makes no bones about who had rescued him from the jaws of death. Surprisingly, this wasn't the first time God had saved his life.

"I should have been killed years before in a truck wreck. I've had other struggles, too, and I often wondered why God was keeping me alive," he says.

Now that Hamill's back home and has encouraged thousands of people at book signings, he continually sees his ordeal through fresh eyes.

"Like me, a lot of men have felt at times like they were at the bottom. Even though God says He doesn't put more on us than we can bear, I used to think I was taking more than I could bear already--until I was captured. I didn't realize how 'at the top' I'd been until then."


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Dave Urbanski is senior developmental editor for Youth Specialties and author of The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash, available at relevantbooks.com.