endurance

He was pulled from his rock-and-clay cell periodically only to receive the merciless beatings of his captors. This cycle continued for several months, until even the transition from dank, foreboding darkness to harsh desert sun cut deep squinting creases beside his still vibrant eyes. Another cut. Another bruise. Still, the information he would never provide.

Tiring of the ineffectiveness of physical assault, his torturers took a sinister psychological tack.

"You have thousand emails here," he would later recall them taunting, holding up a somewhat flattened cereal box hastily spraypainted gray, "No spam can! And this bandwidth has crazy processor. Bootup takes zero seconds!"

So he spent his daily battles, before other marines executed his extraction, through which he endured the anguish of ten lifetimes -- a total of two years and seven months in brutal captivity.

He claims that his salvation came only through the courage of his fellow corpsmen and the grace of God, for whom he offers the deepest thanks for providing him with inner strength.

He also apologizes for not responding to emails during this troubling period.