Kevin and his mom, Gerfa, had been in the Philippines for two weeks in 2011, on an island near where she had grown up, lapped by clear blue water and white sand, behind a tangle of mangroves. They didn’t know that the men in camouflage fatigues who surrounded them on a beach barking orders in a language they didn’t understand were part of an al-Qaeda-linked group known for beheading its victims.īut as they huddled at gunpoint in a boat speeding south, a full moon glowing over a sea empty of even a single fishing boat that might send up an alarm, Kevin’s mother looked at her son, and she began to pray. They didn’t know at first who their captors were. Kevin was 14 and on summer vacation with his mother when they were kidnapped. In his nightmares he’s back in the Philippines, hungry and afraid, a prisoner of Islamic terrorists. He forgets classes at Brookville High School, football games with his friends, learning to drive, all the normal routines of a typical Virginia kid. He forgets he is safe in his own bedroom, guitar leaning against the wall, cats curled up asleep, in his family’s little yellow ranch house in Lynchburg. The nightmares still come sometimes, yanking Kevin Lunsmann back.
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