Hostage diplomacy is an ugly game. For decades America’s adversaries have imprisoned US citizens in an effort to leverage diplomatic, economic or military advantage. These cases range from exaggerated charges, to disproportionate penalties, to outright lies. Each case is different. And each case affects both the lives of the incarcerated, their families and ultimately American power.
Jose Pereira was held prisoner by the Venezuelan government for five years. He was the CEO of Citgo and after a Thanksgiving Day meeting in Caracas, he and five other Citgo executives were arrested and charged with bribery, corruption and other false charges. They became known as the Citgo 6.
Jose joined Fran Racioppi to share the story of his captivity, his year long solitary detention in the Submarine, starvation, sickness, sham trials, and his time in a coma. Jose talks about his mental battles with depression and suicidal ideation.
Like all great leaders, Jose sought solutions using the buckets his food was delivered in as a clandestine courier service to exchange letters with his wife. These letters kept him alive, gave him hope and now serve as the foundation to his new book “From Hero To Villain: My True Story of the Citgo 6.”
Special thanks to Hostage US for supporting the families of American hostages and those wrongfully detained, as well hostages and detainees when they return home.
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Jose, welcome to The Jedburgh Podcast.
Thank you for having me.
More importantly, welcome home.
Thank you. Thank you for having me here.
You spent five years as a political prisoner of the Venezuelan government. You were the president of Citgo at the time, living in Houston. Citgo was a subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company. Take us back to Thanksgiving Day 2017 when you get a call to come to Venezuela.
This is a story that every time I think about it, it is something bizarre. I was the President of Citgo Petroleum. Giving a little bit more background, by that time, I had 35 years in oil and gas. I began working in Venezuela. I was born in Venezuela. In PDVSA, there is the headquarters of Citgo. I came here to Houston fifteen years after being assigned to Citgo. I was at the pinnacle of my career. I worked for 35 years. I became the CEO.
The political situation by that time, and we’re talking in 2017, with Venezuela, was not going well. There is a communist region that has existed for more than two decades. The situation was evolving very badly and the political situation was tense. A sanction had been imposed. I was looking at that. You never expect that that can affect you because you’re on the private side.
I was watching a movie with my wife and I received a phone call to go to an unexpected meeting the following day. I didn’t see anything wrong because it was close to December, which was the budget season. We were revamping a refinery. I had to present a project. I flew the other day in the days before Thanksgiving. I held a meeting and did a presentation. When we were finishing the presentation, we saw a bunch of guards. I will always say they were in Robocop outfits because they were in black suits and they had big masks with skeletons. They had a sign called DGCIM.
When I saw that, I asked the guy that was beside me, “What’s DGCIM?” The guy told me, “That is the counterintelligence Military police of this country. That is like a Praetorian Guard. This guy was very similar to someone from another country, Iran, China, or Cuba. This is a copy-paste. This guy came and they asked for me. When I heard my name, I said, “Why is this guy asking for me?” They took us to another room and a general appeared. This is a Military police.
You weren’t there by yourself too. You had six others.
I flew in because we were revamping a refinery in Aruba. The five guys that came with me were the five Vice Presidents of Citgo that were involved in this project. We flew to make a presentation, a normal core of business. We were charged. We became spies. We were charged with treason. They charged us with corruption, embezzlement association, and a lot more charges. It was something bizarre. At the moment, we thought it was a mistake. That mistake lasted five years. That was a mistake that for us was five years during Thanksgiving. Every Thanksgiving for the next year, there was always something happening, so for us, Thanksgiving became a nightmare that year.
I’ve had the chance previously to sit down with Michael Scott Moore and Jessica Buchanan, both very active in Hostage US. They both became prisoners of Al-Shabaab and Somali pirates, respectively. They tell their stories about these moments of capture. Many people who, unfortunately, find themselves in situations like yours, theirs were violent in many ways, especially Michael. Yours is a little bit different. Each one of these cases is so unique. No two detention stories are the same.
You’re an executive with other executives who are arrested. Talk about those first 24 to 48 hours. In so many situations, whether we deal with detention, police in foreign countries, terrorists, or kidnappings, those first 24 to 48 hours are critical for the ability to get somebody out of the situation that they’re in but also in the psyche of the person who’s going through it. Talk about your thought process in those first couple of days.
I had to go back one month before, and I’m going to tell you why. The political situation in Venezuela was very bad. There were all these sanctions in place. I talked to my wife. I said, “I am going to get retired.” I worked for 35 years, so I told my boss that I wanted to retire. He told me back and forth, “Give me four months to get your replacement.” I was ready to retire.
When I got the approval to retire, I flew back to Houston and received a call that they were closing the summit. For the closing of the summit, they always bring a speaker. I asked, “Who is going to be the speaker?” They told me there was going to be the real Captain Phillips. I said, “I have seen the movie with Tom Hanks.”
The guy tells his story of how he was hostaged by so many pirates, etc. When he came back and he sat down with me, I was with my wife. We were in shock hearing this guy. I said, “You did great. How did you do it?” The guy told me, “You are creatures of God. The human spirit has that inner force that in those moments, you can take that force and do things beyond what you believe you can do.” I was like, “Why did this guy tell me that?”
To answer your question, we were caught that day when the Military told us that we were being charged with espionage and treason. They put us in handcuffs. Can you imagine? I was finishing my career and getting ready to retire during Thanksgiving and I saw myself and my colleagues in handcuffs. They load us in an armored truck. We stayed for more than ten hours, going all over Caracas seeking paperwork they had to do. Nobody was prepared because this was a sham situation. Nobody knew how to handle it. Everything was through phone calls.
Do you think this was planned or was it a target of opportunity?
Both. It was planned and targeted because they were having issues with the US government six months before. They didn’t have anything to leverage. The problem with that situation of hostage diplomacy is that they target. They target high-profile people because they need to leverage you. This is the way it works. That was planned and targeted. The masterminds knew what they wanted to do, but all the people who were around didn’t know, so everything was done during phone calls. We saw how they were trying to handle all the paperwork.
We arrived at the place where we finally stayed for years. It is the headquarters of this Military group. We headed there at 1:00 or 2:00 AM in the morning. We were tired and sweaty. I was wearing a suit. I was starving. I didn’t eat anything. I was in handcuffs. That night, we stayed there in handcuffs all night. I didn’t sleep. When morning came, out came a lieutenant. That guy was a real sociopath. He began to give us a lot of psychological torture.
What was he saying?
He was yelling. He was mocking. He was trying to break us, and we broke. I’m not a Military. I didn’t know how to handle this. Let me tell you. Oil and gas is a challenging industry. I was really used to handling crisis management. Oil and gas is very typical in that you can have a blow-up in a well or a fire in a refinery. You’re trained for that. You’re trained on how you can behave and how you can respond. This was something awkward or new for us. I was in shock because I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what was happening to us. I said, “There has to be something wrong here.”
After that day, in the morning, we were put in a basement that was three stories down. It was a locked basement. They call it the submarine. We were separated. The last time I saw the other guy was almost one year later. The last time I heard the voice of my wife was ten months later. I stayed ten months in confinement. The lights were turned on 24/7. We began to starve. There was no food. We went on days without eating. I lost 100 pounds. There were a lot of cockroaches. I got scabies. I got bronchitis, so I began to spot blood. I was in a very bad situation.
We found that someday, a commission of the UN appeared. In the meantime, with the situation, we didn’t know what was going on. Now, I’m aware of what was going on because I know what happened. On day one, our family went to the US government, and the US government was taking care of it. The ambassador went eleven times to see us. They never allowed him to see us. The situation began to get so tense that the ambassador was recalled, so there was no US ambassador. We were left behind.
We found that day, ten months later, that there was a commission of the UN that flew to Venezuela from the arbitrary detention commission of the UN. They flew to Venezuela and met us. It was a Spanish guy and a French lady. When they saw us, they were in shock because we were in bad shape. We were dying. That guy got so scared of our situation, so they went to the government and began to pressure them. The guy told us that they told them that they had to give us food and medicine because we were going to die.
The problem that was going on in Dominion Venezuela because of the sanctions and the crumbling of the economy was because this was a communist regime. What do all these communist regimes do? The situation was really bad in general. There was no food and no medicine. This guy allowed our family to begin to supply our food. Our family was authorized. He was like, “If you want this guy to survive, you have to provide the food.”
The government wasn’t doing it. Why do you think you were treated like that? In the US, while your trial was going on, you called this a kangaroo court. They were pretty vocal about it. You said, “We were not political. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Why would they treat you like this? Normally, at least what we see here in the US, people who go to prison for financial crimes, it’s like a hotel. You were treated like a murderer.
Do you know why? It was because this guy wanted to put a lot of pressure on the US government. Remember, the US government, by that time, had imposed sanctions on the country and the government. They had done an oil embargo or a ban. Venezuela was having a hard time.
The oil is the primary export product of that.
They cut the oil export. This guy began to ask for us to lift the sanctions and lift the oil ban. Can you imagine that? These guys were asking a lot for us.
That was the price. While this is going out, while you’re in the submarine and in these horrible conditions, the UN commission comes. They won’t let the US ambassador in to see you in the eleven visits. The Venezuelan government’s starting to say, “Here’s the reality. Let’s talk about oil. Let’s talk about creating a negotiation.”
They were open. They were shameless.
They weren’t hiding it.
At the beginning, they tried to hide. In the first year, to tell you the truth, they were trying to create a narrative, but at some point, they decided to openly begin to ask for us. We became clearly political pawns and bargain chiefs. There was no doubt about it. These guys were shameless. They began to openly send messages to the government about what they wanted. We were getting that information because, the way it went, we had ten months without communication. After that visit of the UN, they allowed us to have the first call.
When I had the first call with my wife, she mentioned that they were having that direct conversation with the government and they were pushing hard. I know that they were really pushing hard because my wife came here to Washington for the nth time. She met with all the officials. Can you imagine? She met with the vice president two times, the National Security Commission commissioner several times, and the State Department. She and the other five families were involved in this process.
These guys, when that happened, began to ask openly. They began to relax a little bit about the situation and began to allow us to have books, food, and medicines. When I began to have the books, medicines, and food, the logistics for all of us were complicated because we were six guys who were living here in the US with all our families with no family in Venezuela. Can you imagine how you can handle that? My family decided for my eldest son to move to Colombia. He flew to Colombia and stayed in Bogota for four years, providing me with food. For four years, he sent me food every week.
How did he set that up? How did that work?
That was a logistic that I still don’t know how he did it. From Bogota, let’s say every Monday, he began to do the grocery shopping online. In the beginning, Venezuela didn’t have food, so he bought it in Bogota, put it in a box, and sent it to a courier. There was somebody in Venezuela who picked up the box. This guy was doing the logistics.
The wife of the guy cooked, and they sent me the containers of food every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. That’s three times a week. I have a small fridge where I can put it there to have food for two and a half days. The next round was for another two and a half days and a half. That’s the way I began to smuggle the letters because, in those containers, I found that you can put a double bottom. I asked the guy, the smuggler, to bring me a pen and pieces of paper.
I began to take white papers from the books and began to write there. I began to do it and my wife began to answer. We stayed doing that for three years. We could do that for three years. Miraculously, they never found the letters. I have the letters here in the US. Those letters became my memoir. That’s going to be my book.
You were smuggling the letters in between the buckets for the food?
Yes.
Your son was receiving them and mailing them.
No, because my son was in Bogota. The guy who supplied me with the food, when he received those empty cans, opened it, took the letter, took a photo, and sent it via WhatsApp to my wife here. My wife printed it, and then she put it in Word. When I came back, I already had all those letters in a Word document. Do you know how many letters we compiled? Around 1,000 letters.
That’s three year’s worth.
Three years of letters. We did a routine. When I came back, I told my wife that one of the things that I was going to miss was writing my letters to her. It was wonderful. I was so excited. I was excited to see the food, but I was most excited to open and find her letter.
Can you share what was in the letters? What were you writing and what was she writing?
For me, the letter is so important because it’s part of my story. It’s my legacy for my grandsons. When I began to write my letters, I really thought that I was going to die. My first letter, I wrote it December 30th, 2018, one year after I was there. I remember that day on December 31, 2018. They allowed us to have a special visit. They made a concession. I had an aunt that lived in Venezuela. I love her so much. She was like my mom. She visited me. When I knew that my Aunt Lillian was going to visit me, I said, “This is the moment to take that letter out.” That was my first letter, December 30.
My aunt died months after and I never knew. I knew that she had died when I came back. They always told me that she was alive. My first letter was smuggled by her. When I saw the letter go out, my first letter was talking about how hopeless I was, how I was having some suicidal thoughts, and how I was thinking that my life was miserable and that I didn’t deserve what was going on. I was at a very dark moment at the beginning.
As time passed, we began to have more connection with our family and began to have the visit of Ambassador Carstens from the Special Presidential Office of Hostage Affairs. My letters switched and began to be a boost of hope. It began to inspire my family. I was trying to put my soul and what I was feeling at that moment. That is the flow of my letters. That is the flow that I try to put my mood to because it’s based on that.
I want to ask about your family. Something that we talk about in the Military a lot, and you certainly can’t equate it to what you went through, is when we’re deployed or when we’re gone, we know what’s going on. Maybe you’re in a combat zone. You’re going out on missions at night or whatever it might be.
Often, it’s harder on the family because they don’t know what’s going on. We know what’s going on. You know what’s happening every day. You know, “This is a really awful situation, but I’m okay. I’m here. I’m going to find a way to get through it.” Your family has no idea what’s going on. Talk about the state of your family and how they were. How did they cope with it?
This is so incredible, your question, because that is exactly what I was talking about when I was in the SPEHA office. That is exactly the situation. You are there. Even during a dark moment, you know where you are. You know that’s your situation, and you begin to survive that situation. You get even used to it. You try to manage it. You create your routine. We were six guys. At some point, we were together, so we were cheering for each other.
Your family is in another situation. Your family is hostage even worse than you because they’re not a physical hostage. They’re a mental and spiritual hostage. They are putting their life on pause. They are suffering because they don’t believe what you are saying. My wife said to me, “I never believed what you were telling me.” It was true. I was hiding the situation. I never told her a lot of things we went through. She knew it when she began to see the letters that I was writing. The suffering of the families is indescribable. It’s a nightmare. The family has a nightmare. It’s the whole family because, in my case, my son put his life on pause. He has a marriage. He has his kids. He had to take care of me for four years.
When a loved one is detained, the entire family becomes a hostage. They are hostages mentally and in spirit. They are putting their life on pause.
What happened with your job? What was Citgo’s position on this? They had an entire executive team, including their president, detained.
The problem with Citgo is that Citgo belongs to the Venezuelan government. It is even worse because it’s a problem between the opposition and the Venezuelan government. There is a political thing inside that company that is not normal. They, in itself, were caught in that situation. The situation would have been different if it had been a pure American company like Exxon Mobil or Chevron. They were caught in the middle of the situation because the people who were there had to receive instructions. It wasn’t like a Catch-22 situation for us.
Did you lose your job? Were you continued to be paid?
I don’t want to talk much about that because there’s an unresolved situation there. All
I get it. I’m on your side, whatever that side is. You spend that first year in this deep captivity, and then after that, things get loosened up. There were a couple of other guests, though, during your time there. Specifically, we’ve all heard the story and seen it on the news about two Green Berets who were caught making some sort of an invasion or whatever we want to call it onto the shores of the beach in Venezuela. Talk about the experience with those guys because if you run into some people, that would make you laugh.
These guys were our neighbors. When this guy arrived and we knew about what these guys were doing, I said, “These guys are wonderful.” I got really connected with them. One of the families, the family of Luke, his mom, and dad, are wonderful people. I’m very connected with them. When I came back, one week after, I met with them. It was crazy. We were having a recording like this one week after with a producer who is trying to produce a series of this.
I met with the family. During the meeting, they received a phone call. He was like, “Look. They’re giving a call.” I could talk with him. One week after I came, I was talking with the guy, like, “You have to stay calm and have hope.” These guys are awesome. They were our neighbors. We were isolated. We were not with the other political prisoners. We were with the Venezuelan political prisoners but in a different place. We were in a cell, the six of us, and our neighbors. They allowed us to go with them to walk for air. We were cheering for each other.
When the negotiation was already in place and Ambassador Carstens had flown three times to Venezuela, it was more clear that something was going to happen at some moment. They began to relax more with the situation because our situation evolved the political situation. At that time, they were having a clear conversation and it began to evolve. These guys were great.
October 2022, you’re sleeping and a guard comes to your cell, wakes everyone up, and tells you to get dressed. Talk about the moment.
At 5:00 AM in the morning, we receive a notice to go to the door. They always called us the Citgo 6. They were like, “Citgo 6, come here.” We became the Citgo 6. Everybody called us the Citgo 6. We went to the door and they said, “Dress up. You have a meeting.” Ambassador Carstens was flying to Venezuela every three months. He went in December 2021, March 2022, and May 2022. It was October, so we thought that it was because he was coming.
When they said to dress up, we had to put on a yellow outfit. We called it the minion outfit. We told the guys, “Minion outfit.” We were going to put on our minion outfits to go to the meeting. The big boss came and said, “Take out that outfit. Put on your normal civil outfit. You’re free.” By free, for us, we were like, “What does that mean?” We already had two house arrests. It was back and forth. They gave us two house arrests. They took us out, and then they brought us back. We were going back and forth. It was a nightmare. We thought that was another house arrest.
When we went to the office, we saw a lot of nurses, doctors, and things. They were taking blood tests and things. I was like, “What’s going on?” They put us in an armored truck. When we saw that we were going out of the station, I saw a sign that said Maiquetia Airport. When I saw Maiquetia Airport, I was like, “Now, it’s happening.”
What was that feeling?
I was in shock, but I was more in shock when we arrived. When we arrived, we came to the PDVSA hangar. PDVSA was the company where I worked all my life. They put us on a plane. I flew in those planes all my life, so I knew those planes. When I was coming to the plane, the guy who had received us was one of the most terrible people in Venezuela. He is a guy called Angola. He is a very terrible guy. He was the guy that received us.
They put us in handcuffs. They tied our legs. They were going to put hoods on us. When the guy was going to put hoods on us, I said, “This guy is going to throw us in the middle of the sea.” We got scared. I told the guy, “Why do you want to put us in hoods? I cannot breathe.” He said, “Be calm. You’re going to be free in one hour.” I said, “One hour? Where are we heading?” It is five hours to Houston, so we began to think one hour could be Cuba. We thought that we were heading to Cuba. I said, “They’re going to drop us off to Cuba.”
Finally, we landed. It was on an island called St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It’s a very tiny island in the middle of nowhere at the top of the Dominican Republic. It’s a very tiny island. We landed there. 5 or 10 minutes later, the US plane landed. After the US plane landed, the vice president of Venezuela came. He came there on another plane. They told us to take off the handcuffs and the ties. He told us, “You have to walk to the plane.”
When we were walking to the other plane, we saw two guys walking towards us. I saw those guys. They were the two nephews of the president of Venezuela. They were in a jail here. That day, we learned that we had come through a prisoner swap. Ambassador Carstens was there. I asked him, “Are those the nephews of Maduro?” He said, “Yes.” I was like, “We were swapped with them.”
We came and stayed there, and then we flew back here under the protection of the US government. We landed in the Military base of San Antonio, Texas, and stayed there. There’s a program that they do for the Prisoner of War, which is called the PSAP program. We stayed for ten days there in the program. The rest is history.
Talk about the prisoner exchange for a second. It’s interesting when we look at these cases, what people are looking for or what the other side is looking for. For Michael Scott Moore, they wanted $25 million.
They always ask for a lot at the beginning. It’s like a ransom.
How do you feel about that? One of the things you said during the time was the suffering. You were like, “Our family was so bad. I didn’t care what the tool used to release us was.”
That is true. We are connected with all these foundations. We’re part of the families that founded the Bring Our Families Home campaign that is active. One of the statements of the campaign is, “Bring the Americans back no matter the tools that you need to use.” It’s a very difficult call because there are a lot of political implications behind it.
To bring somebody back, you had to give concessions. In our case, they had to do a presidential pardon to this guy who had a lot of drugs. They were bad guys. You have to swallow and take a hard call to bring people back. At some point, your family is so tired of the suffering. I remember my wife told me the days before that they had a meeting with the State Department Secretary, Blinken. My wife told him, “I don’t care what you have to do, but you have to bring my husband back,” because I had a heart attack a few months before.
You were in a coma for three days.
My situation was really severe. I don’t know how I’m here. After that, my situation began to evolve. I’m okay. I have been going to check my heart several times and nothing appears.
We don’t have an accurate number, but there are believed to be over 200 political prisoners in Venezuela. The US State Department puts the number globally at about 1 million across all countries. Some of the leaders, as you would imagine, like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
All the big guys.
The good guys out there. That’s a lot of people across the world. The State Department is two years into its program #WithoutJustCause Initiative. That is what they’re calling it. We’ve seen here in America, in addition to your cases, other high-profile Americans who’ve been held by Russia. There’s WNBA star Britney Griner, who was exchanged for a Russian arms dealer. Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, is still there, detained. Every 3 months, he’s extended again for another 3 months.
They came through a prisoner swap from Russia, Trevor.
They want really bad people back here. The US has a policy when it comes to terrorists, at least. We’re very clear. We will not negotiate with terrorists. This is so that they can’t use this against us later on. In your opinion, why is that so difficult to maintain a stance like that when it comes to political prisoners?
It is a very difficult call because sometimes, the approach that people take is that you don’t negotiate with terrorists. On the other side, you have regular people. The problem with this is what’s called hostage diplomacy. I’m very aware of this and vocal about it. That’s why I support foundations like Hostage US because they treat diplomat hostages.
The problem with hostage diplomacy is they are regular people. Maybe they’re high-profile people because of their work, but normally, they are not politicians. High-profile people get caught and they use it as a pawn to leverage. It’s something that is so mean. What they do is evil because they’re taking human life with no mercy. It’s a difficult call by the people. It has to be brought back. That’s the point.
Talking about the political prisoners of Venezuela, it is not 200. I believe that the amount is around 400. I had the fortune to meet almost all of them because, during my five years, I stayed in the two dungeons of Venezuela. For the first two and a half years, we stayed in the DSCIM. That is the Military political prisoner jail. Then, I was transferred after the first half of the arrest. We went to SEBIN. That is the civil political prisoners. I knew the Military and the civilians.
I stayed with generals, colonels, captains, and lieutenants. There were a lot of Military with me because they were prisoners because they were against the government. I stayed on the other side with journalists, human rights advocates, religious leaders, and high-profile people. I was not with regular prisoners. I was with high-profile people.
The US State Department estimates that Saudi Arabia has 3,000.
Iran has a lot too. Iran is the champion of all this stuff.
Let’s talk about coming home. It’s often harder once you’re home than it almost is to be gone. Some of the challenges that you don’t even think about, and we’ve talked about with Mike and Jess, are money, credit, banking, and loss of connection with family and friends. Talk about your reintegration process. You spend your ten days down in the center, but then you go home and you’re back at your house.
Let me tell you a reflection before beginning that. One of the books that I had the opportunity to read when they began to bring in a lot of books was Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. For me, that was like a guide. I remember him saying that when he went out, he found that almost all of his family had died. His wife, his dad, his mom, everybody was dead. His life was messed up. When I came back after those 1ten 0 days, the first thing that I learned was that my aunt, who was like my mom, died. My mother-in-law had died. I was very connected with her. I was always asking for them and my wife would say, “They’re fine. They’re saying hello to you.” They were already dead for two years.
They didn’t ever want to tell you.
They never wanted to tell me. I found that your credit was a disaster. I had some credit cards that my wife didn’t know because I handled them by myself. For five years, I haven’t paid. Can you imagine how that credit card was?
There’s no box to check when you call the company and say, “I was a political prisoner in Venezuela for five years.”
I can tell you that, for me, Hostage US has been a blessing because part of the thing they have helped me is that. They connect those dots and talk to the people like, “This guy was a political prisoner. Take care of him.” Some have responded, and some haven’t responded. It’s a real nightmare. The other thing is that you are coming from a time machine. When I came back, I came to a post-pandemic world. At the beginning, I didn’t recognize it. The people were so different.
They don’t want to look at anybody.
I remember it because I came out with no documents. When I landed at the Military base, I told the ambassador, “I’m going to do immigration.” He told me, “Don’t worry. You’re with the government. You’re okay.” After that, I had to get my driver’s license. They sent me a letter to go to take my driving lesson and explained the situation.
I came to the lady and the lady looked at me like I was a Martian. She was like, “Who is this guy?” She told me, “I had to call my supervisor.” I told the lady, “Read the letter.” Do you know what the lady said? She said I was harassing her. I said, “I didn’t say anything. Why are you talking to me that way? What’s happening to you guys?” This world has changed. For me, it impacted me at the beginning. You are in a cage for five years. You come out of that cage and you find a different world. Your life scrambled. You have your family and people that you have lost. It is really difficult to restart all that.
For me, beginning to write my book through my letters has been so healing because I have the opportunity to go back to those memories. I have a therapist that was appointed by Hostage US. She flew with me. We’re friends. For more than one year, I’ve been talking every Thursday with her. We became friends. That has been part of that process. It’s a difficult situation. I think that one of the next books is going to talk about the process you go through after you come back because telling you the truth is even worse than being there.
You brought up Hostage US. Hostage US doesn’t really get involved with the captive, but they get involved with the family during detention. It’s after detention where they truly do their best because that’s such a defined process. There are about 200 Americans who are in unlawful detention, whether it be kidnap, hostage, or political prisoners globally.
I’ve been involved with the organization for about 4 or 5 years. What we’ve seen is that a couple of years ago, it was heavily weighted towards kidnapping. We see a much heavier weight put on more like your situation, the political prisoner aspect. Almost 90/10 is what Dave was telling us. Talk about how instrumental they’ve been.
First of all, Hostage US, I always tell them that they are angels on earth. That’s the definition of these guys. These guys are so wonderful. They began to take care of me from day one. I landed in San Antonio, and the first thing that I received was a message from Hostage US telling me, “If you want to consider it, there is this person available for you.” They give you a focal point.
I began to work with that guy since day one. They have never abandoned me. These guys are angels on earth. When I’m away, I receive a message like, “How are you doing?” They’re always taking care of you. The work they do is wonderful work that they do behind the scenes. They’re working with you and your family because it’s not only you. It’s your family too. They’re taking care of your physical health, your mental health, and your financial situation. They give a lot of advice and a lot of support.
One of the things I’m going to say here openly was after I came through this Military program where I stayed for ten days. Since I had so many issues, there is a big trauma center in North Carolina called WakeMed Medical Center and I stayed there almost two weeks. They did a full screening of me. I had so much interaction with him.
I became friends with the director. He’s going to do the product of my book. We got connected because this guy does a very wonderful job. They have taken care of me since day one. Hostage US is something incredible, what they do. That’s why I got so connected with them. Every time they ask me to support them, I’m there in the front row with them.
The book is coming out soon. You mentioned that when you built the book, you thought, “How would I structure
it?” and you used your letters. Going back through the letters has really allowed you in many ways to relive it but process it. How was the process of writing the book through the letters? What did it do for your own ability to reconcile what happened to you?
It was tough at the beginning. My wife was my editor. We sit down at the computer because she has a transcript of the letters. When we began to go back to them, we were crying a lot. There were a lot of memories and a lot of moments. The brain is something crazy. Maybe you know about that. When you go through these very severe traumas, there is a way of protecting you. They try to block those memories.
Sometimes, the brain tries to protect you by blocking traumatic memories, making it difficult to remember.
For me, it was difficult because my memories were in my letters. When I read, “Today is April 19. It’s 10:00 AM. It’s happening,” I am going back. My therapist, with whom I became friends with has told me that that has been helping me a lot because I went back to my memory. I had the opportunity to take it back and throw it back. I throw those memories in the book. For me, it has been healing. I’ve been healing.
This is the last question, a test question. Habits are required for elite performers. Those who want to succeed in what they do, people have to develop habits. They have to be your foundation. Everybody has different ones. I talk about the Jedburghs, the three-man teams that parachuted behind enemy lines. They had to be able to shoot, move, and communicate.
If those were their core foundational tasks, the things that they did with precision without thinking about it every day, they could focus on other challenges that came their way. You had to focus on one of, if not the biggest, challenge that anybody could ever face. As you reflect and think about your life, what’s next, and what you’ve gone through, what are the three things that you do every day to set the conditions for success in your world? What are your habits?
When I was in my captivity, the first year, we were together as six. They put us together one year later. I remember that day that we saw the other five guys. We hugged and began to cry. We had a board meeting. Remember. We were executives. We have done strategic thinking, tactical, and strategies all our lives because oil and gas are that. We did a board meeting and created a plan to survive. We made a very structured plan to survive.
I decided to create a coaching program based on that. I have a coaching program called Life Pills for a Survival Guide that I created based on that plan because that plan allowed us to survive. You can replicate that in your life and your business. There are a lot of things like being focused, having a positive mindset, sticking to the loved ones, looking through your inner circle, going to your spirituality, and taking care of your mental and physical health. There are a lot of things that we did there that I apply in my life. This is something that I decided to continue doing.
With the spirituality part, I rediscovered God. I’m connected to my church. I do church service. My life changed. This is another Jose. Pereira. In my previous life, I was an oil and gas guy who never cared about what was going on in the world. I was very focused on my thing. I’m connected with the foundations and support other hostage families. I do church services. My life has changed. It’s a total shift in my life
What are the three? What three do you have that you do every day?
The first thing that I do in the morning is wake up and say thanks to God that I am living. I have two dogs. They sleep with us. I enjoy them. They are two pugs. They snore a lot. I take them for a walk, and walking them in the morning is so wonderful for me. I can see the small things in life. I don’t know how to say this because you have to go through this process to understand the importance of being alive, breathing, and having these dogs. All my kids are grown up, so everybody left the nest. We have the opportunity together with them. I have my grandsons. I enjoy them a lot. This is the type of thing that I really appreciate. I appreciate these things.
It takes going through a process to truly understand the importance of life’s small blessings.
We have the Hostage US annual reception. We’re going to get a chance to see many of the folks who are involved in the organization. It’s very interesting because one of the most valuable things I would argue that comes out of Hostage US is the community that’s built around a club you don’t want to be a part of. Unfortunately, it is something that’s out there in the world. There are great organizations like this that are advocating and supporting those who’ve been through these difficult situations.
To hear the stories does make you think about exactly what you said. We have to be thankful for being here because for reasons we may know or don’t know, one day, it may all change. We have to be thankful, be prepared, and also think about how we will react and respond. I always learn so much about perseverance, resiliency, and adaptability when I speak with you and people like Mike and Jess who’ve been through these situations. You have to ask yourself, like you did with Captain Phillips before you were there, “Could I do it?”
The most invigorating thing and the thing that motivates me the most when I hear all of you speak is you were
unprepared in a lot of ways to go through what you did, but great leaders find a way to win. They find a way to get through the most challenging situations, and you did. Thank you so much for taking the time on a busy couple of days to stop by here, sit down with me, tell your story, and share your lessons. As I said at the beginning, welcome home and thank you.
You said something there for me. I always say you became a part of a club you never wanted to be in. This is your family that you never asked for, but it’s part of your life. I’m so connected not only to Hostage USA but all the other foundations. I’m going to come to the James Foley Legacy Foundation, too. They do a wonderful job. I admire all these guys. These are the anonymous heroes who are angels on earth who support the people. They do their job because they believe in that. Thank you for having me.
Thank you.
