The Daily Signal - Held Hostage in Syria, He Says ‘Everything’ Was Taken From Him But His Faith

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

Syria was one of the last countries left on Sam Goodwin’s list. He was young and on a mission to join a small group of people alive today who have visited every country in the world.  By 2019, Goodwin had already traveled to 180 countries, including those with hostile regimes in Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela.  “I had always traveled, because it was fun and I enjoyed it, but most importantly, I learned from it,” Goodwin says. “Travel was always the best education I'd ever had.” With fewer than 20 U.N.-recognized sovereign states left to visit at the time, Goodwin—then 30—arrived in Syria on May 25, 2019. He had been in the country only for a couple hours when, while walking to meet his guide, “this black pickup truck abruptly pulled up next to me, two armed men jumped out of the back seat, and instructed me to get inside,” he said in an interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast.” Goodwin would spend the next 27 days in solitary confinement in a prison cell with no windows.  “Everything had been taken from me, my material possessions, my communication, my freedom,” he said. “But no matter what, I knew that my faith was absolute, and I would have been in a completely different situation without it. What I learned most significantly in that cell is that we're never less alone than when we're totally alone with God.”  After those first 27 days, Goodwin was transferred to a cell with other prisoners, where he spent an additional 35 days. While in prison and accused of espionage, Goodwin had no idea the efforts that his family was making to rescue him, and the unlikely friend God would use to help set him free.  In his new book, “Saving Sam: The True Story of an American’s Disappearance in Syria and His Family’s Extraordinary Fight to Bring Him Home,” Goodwin details his travels across the globe and how his faith gave him the strength to endure 63 days of captivity in the Middle East.  Enjoy the show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everything had been taken for me, my material possessions, my communication, my freedom. But no matter what, I knew that my faith was absolute. This is the Daily Signal Podcast for Thursday, September 19th. I'm Virginia Allen, and that was Sam Goodwin, the author of the new book Saving Sam, the true story of an American's disappearance in Syria and his family's extraordinary fight to bring him home. Sam had a very ambitious goal as a young man. He wanted to visit every single country in the world. He loved to travel and he said travel was always his best educator. But his trip to Syria did not go as planned. He was accused falsely of espionage and thrown in prison for 63 days. While in his new book, Saving Sam, he is telling all what his experience was like sitting alone in a prison cell in Syria. and also what his other travels held for him, from visiting North Korea to Iran. Make sure to pick up your copy of Saving Sam,

the true story of an American's disappearance in Syria, and his family's extraordinary fight to bring him home. It's out and available now. But stay tuned for my conversation with Sam Goodwin after this. Pro-life, pro-women conservative and feminist. We're problematic women. The radical left has no box. for strong independent women who believe in traditional values and love America.

So you might say we're problematic to the left narrative of what a woman should be. Here on Problematic Women, we sort through the news to find the stories you care about. Join Problematic Women on the Daily Signals YouTube and Rumble Live every Wednesday or listen on your favorite podcast app. Well, it is my joy to have with us on the show today, entrepreneur, author, and world traveler as well as a former hostage in Syria, Sam Goodwin. Sam, thanks so much for being with us today. Likewise. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Sam, you have a pretty crazy story that started out with a goal. You wanted to travel to every single country in the world. What gave you that goal?

Were your parents pretty big world travelers? Well, originally that was never the goal. So after college, I moved, I had the opportunity to move to Southeast Asia to Singapore. And from 20, roughly from 2010 to 2020 in those 10 years, this goal of traveling to every country in the world evolved. And I did do it. But the way that it started was I was based in Singapore. And any time I had away from work, holidays, weekends, I would just travel as much as I. I could. I was in the heart of Southeast Asia, had the world's best airport in my backyard, and I took advantage of the opportunity to explore as much of the region and beyond as possible.

And just a personal preference I didn't like to repeat places. So even if I went somewhere and had a great experience the next weekend or holiday, I would just go somewhere different. And in early 2018, I realized that I had traveled to about 120 countries in the world. And I remember at that point thinking, well, like how many are you? are there. I had always travel because it was fun and I enjoyed it. But most importantly, I learned from it. Travel was always the best education I'd ever had. It was never originally about ticking boxes or checking places off a list. But I got to that point, did a little bit of research and learn that there are a hundred and ninety three fully recognized UN sovereign

states. And from there, I thought, well, maybe I could go to all of them. And then the competitive athlete in me kicked in and likes to set goals. And, work toward achieving them. Wow. Pretty exciting. Okay. So you're you're in this process of ticking through all of these countries, crossing them off the list. And obviously some countries are maybe a little bit more appealing to go to than others. But if you're going to achieve this goal, it doesn't matter. You've got to go to all of them. And one of those nations happens to be Syria. Walk us through arriving in Syria, deciding, okay, first I'm going to go there. How did you prepare, what were the security measures you were taking, and what happened when you landed?

So one thing I'll mention is that throughout my travels, one of the most significant things that I learned is that places that are negatively perceived or that Western media tells us we're not supposed to like. These were the same places where I had many of my best experiences. I've camped at the base of Angel Falls in Venezuela. I've been to the Olympics in Sochi and Russia. I've coached. North Korea's national hockey team. That's a whole other story that I feel like we need to talk about in a second. I celebrated New Year's Eve on Kish Island in Iran. And what I learned was that these places were truly where I was having many of my best experiences.

At the same time, safety was always the top priority. I don't think it's cool to be an unsafe situation. I don't go looking for trouble. But despite everything and the instability that was happening in Syria, I was confident that the same was going to be the case. And it turned out... And this was 2019, right, when you were going to... This is May of 2019, exactly.

So it turned out that that wasn't the case. And on May 25th, I went to Syria. And just two hours after arriving, I was walking through a roundabout on the way to meet up with my guide. When all of the sudden, this black pickup truck abruptly pulled up next to. to me, two armed men jumped out of the backseat and instructed me to get inside. And thankfully, they weren't violent, but I didn't have a choice. But as we sped down back alleys of the city, the officers in the vehicle accused me of espionage, of being an American spy and collaborating with terrorists.

And at this point, I had been to 180 countries in the world and nothing like this had ever had ever happened to me before. Wow. What was running through your head in that moment? You're sitting in the back seat. You have two armed guards beside you. They're accusing you of espionage. What are you thinking? I was scared, confused. I had no information or anyone to help. I was desperately trying to understand what was happening. And I learned that these men were loyal to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. And they told me that they were skeptical about my travel history and my gravel motives, and that's where these accusations originated. So what happens when that car ride ends? Where are you taken?

I was taken to, I was handcuffed and blindfolded, and I was taken to a, what I learned to be an airport, and I stepped out of the vehicle. They took the blindfold off, and I looked up, and I was underneath this, this massive Syrian military airplane out on the tarmac of an airport and they handcuffed me behind my back, took me over to the ladder, and threw me into the cargo hold of the plane. And about 30 minutes later, the plane took off. And I sometimes mention, I sometimes ask people here, so how often have you been flying on an airplane, but not knowing where the plane was going? And that was the situation that I found myself in in this overwhelming cloud of uncertainty was growing all around me. And about 90 minutes later, we landed in

what I learned to be Damascus. Wow. I mean, I just can only imagine where your head is going. Am I going to live? Am I going to die? The plane lands. Where do you go from there? I was taken from the airport, driven into the center of town, and taken into the basement of a facility that I now know is called Syria's military intelligence prison number 215, a facility notoriously known for housing political prisoners. And I was escorted to a cell in the back of the basement. And the guard, he spoke a little bit of English. And when he put me into the cell, he went to the inside of the cell door. And he said, food, water, toilet, knock, otherwise quiet, no talking.

And he slammed the door and left. left. And I was stunned and in disbelief about what had happened in just a few short hours, my life had spiraled out of control in the most terrifying of ways. I felt, frankly, exactly the way they wanted me to, hopeless, utterly cut off from any control of my life. And thankfully, cell wasn't too small. I could walk around just a little bit, but it had no window. It was all concrete. I had nothing but a small blanket to lay on the concrete floor as a bed. And I remained here in solitary confinement for 27 days. Wow. The only human interaction I had was for a few seconds in the morning and evening when the guards brought bread and boiled potatoes and water.

Were you able to keep track of the days? Did you know how long you'd been in that cell? I started to keep track of the days in two ways. One, I had to request to go to the bathroom, so I would bang on the door. I was usually allowed to, and the quote-unquote bathroom was just this small hole in the floor, just a few steps outside the door. But from that hole, I could look up and see this small window to the outside. Jeez. And I would try to time my bathroom request with when I thought there was a change from day to night

to try and keep track. And then the other way was I started to identify a path when the basic food was being brought. I thought, I think I'm getting this and roughly the morning and this and roughly the afternoon. And I would essentially cross-reference that information with the bathroom visits. And then I shipped this rock off the cell wall and started carving a calendar into the cell wall and keeping track of days. And I realized really quickly that maintaining that connection to the outside and that awareness was huge for emotional and psychological health. Yeah. How were you keeping yourself sane?

What did the hours on end look like for you in that cell? I did a range of things to pass time and to stay somewhat sane. I would pretend the cell was full of people and tell stories. I would remember hockey games that I played in in my life, every detail that I could remember. I would, I had this routine, but I would exercise. I did push-ups, sit-ups, core exercises, and I spent a lot of time praying. My Catholic faith was incredibly important in that cell and leaned on a range of things for strength. Interestingly, though, there were three things that I found to be very helpful.

One was to, perhaps a bit paradoxically, was to lean into gratitude. Number two was to focus on controlling the things that I could control. And number three was to actually recognize the uncertainty of the situation as an opportunity for strength, as an opportunity for growth. And it took me time to get to these points. but I found strength in all of those. And that's actually what I speak a lot about today in the wake of this, trying to use this experience to help others. But that was where I found a lot of strength.

That said nothing was more important than my faith. So within all of that, that's where I found strength in solitary confinement. Did you feel like the Lord was speaking to you while you were in that cell? I did. Everything had been taken for me, my material possessions, my communication, my freedom. But no matter what I knew that my faith was absolute, and I would have been in a completely different situation without it. What I learned most significantly in that cell is that we're never less alone than when we're totally alone with God. Wow. That's profound. You're obviously

telling all of the details of your story in your brand new book, saving Sam, the true story, an American's disappearance in Syria and his family's extraordinary fight to bring him home. So right now your total time was 63 days, correct, that you spent as a hostage. It was 27 days, you said specifically in that cell. What happened at that 27 day mark? Were you taken out and given an opportunity to talk to authorities, to defend yourself? What changed? I was, on day 27, I was taken out of solitary confinement.

I'm driven across town to the outskirts of the city. I was taken to a facility called Audra, which is like a general population prison. I was put in a cell with about 40 other men, and I remained here for the next 35 days, for another month, what turned out to be the rest of my time. And interestingly, the inmates at Audra became, they were all Syrians. they became friends. We cooked and shared food together. They taught me Arabic. I taught them English. There was a prison basketball court, and I taught several of them how to play knockout. One of them even smuggled a note out of the prison on my behalf, as note that successfully, and I talk about this in the book,

successfully navigated this game of geopolitical telephone and made it to my father in St. Louis, serving as the first time that I managed to communicate that I was alive. And these men truly risked their life to help save mine. And I'll never forget about two weeks into that second month. I made a comment to one of the other inmates that, you know, everybody here's so nice to me. It was kind of hard to know what to expect in a situation like this. And he said, Sam, in Syria, all the good people are here in prison because all the bad people are outside putting us in here. And it was a very sobering comment to hear and one that speaks to the heartbreaking political situation in the country right now.

Have you been able to keep in touch with any of those men? Over the past few years, several of them have also been released. and I'm now in touch with them today. And they're in a range of situations. Some of them are still in Syria. Some of them have fled to Lebanon or Turkey or into Europe. But they're truly really remarkable people. And I know it's kind of cliche to say that, but truly some of the best people I've ever met.

And one of the challenges that I have with my story is just the way that I think it's a bit of a challenge, the way that I portray the country of Syria. Because on one hand, some of the best hospitality that I agree. experienced anywhere in the world was across the Middle East, just remarkable people, food, history, culture. So I'm confident that if I wouldn't have had this experience, I would have had a fantastic time there as I did in every other country in the Middle East. And what I learned through my travels is that the overwhelming majority of people in the world are well-intentioned, proud of their country, happy to help others. And it's oftentimes just a small subset of people, oftentimes people in charge who caused the challenges and were all fundamentally the same. And that was

the case even in the situation. It's pretty amazing to walk away with that. As you talk about in the book, Saving Sam, you're sitting in prison and on the outside, there's all of these things happening that you're just not aware of. Once your family comes to this realization of it's not just that you have bad cell phone service and can't return their calls. No, no, no, you're, you've literally been taken. Explain once you cut out. What did you discover your, that your family was doing while you were sitting in that prison cell? Much of what I've described so far in this interview has been the story of one man in a cell. But in truth, in my mind, there was something much bigger happening in, in my view. It was God's story. I was, I was a solid. I was a solid.

hostage, but only until God accomplished what he intended to through my captivity. This is how I view it. And when I was released, just a few minutes after that happened, I was talking with my parents and I was thinking about everything that had happened to me. And I said, kind of naively turned out to be, I said, I have a story for you. And the two of them looked at each other. And then my mom looked back at me and said, well, Sam, we have a story for you too.

Wow. And when I was trapped on the inside, I didn't know about anything that had happened on the outside. And the kind of Reader's Digest version or the Spark Notes version is that the news of my disappearance was essentially learned through me going dark. I was always very good about keeping in touch, especially if I was in more of an unstable place. And I had told people that I was going to be in Syria for just a few days. And when that time passed and they weren't hearing from me, well, they began to worry. And my father works in civil engineering. My mother is a registered nurse, turned educator.

Both of them are smart people and have had relative success in their respective fields, but they're an average family from Middle America. They had no idea what to do when their son went missing in the Middle East. But thankfully, they began to act and they reached the FBI field office in St. Louis, which pretty quickly escalated some of the highest levels of the U.S. government in D.C. But throughout my captivity, my family had kind of a roller coaster experience with the U.S. government. But early on, the government communicated two key things to my family. The first, they said, we strongly recommend that you keep this out of the news. Keep all of the communication very tight. Don't let the press get a hold of this. Because if they do, and Sam's captors, depending on who they are, which was still unknown at the time, feel that type of pressure, they might just kill him. And the second thing they said was you should really manage your expectations.

We have no diplomatic or economic ties with Syria. There may not be a whole lot we can do here to help. So about three weeks later, my younger sister Stephanie, who was 25 years old at the time living in Nashville, she particularly became entirely overwhelmed with everything that was happening. And she decided that she needed to call someone and talk to them about this and just blow off some steam, which was against the recommendation of the U.S. government of keeping all the communication very tight. So she decides that she's going to call her former college roommate who was coincidentally also named Stephanie. So there's this phone call between the Stephanie's. And as the story goes, it's, hey, how are you doing? And my stuff says, well, honestly, things aren't very good.

My brother's been missing for weeks. Nobody's heard from him. We're working with all of these agencies and officials. Nobody's been able to help. We're really scared. And roommate Steph is, of course, shocked to hear something like this. But she says all the right things, offers her full support. And at the end of the call, as the story goes, roommate Steph says, hey, if there's anything I can do, just let me know.

And my Steph responded almost jokingly or sarcastically. She said, honestly, unless you know someone who knows Assad, the Syrian president, please just pray. And roommate Steph says, she says, wait, let me call you back. Wow. And it turns out that roommate Steph is Lebanese. And her uncle is good friends with a man named General Abbas Ibrahim who heads Lebanon's intelligence, heads Lebanon's internal security. and General Ibrahim was then able to go to his counterpart in Damascus and mediate my release. And this was a situation where the FBI, the CIA, President Trump, the Pentagon, Pope Francis was involved, Russian intelligence, Middle East NGOs, private sector security companies, they were all sort of struggling to figure out exactly what to do, to be effective.

but my sister's college rumor could identify this path to get an American hostage released from captivity in the Middle East. And if you'd like to know more about the details of how that's possible, it's written in the book. Yes. To me, it's really only one explanation that makes any sense. I mean, I view the world through a spiritual lens, and I believe that that's how this happened. Yeah, I mean, hard to deny. That is so bizarre that your sister's college roommate would ultimately be used by God to bring about your release. Exactly. Yeah. The book is out now released on September 10th. You can get your copy wherever books are sold, saving Sam. But, you know, Sam, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the fact that there are still hostages sitting in Gaza.

When you think about your time, specifically those first 27 days of just being totally isolated and not knowing really even what day it was for sure, what is that kind of mental strain? And as you've made very clear, you're a person of faith. How can we be praying for those that are still hostage in Gaza? My heart breaks for the hostages in Gaza and all over the. the world. There are other Americans who are being wrongfully detained or have been taken hostage. And I don't, I don't feel so much survivor's guilt as I feel what I would characterize as survivor's responsibility. And I feel like I was given this for a reason. And I try to do what I

can to help, to help others today. And I became part of this, this, this, group of people that I frankly didn't even know existed, this group of people and families who worked together on these issues. One of a friend of mine who was a former hostage as well, he recently said to me that we're part of the most elite club that nobody wants to be a part of. I don't even know it existed, but it's this remarkable community of people. They're caring, they're dynamic, they're innovative, they're creative. And we try to come together and support each other as best we can. And what I think is important to remember is that for every one of the hostages, a wrongful detainees today, there's also a family that's going through the hardest

thing that they've ever gone through in their life. And it's important to support them as best we can and share best practices. So that's where some of my time is today is sharing that. And hopefully people can find strength and work through these situations. But, um, A lot of prayers are needed and a lot of action is needed to. It's been five years since you had that experience of being detained. Why did you decide to put pen to paper, put all this down, document it, and release your book, saving Sam? Yeah. I think on one hand, it's an unforgettable story that I think people will enjoy reading.

It includes a travel journey to every country in the world, heads of state, high stakes, diplomacy, celebrities, and so on. But on the other hand, and I think more importantly, it's also about what we all learn through this experience that we believe can help others today. It's about how we can all turn our own challenges and adversities into assets and opportunities. And I don't want to be known for the things that happen to me. I want to be known for the way have responded to them. And I hope that the readers of this book can adopt a similar mindset and implement it into their own personal and professional and spiritual lives. Yeah, powerful. So you did complete that list. Does there any apprehension about traveling again

after what happened in Syria? I came home and after several months of reflection and putting things into context, I became very committed to not letting what happened conquer me. And one of the most significant things I did to address that was to continue pursuing what I had been pursuing beforehand. And on December 31st, 2019, I made one final trip, and that trip was to a nation, actually, the nation, that's home to more Catholics than any other. in the world. It was Brazil. Wow. And that was my last country. And with that, I had traveled every country in the world adjoining a group of, at the time, only about 100 people in history who had ever done that. Wow. Well, congratulations on finishing that list. Great journey. And congratulations on

the book. It's saving Sam, the true story of an American's disappearance in Syria and his family's extraordinary fight to bring him home. Sam, thank you. for sharing your story and for not only sharing it, but also for just the beautiful lessons that you are now encouraging so many with. I truly appreciate your time. In addition to the book, in any final thoughts, any ways that we can keep up with your work,

what you're doing now? Thanks. I would just say if anyone wants to reach out, please do that anytime you can find me on all the normal social media channels. I'd love to hear from you, but just really appreciate this opportunity to talk a little bit about what I think this means and how I think it can be helpful. Yeah, powerful.

Sam Goodwin, author of Saving Sam. Sam, thank you. My pleasure. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. If you haven't had the chance, make sure that you take a minute to leave us a five-star rating and review. We love hearing your feedback. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button.

So you never miss out on new shows from the Daily Signal. Podcast. We'll see you right back here around 5 p.m. for top news. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Tyler O'Neill, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, John Pop, and Joseph von Spakovsky. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal.com.