The sun beat down on Highway 90, turning the asphalt into a furnace that shimmered with heat. Dust from the Zagros Mountains clung to the air, gritty and unrelenting, a constant reminder of survival. Colonel Elizabeth Moore, recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star, moved through it with the measured, punishing rhythm of a veteran soldier: step, winch, breathe—step, winch, breathe. Every motion carried the weight of 1,042 days of isolation and torture in a metal shipping container, her body a map of scars and unhealed injuries. Her left ankle, shattered by a rifle butt years ago, dictated her uneven, agonizing pace.
Moore looked nothing like a celebrated officer. Her scavenged Operational Camouflage Patterns hung loosely, cinched by a cord ripped from a ditch. There was no insignia, no rank—just the tattered remnants of authority reduced to ragged survival wear. A passing civilian hurled an insult—“Get a job, junkie!”—and Moore did not flinch. Her eyes were locked on the gate ahead:
FORT RAMSAY – HOME OF THE 1ST ARMORED DIVISION. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Once a passage to deployment, now a fortress she had to penetrate. She studied the security measures—razor wire, upgraded fencing, thermal cameras. She knew Camera 4-B rebooted at 11:15 a.m., leaving a 45-second blind spot. At high noon, she waited. The LED blinked from green to amber, and she executed a perfect evasion: sliding into a drainage ditch, mud stinging fresh burns, and crawled beneath a worn gap in the fence. She was inside.
Continue reading on next page…