In this powerful interview, a Salvadoran immigrant shares his extraordinary journey—growing up amid a brutal civil war and rebuilding his life after arriving in the U.S. alone at age 18 in 1989. Taken by the government twice as a teenager, he describes living in a constant state of alert. Soldiers patrolled every corner. Guerrilla fighters disguised themselves as civilians. At one point, he was held hostage in his own home by armed rebels, who forced him to dig escape tunnels through the walls to neighboring houses.

Despite years of trauma that lingered in dreams and flashbacks, he held onto a future-oriented mindset. He began working at Gilead cleaning laboratory beakers and flasks. It was there that life began to shift: a scientist he befriended encouraged him to invest in company stock—eventually allowing him to buy a home.

His story is one of resilience, survival instinct, and quiet inner strength. Calm, grounded, and always willing to help others, rather than channeling his past into bitterness, he channeled it into caring—for himself and those around him.