José Anto­nio Gutier­rez was one of the 300,000 sol­diers the U.S. mil­i­tary sent to war in Iraq in March 2003. A few hours after the war began, his pic­ture was broad­cast all over the world: he was the first Amer­i­can sol­dier to be killed in this war. He was a so-called green­card sol­dier – one of approx­i­mate­ly 32.000 non-U.S. cit­i­zens fight­ing in the ranks of the U.S. mil­i­tary. The film tells the moving and nearly unbe­liev­able story of a one-time street kid from Guatemala, who headed north along the Pan-Amer­i­can High­way – full of hopes and desires for a better future – ulti­mate­ly to die as Amer­i­can hero far from home. Search­ing for the images and sto­ries that made up this life, we set out to retrace José Antonio’s path – from Guatemala through Mexico to the United States. This story is told by the people who accom­pa­nied José Anto­nio on his path: his friends from the street, the social work­ers at the orphan­age, his sister, his foster family, his com­rades at the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendle­ton. But the nar­ra­tors of the film are also the people we encoun­tered as we were repeat­ing José Antonio’s odyssey from the world of the poor to the world of the rich. People who day after day join the end­less stream of emi­grants – with no iden­ti­ty, no papers – equipped with noth­ing but their abil­i­ty to work hard and their will­ing­ness to turn their backs on their home and family for­ev­er. José Antonio’s story is no adventurer’s tale. It is the story of an attempt to sur­vive – on both sides of the world.