This is a story of how a straight A young student could be turned into a thug as a result of protecting himself in the chaos of the war and seeing the atrocities at his school. It is a story of a family that recognized they needed to save their children and leave. He had to walk 5 miles everyday to his school as it was no longer in his neighborhood, and each direction he had to pass many check points, each of a different kind, Sunni, or Shia or American. One day he arrived and his teacher was found dead in front of the door to his classroom. Hamza never returned after that. He steadily withdrew from his family and took to the streets. Hamza remembers when he first stepped onto Jordanian land he realized that his parents really cared about him and his sister, and he thinks he immediately changed back to the optimistic smart kid he knew he was.