Three decades after the Vietnam War, there is still no peace for the ethnic Hmong people that collaborated with the CIA in neighboring Laos. Over 18,000 Hmong men and boys were formed into Special Guerilla Unites by CIA trainers to secretly battle communist troops and rescue American pilots shot down during bombing runs over the Ho Chi Minh trail.

When the U.S. was defeated and communists took power in Laos, the CIA sent a plane to airlift the most important Hmong officers and their families out. Of the tens of thousands left behind, some managed to escape to refugee camps in Thailand, while others flied into the jungle. The Lao People's Army continues to hunt them to this day. The aging Hmong veterans and their families live in ragged desperate groups, eating roots to survive, and constantly on the run from army attacks.