Henda was the fourth of five sisters born in a small Burmese township of 1,000 people. It was a normal Burmese town filled with drug trafficking, tribal banter, and a deep-seated hatred typical of the region...

Here was an average day, according to Sanan: "As a soldier, I had 24-hour sentry watches and was forced to keep alert. It was extremely rare if I didn’t have early morning training and long runs as well. The days were abusively hot, and I often scoured the hillsides many miles for firewood, split the wood, and worked the farms. The nights in the mountain winds were freezing. It was then that the reality of my life often hit me and I would lie awake and cry with no blanket and little hope. Many nights, the only thing that kept me going was the thought of my father getting free and coming to rescue me."