"A pervasive military presence has been a constant in Salvadoran society since the 1930s. The Salvadoran people cope with it. As journalists we had to find our own learning curve. Mine began in 1988". The 1980s' civil war in El Salvador was viewed by the US establishment as a critical challenge to its' hegemony in the region during the Cold War era. For the Salvadorans it was a resistant struggle for survival. The personally lived experiences of the author and the photo journalism delivers a riveting and extraordinarily authentic account. The narrative focusses on the November 1989 FMLN guerrilla offensive on the capital, San Salvador and traces the trajectory of the politics and social movements of El Salvador after the peace accords to the present day. The future holds less promise than the past. But the relevance of the historic energy of this fifty year old struggle is a strident lesson for understanding contemporary conflicts.