Taken from Violence Always Goes Too Far by Susan Ives:
Remarks by Gulf War vet
Susan Ives
Vietnam Memorial
San Antonio, Texas
April 5, 2003
I've been reading a series of detective novels set in modern day Botswana. The owner of the Ladies Number One Detective Agency has become a hero of mine. In the first book she said, "I love all the people whom God made, but I especially know how to love the people who live in this place."
What a definition of patriotism! I love all the people God made but my own people — these Americans — are the ones I know how to love the best.
And the Americans I have learned to love best are soldiers, because I was one of them for so many years. Many of you know I was an Army officer, a Gulf War veteran. The units assigned to this second Gulf War are my people. The 101st Airborne Division is in Iraq. I was in the 101st the whole time I was a lieutenant, on the General Staff as a plans officer and in the Division Artillery.... Read More