By Linda Wang
On my flight from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco by way of Atlanta, I found myself sitting next to a young woman who I learned was serving in the military. Only 23 years old, she had served in the U.S. Army for the past five years and had been deployed to Iraq twice. She was on her way to visit her family in New Orleans. Their home was destroyed last year by Hurricane Katrina.
For the next hour and a half, we talked about her experiences in Iraq and her struggles to help her family rebuild their life in New Orleans. She described simple pleasures such as seeing jazz ensembles performing again in the French Quarter and eating beignets again at the famous Café du Monde. She had so much optimism that life was getting better for her and her family.