NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Vanessa Flores of Montgomery Central High doesn't think of herself as a writer. However, her essay just won a big contest.
"I'm super proud of her!" said mom Kimberly Ortiz. "I've never read anything she's written, so this is a little surprising to me."
Flores did tell me something about what she was about to read to a crowd. She's never written anything so personal.
"I don't think so," she nodded.
Let me tell you a little about Flores and her mom. Ortiz served in the Army for 20 years, most of that time spent with Fort Campbell.
"I was in electronic equipment maintenance repair," Ortiz said. "I've been to Iraq and Afghanistan and that last deployment, I was in Germany and Poland."
Flores will tell you, having her mom gone for those long deployments was hard.
"She's been in the military my whole life, so I've always seen it in a certain way other people don't," Flores said.
The Kiwanis Club of Clarksville runs this Interview A Veteran Essay Contest. There were 7,089 essays submitted across Clarksville Montgomery County Schools. Flores is the high school grand winner.
Here's the truth. You don't have to feel like you're a born writer just as long as you can speak straight from the heart.
Flores walked up in front of a crowd of people at the Kiwanis Club and began to read.
"Growing up, American freedom has always felt natural, like breathing. To a civilian child, freedom is a birth right, a blanket of security. It always exists. For a long time, I viewed my mother's job in the United States Army through the same distant lens. It was merely her job. Back then, I only saw this as a personal loss. Now I realize her absence as protection, a sacrifice that my brother and I would grow up safe and free. For me, freedom has a face, and it belongs to my mother. Because of her, I know freedom isn't an inheritance to be taken for granted. Thank you, mom, for everything you have sacrificed for me and the country. I love you."
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
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