Critical Praise

“Hanna’s memoir testifies to the courage of committed citizens and their power to demand change.”

——Yellow Springs News, Oct. 2, 2003

"Peggy Hanna leads us into an antiwar movement beyond the one the media followed. Here in Springfield, Ohio, as elsewhere in small city America, patriotic moms and dads felt betrayed by the war and tried to stop it. A highlight of Hanna's story is her experience with a friend at the 1971 Paris Peace Talks and their reception at home afterward. This book is candidly, engagingly written --- a good read. It is also a passionate plea for understanding, then and now."

——Dr. Charles Chatfield, professor emeritus, Wittenberg University, author of The American Peace Movement and co-author of An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era.

"Patriotism, Peace And Vietnam is a memoir of a Catholic, Vietnam war hawk who came to admire the peacemakers in an era when so much of America, including her own church, refused to listen to the peace movement. Dedicated both to those who served their country in Vietnam and those who worked to bring peace, Patriotism, Peace And Vietnam is unflinchingly honest in its assessment of the limitations of human behaviors and the tendency to blind oneself to things one doesn't agree with. Frustration, perseverance, and candid discourse concerning war, fear, and injustice on both a local and national scale distinguish Patriotism, Peace And Vietnam. Highly recommended."

——Small Press Bookwatch, Reviewer’s Choice, June 2004

"Here is the beautifully rendered story of a woman who changed --- big time. Peggy Hanna changed emotionally, politically, in every way. It is the riveting personal account of a Catholic Vietnam hawk who came to admire the peacemakers at a time when the vast majority of Americans, including the faithful of her own church, had little patience for the peace movement. Against the urgent cries of "The Russians are coming," and the rising voice of an angry nation…Peggy Hanna saw the light. She also saw the body bags arriving home and the longhairs in the streets, the protesters who touched her heart with their courage and who remain the ones she strives, even today, to emulate in her own life. Peggy Hanna probably didn’t plan it this way, but the timing of this brutally honest memoir is better than even she could have imagined."

——Phil Donahue, Former talk show host